Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Tuesday's Overlooked A/V: films, television, radio, museum exhibits and more: more links to reviews, interviews et al.

The weekly roundup of reviews, interviews, and other citations of (often, though not always) underappreciated examples of the dramatic and related arts; for the first time, not one but two citations of an auction, as well (and two defenses of Hallmark Channel programming; I don't disagree). As always, please let me know if I've missed your or anyone else's contribution this week in comments... thanks. 

 Anne Billson: Godzilla (1998 film); Movietalk: "Blockbusters"
In a World...

 Anonymous: Carnal Knowledge; In a World...; 4 films that all happen in a single location each (two Hitchcocks, neither Rope); Kid Brother (Harold Lloyd)

 Benjamin Poole: Daemos Rising

 Bhob Stewart: "The Monkey Business Illusion"; "Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg"; The Firesign Theater and I Think We're All Bozos on this Bus;  Stan Freberg on The Dick Cavett Show; Six Feet Under finale; Moebius painting

 The Big Broadcast, 26 June 2016:
  • 7 p.m. Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
    “The Callicles Matter” Parts 3 and 4 (CBS, Original airdates May 2 and May 3, 1956)
  • 7:30 p.m. Burns And Allen
    “George Wants To Kick Meredith Willson Out” (NBC, Original airdate January 24, 1946) 
  • 8 p.m. Gunsmoke
    “Bull” (CBS, Original airdate November 3, 1957)
  • 8:30 p.m. The Stan Freberg Show
    “The Musical Sheep” (CBS, Original airdate July 14, 1957)
  • 9 p.m. The Adventures of Philip Marlowe
    “The Red Wind” (NBC, Original airdate June 17, 1947)
  • 9:30 p.m. Suspense
    "A Friend To Alexander" (CBS, Original airdate June 15, 1944) 
  • 10 p.m. Lux Radio Theater
    “Captain Blood” (CBS, Original airdate February 22, 1937)





















Los tallos amargos










Sisters; apparently, the steambath opening for
every early episode was a clammy drag to film.






Steve Lewis: Stop Me Before I Kill!

 Television Obscurities: US Fall TV schedule, 2000

 Theresa Brown: Devil's Doorway

 Victoria Loomes: The Charge of the Light Brigade

 Vienna: Sudden Fear; the ruby slippers of The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Bill's citation of Casino Royale got me thinking about the hodgepodge parody film of the mid 1960s, which has aspects that I enjoy, even if Tracy Reed is shockingly underused in the cuts I've seen (Joanna Pettit does what she can to make up for that, among the other cast). Which sent me down a web hole for (the British) Tracy Reed...best remembered, obviously, for Dr. Strangelove, where she was the only woman in the film, and as she noted in this brief interview, played all her role in a bikini (aside from a still of her as a Playboy centerfold draped with a copy of Foreign Affairs magazine, as multilevel if still blatant visual pun as one could want...hmmm. wonder if that's part of Terry Southern's contribution, or if Kubrick came up with that himself...).























'Dr. Strangelove' and the Single Woman

July 10, 1994|ANNE BERGMAN (Los Angeles Times)

When asked if she has fond memories of working on Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," Tracy Reed emphatically responds, "Oh yes, lots!"

But Reed, who played "Miss Foreign Affairs," Gen. Buck Turgidson's comely secretary, concedes, in a phone call from London, that there were times on the set that were "very alarming."

"I was the only woman in it and I was wearing a bikini the whole time," Reed remembers, and when Kubrick decided to open the set to the press, "there were all these reporters staring at me. It was dreadful."

Reed landed the part after she met Kubrick with some friends at dinner. "We chatted," she says, "and he asked me to do it."

Despite overexposing her to the media, Reed says Kubrick was "wonderful." George C. Scott, who played Gen. Turgidson, was "a darling, absolutely sweet," and the film's star, Peter Sellers, was "a sad man who never quite knew who he really was."
Although just 22 when "Dr. Strangelove" was produced, Reed disputes original press material claiming the film is "introducing Tracy Reed as 'Miss Foreign Affairs.' "
"That's ridiculous," she says. "I've been in the movies all of my life!"
The stepdaughter of British director Sir Carol Reed and the daughter of actress Penelope Dudley Ward, Reed actually made her film debut at the age of 6 months, co-starring with her mother and Laurence Olivier in "The Demi-Paradise."
And after "Dr. Strangelove," Reed continued to appear in British comedies--"there were so many I can't remember"--working again with Sellers in "A Shot in the Dark," until she began turning down parts to raise a family.
Now 52, Reed has three daughters, ages 34, 21 and 20. She works as a broker for a British gourmet foods company, for whom she "travels the whole of Ireland," trying to encourage grocery stores to carry the company's products.
Reed got the job, she explains, by "pure chance," after deciding she wanted to remain in West Cork, Ireland, where she had recently bought a house. "I just rang them and asked if they needed someone to help them export to Ireland," she says. "They agreed and I had a job."
She says she's sometimes recognized as "Miss Foreign Affairs" when "Dr. Strangelove" has "just been on television," and is delighted to hear that the film is being re-released in the United States, where she hopes a lot of people see it.
But more important, she says with a laugh, "I hope we all get paid again."



















From the 1962-63 ITV television series Man of the World, Reed with Craig Stevens. from Wikipedia 

at

10 comments:

  1. Elgin BleeckerJune 28, 2016 at 10:43 PM

    Todd – My post on “In the Heat of the Night” is up and ready to go. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Todd MasonJune 28, 2016 at 11:13 PM

    Thanks, Elgin. There are a couple, at least, that I needed to check back on...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Elgin BleeckerJune 28, 2016 at 11:29 PM

    Thank you, Todd. And thanks for doing the list. As usual, there are a handful of films that are new to me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jack SeabrookJune 29, 2016 at 12:03 PM

    Thanks, Todd! I'm nearly done with Robert C. Dennis and will be moving on to Bryce Walton next.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Todd MasonJune 29, 2016 at 1:47 PM

    Thank you, Jack...my (increasingly slow) memory now registers the Bryce Walton byline popping up on AHP: episodes I've seen...shall have to Go Look to see what else he's written for the screen, after/along with his solid but unstartling career in prose...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sergio (Tipping My Fedora)June 30, 2016 at 4:13 AM

    Thanks for including me Todd - I'd forgotten about that audio review completely!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Gary DeaneJune 30, 2016 at 11:46 AM

    Todd,

    Appears that my entry is linked to another site. Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Gary DeaneJune 30, 2016 at 6:18 PM

    For next week...

    http://noirworthwatching.blogspot.ca/2016/06/nightmare-in-chicago-1964.html

    ReplyDelete
  9. Todd MasonJune 30, 2016 at 9:29 PM

    Gary, sorry, and thanks. It is Way too easy to not see the link carried over from the previous placement...that's fixed, and I've added your NIGHTMARE review to this week as well as adding both for next week. If KRAFT SUSPENSE THEATER did a better episode than their shorter version of NIGHTMARE, I've yet to see it. But, then again, between William McGivern and Robert Altman behind the cameras, they'd have to strive to go wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Gary DeaneJune 30, 2016 at 10:36 PM

    All good. Thank you!

    Glad to hear you've seen the original Kraft Theater production. It does make for an interesting compare/ contrast.

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete

A persistent spammer has led to comment moderation, alas. Some people are stubborn. I'm one.