{"id":869,"date":"2004-10-21T09:49:58","date_gmt":"2004-10-21T16:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2004\/10\/not_before_the_election_please\/"},"modified":"2004-10-21T09:49:58","modified_gmt":"2004-10-21T16:49:58","slug":"not_before_the_election_please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2004\/10\/not_before_the_election_please.html","title":{"rendered":"NOT BEFORE THE ELECTION, PLEASE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><P>The Bless\u00e8d Reverend Repulski was thunderstruck by the Hollywood movie musical <A\nclass=inline\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/6302962056\/ref=ase_blogcriticsco-20\/002-097\n2584-9458462\" target='new\"'><B><FONT color=#003399>&#8220;Kismet&#8221;<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> on The<br \/>\nMovie Channel yesterday. &#8220;I actually saw this thing at the Loew&#8217;s Valencia, in 1955,&#8221; he recalls.<br \/>\n&#8220;But I had no idea of the larger meaning then. It&#8217;s beyond gruesome. It&#8217;s something Salvador Dali<br \/>\ncouldn&#8217;t do on a bad day.&#8221;<\/P><br \/>\n<P>What is the larger meaning? &#8220;The most sinister and devastating Al Qaeda plot would be to<br \/>\ndistribute 100,000 DVD players and DVDs of that flick&nbsp;on the Arab street,&#8221; Repulski says.<br \/>\n&#8220;There wouldn&#8217;t be a live Americano left from Bombay to San Francisco.&#8221;<\/P><br \/>\n<P>Shot in CinemaScope and Eastmancolor, &#8220;Kismet&#8221; centers on a poor Baghdad poet who<br \/>\nattains the rank of Emir in a single day and marries off his daughter to the Caliph.<br \/>\n(As&nbsp;Robert Horton points out,&nbsp;&#8220;One comic number revolves around a man about to<br \/>\nhave his hand chopped off for thievery.&#8221;) The movie was adapted from the <A class=inline\nhref=\"http:\/\/shopping.yahoo.com\/p:Kismet%20%5BOriginal%20Broadway%20Cast%20Recordi\nng%5D:1921064891:upc=074643260527:page=tracks;_ylt=Aqh.422SKXaAmuwGFfmCh84JGb\ngF;_ylu=X3oDMTBsbjZyb2dqBF9zAzk1OTUxMTEzBHNlYwNiZ3NpYg\"\ntarget='new\"'><B><FONT color=#003399>1953 Broadway musical<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> of the<br \/>\nsame name, a show that even Amazon considers <A class=inline\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/B000002520\/002-0972584-9458462?v=gl\nance\" target='new\"'><B><FONT color=#003399>&#8220;Broadway at its most<br \/>\ndemented.&#8221;<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>&nbsp; <\/P><br \/>\n<P>Directed by Vincent Minelli,&nbsp;the movie&nbsp;starred chesty&nbsp;Howard<br \/>\nKeel,&nbsp;belting Dolores Gray&nbsp;(&#8220;Baghdad, this irresistible town!&#8221;),&nbsp;wet<br \/>\nrag&nbsp;Vic Damone, Ann Blyth, Monty Woolley and a cast of road-company extras. From the<br \/>\nbeginning&nbsp;film critics regarded&nbsp;this musical Arabian night&nbsp;as a Minelli failure.<br \/>\nA half-century on&nbsp;it may be&nbsp;the kitschiest movie musical ever made.&nbsp;<\/P><br \/>\n<P>The song list alone is staggering. It includes&nbsp;&#8220;Sands Of Time,&#8221; &#8220;Not Since Ninevah,&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;Was I Wuzir,&#8221; &#8220;Bazaar of the Caravans,&#8221; &#8220;Rahadlakum,&#8221; &#8220;The Olive Tree,&#8221; and two pop hits of<br \/>\nthe period, &#8220;Stranger in Paradise&#8221; and &#8220;Baubles, Bangles and Beads.&#8221;<\/P><br \/>\n<P>&#8220;If that&#8217;s not enough to incite the Arab street,&#8221; Repulski says, &#8220;Doug Fairbanks and Sabu in<br \/>\ntheir Mideast flicker fantasies, distributed in equal quantities, would do the trick.&#8221;<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Bless\u00e8d Reverend Repulski was thunderstruck by the Hollywood movie musical &#8220;Kismet&#8221; on The Movie Channel yesterday. &#8220;I actually saw this thing at the Loew&#8217;s Valencia, in 1955,&#8221; he recalls. &#8220;But I had no idea of the larger meaning then. It&#8217;s beyond gruesome. It&#8217;s something Salvador Dali couldn&#8217;t do on a bad day.&#8221; What is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-e1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}