The last couple of weeks have passed in a kind of nightmare while attempting to meet a constantly changing book deadline, so have had the time to do much in the way of Dickens-Caroling...
However, I did manage to shoe-horn in a viewing of Alastair Sim's Scrooge (1951), still many people's out-and-out favorite version, and it's really not difficult to see why: the usually affable Sim gives a consummate performance as the curmudgeonly humbug and is then deliriously infectious in the scenes of reformation and transformation. His chuckles and whoops of joy are a delight all the more sweet for following on from his earlier barking and growling.
And, yesterday, The Muppet Christmas Carol: cinematic joy of joys! Nothing truly needs to be said about this film, other than if you've never seen it, then –– "See it!"And if you have seen it, then –– "See it again!"
As every American knows, today is Presidents Day or, according to choice, President's Day or Presidents' Day.
It was certainly singular when it was initiated in 1879 to mark the Birthday of the States' first President, George Washington...
The holiday was originally observed on Washington's date of birth, 22 February...
...but then, in 1971, the 'Uniform Monday Holiday Act' shifted the event to the third Monday in February, thereby ensuring that it would never fall on the great man's actual birthday!
By the '80s, the phrase 'Presidents Day' had begun to take hold, inspired by a failed attempt in 1951 to so rename the holiday as a way of commemorating both Washington and the country's 16th President better known today as Daniel Day Lewis....
Thus President's Day became popularly (but never officially) known as Presidents' Day and now is seen as a way of celebrating the office of President rather than either Washington, Lincoln or both!
So, in that spirit, here are the forty-four Presidents of the United States of America (including all those ones you've never heard of) from 1789 to the present day...
Back to Georgie boy and what is, of course, the most famous story about his pre-Presidential years: the saga of the Cherry Tree, as recounted by Mason Locke Weems (known as 'Parson Weems') in his 1800 biography, A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington...
When George was about six years old, he was made the
wealthy master of a hatchet! of which, like most little boys, he was
immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping everything
that came in his way.
One day, in the garden, where he often amused
himself hacking his mother's pea-sticks, he unluckily tried the edge of
his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree, which
he barked so terribly, that I don't believe the tree ever got the better
of it.
The next morning the old gentleman, finding out what had
befallen his tree, which, by the by, was a great favourite, came into
the house; and with much warmth asked for the mischievous author,
declaring at the same time, that he would not have taken five guineas
for his tree.
Nobody could tell him anything about it. Presently George
and his hatchet made their appearance. "George," said his father, "do
you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the
garden?
This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a
moment; but quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with
the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of
all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, "I can't tell a lie, Pa; you
know I can't tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet."
"Run to my
arms, you dearest boy," cried his father in transports, "run to my arms;
glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it
a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son is more worth than a
thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest
gold."
Historians today have little truck with this anecdote, dismissing it as nothing more than a romantic and sentimental fable...
Of course, the Muppets know better!!
Caricature of George Washington by Rodney Pike
'Parson Weems' Fable' by Grant Wood, 1939
On 6 March 1943, The Saturday Evening Post published a painting by the great American pop artist, Norman Rockwell.
The first of four 'Freedom' pictures by Rockwell, it was entitled 'Freedom from Want' and became the archetypal image representing Thanksgiving...
This is not the first time this iconic image has appeared on this blog
and I am reproducing it again today to bring Thanksgiving Greetings to
all my friends on the other side of the Atlantic.
It was later used as a US propaganda poster with the slogan: OURS... to fight for FREEDOM FROM WANT.
It is said that Rockwell fussed over this painting for a long time, concerned that it would convey overabundance rather than the theme of freedom from want.
Rockwell was
well known for using friends and family as models for his paintings and the Rockwell family cook, Mrs. Thaddeus Wheaton, was
the model for the grandmother serving the turkey. "I painted the turkey in Freedom From Want on Thanksgiving Day," wrote Rockwell, "Mrs Wheaton, our cook, cooked it, I painted it and we ate it."
I love Rockwell's wonderful composition – back-lit from the window with the light bouncing off the white tablecloth and best china – and, in particular, the way in which the senior couple are focused on the placing of the turkey and maintaining the order and ritual of the table.
I also enjoy the way in which the family circle is so intimate and tightly knit that the rest of the diners are only partially glimpsed. it is genius on Rockwell's part that they are are all learning forward in animated conversation with one another – with the one exception of the guy in the bottom right hand corner who is looking directly at the artist and, therefore, the viewer, and so makes us a guest at the table.
It also gives me an excuse to also blog again a delightful pastiche of Rockwell's original painting by a gifted Disney artist and illustrator, Charles Boyer, whom I had the pleasure of meeting some years ago...
Boyer's Disney-version of Rockwell is, of course, kitsch - but it is, surely, down-home-honest-to-goodness kitsch! And - on a day like today - I don't really need any excuse for juxtaposing the work of two of America's greatest popular artists.
Disney wasn't the first or last to parody the Rockwell painting and among those who have dragged out the turkey are the Muppets, the Simpsons, the superheroes and the cast of characters in Modern Family. Here are a few Thanksgiving meals to enjoy...
For anyone who'd like to know a little more about the festival of
Thanksgiving observed by Britain's former colonists, you can read more
about its origins on former post.
A while ago, I posted a performance by the wonderful Muppets of one of my favourite Michael Flanders and Donald Swann comic numbers concerning that curious animal, The Gnu.
And, now, to brighten your day, here's another Muppet performed Flanders-and-Swann-song about a thoroughly British institution...
It is often described as one of Hollywood's greatest turkeys and the film that almost destroyed 20th Century Fox, but my teenage memories of Doctor Dolittle are still rose-tinted.
As a youngster who had grown up reading (and loving) the original Hugh Lofting books with their extraordinary – often surreal – adventures and the wonderful menagerie that comprised Doctor John Dolittle's family: Polynesia the parrot, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the pig, Che-Che the monkey, Dab-Dab the duck (and housekeeper) and Too-Too the owl, who acts as the Doctor's accountant.
When the film came out in 1967, the critics generally panned it, especially carping about the fact that it was almost three-hours long; but what did I care? As a budding gay (who adored musical extravaganzas) I was perfectly happy to spend however many hours it ran in company with (to quote one of the lyrics) 'my friend the Doctor'!
I had the soundtrack LP and knew the songs by heart: I could do – and still can, if it comes to that (and, yes I know, it needn't come to that!) – a particularly spirited rendition of Dicky Attenborough's number (on being confronted by the Pushmi-Pullyu), 'I've Never Seen Anything Like it in My Life'.
I also knew someone in it: my friend, the wonderful Peter Bull, who played Samantha Eggar's father, General Bellows (that's Ray Aghayan's design for his costume, left). As result, I heard all the goss about how difficult Rex Harrison was and how he and the animals shared a mutual, undying hatred for one another with them biting and kicking him at every opportunity, sharing their fleas with him and, frequently, peeing on him!
However, there were a lot of things that I didn't know that I have only just discovered thanks to Mark Harris' book Scenes from a Revolution: The Birth of the New Hollywood in which he charts the troubled history of, among other movies, thephenomenally over-budgeted flop that was Doctor Dolittle.
I discovered that when a misbehaving Harrison was sacked for a week, Christopher Plummer was given the role and was paid a non-returnable $87,500 for not playing the role until Harrison pleaded his way back onto the film. In contrast, Peter Bull got his role after Fox had passed on Donald Pleasence and Robert Morley who both wanted some $60 and $50k respectively, whereas Peter did the job for a mere $11k!!
I also found out that Alan Jay (My Fair Lady) Lerner had been originally touted as lyricist and that, later, when Leslie Bricusse had been engaged to write the score, the ever-tricksy Harrison decided that he wasn't being given numbers worthy of an Oscar-winning Professor Higgins. As a result, the star insisted that Fox contract British musical comedy duo Michael Flanders and Donald Swann (famous for their At the Drop of a Hat shows and recordings) to write some songs for him – although none of them ended up in the film.
One of Flanders and Swann's offerings was a song for Dolittle to sing when the natives of the floating Sea-Star Island want to make him their monarch:
Lash me to an eagle,
I won't be regal.
Lock me in an attic
I shall still be most emphatic that
I wont be,
I can't be,
I daren't be,
I shan't be a king!
And another thing: I couldn't bear being called 'Rex'!
The idea of F&S writing the score was not so wide of the mark when one considers how many great animal songs they penned for themselves and others: 'The Hippopotamus Song' ("Mud, mud, glorious mud"), 'The Rhinoceros', 'The Armadillo' and this one performed–– not by Michael and Donald, but by....
The year: 1977... A record made by a small green frog reaches No.7 in the UK Top Ten and earns him an appearance on the BBC's weekly TV show, Top of the Pops.
The frog was Robin, nephew of Kermit, Master of Ceremonies of The Muppet Show and the lyrics – by A A Milne (left) author, playwright and essayist and Assistant Editor of the humorous magazine Punch – had originally been published in 1924 in Milne's celebrated collection of children's verses, with illustrations by E H Shepard, When We Were Very Young.
The wistful melody was the work of Harold Fraser-Simson (right), a close neighbour of Milne's in Chelsea and a fellow member of the Garrick Club.
He had also earned a reputation as a successful composer of light music with his score for the phenomenal West End triumph, The Maid of the Mountains, an operetta that played for 1,352 performances: a record run second only, at the time, to that of Chu Chin Chow.
The partnership between Fraser-Simson and Milne began with a volume of Fourteen Songs from 'When We Were Very Young', which instantly capitalised on the huge success achieved by the book of verses, many of which were 'fictionally' based on the juvenile doings of Milne's son, Christopher Robin: going to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace ('with Alice') or being careful not to treads on the lines of the street – especially whenever he went 'Hoppity-hoppity-hoppity-hoppity-hop'!
One of the most famous songs to come out of this collaboration was Milne's first 'children's verse', published two years before When We Were Very Young in 1923, in the American magazine, Vanity Fair. It's formal title was 'Vespers' but most people know it as...
Some may think it is a tad too sentimental (and they'd probably be right!) but, in it's defence, I would point out that the writer later said that if you read the words carefully you'll see that it is, in fact, about a little boy NOT saying his prayers!
Many recordings of the song have been made over the years, from 'Belfast's Own Boy Soprano', Billy Neely...
...via Gracie Fields and Webster Booth to the New York Met's great Wagnerian soprano, Helen Traubel...
In addition to the verses in When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, Fraser-Simson provided musical settings for the Hums of Pooh, the ditties extemporised by Christopher Robin's 'bear of very little brain' in the books, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner.
Anyway, what all this is leading up to is that there is a 30-minute feature tomorrow (Tuesday) morning on BBC Radio 4 at 11:30 am about the MIlne/Fraser-Simson partnership.
The Songs of Milne is presented by pianist John Kember (below right with baritone Richard Burkhard), who first came across the music on a friend's piano and set about collecting the scores for all of Fraser-Simson's sixty-seven settings of Milne's verses and Pooh's Hums. It is John's ambition that he and Richard might produce a complete recording of these delightful songs.
In the programme, John tells the story of this, now largely forgotten, partnership and explores the relationship between the words and the music, their rise and decline in popularity and ponders the question of whether they have any currency in today's world that is so very different to that of the 1920s era of nannies, nursery teas and prayers at bedtime...
Also taking part in the broadcast are Andrew Lamb, authority on musical theatre, Dr Clare Rose, Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth –– and the author of Three Cheers for Pooh, viz... Me!
Following the broadcast, the programme can be heard via the BBC iPlayer for the next seven days.
I began by mentioning the Muppets and I think the late Jim Henson must have had an affection for these songs because, over the years, a number of them were featured on The Muppet Show. I'll leave you with Rowlf's rendition of one of Pooh's best hums, 'Cottleston Pie'...
The creator of Wonderland, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (sometimes known as Lewis Carroll) was born 179 years ago today and, in celebration, here are a couple of renditions of his most famous nonsense verse, which Alice discovered in a book on the other side of the looking-glass. I refer, of course, to...
JABBERWOCKY!
You'll recognise Sir John Tenniel's depiction of the Jabberwock whiffling through the Tulgey Wood when you watch the following enactment of this curious saga...
And here's the Tenniel illustration that inspired the Muppets' slithy toves, borogoves and mome raths...
And in case you've ever wondered what the words in the poem's opening and closing verses mean, here's Humpty Dumpty's explanation...
"...'Brillig' means four o'clock in the afternoon--the time when you begin broiling things for dinner."
"That'll do very well," said Alice: "and 'slithy'?"
"Well, 'slithy' means 'lithe and slimy.' 'Lithe' is the same as 'active.' You see it's like a portmanteau – there are two meanings packed up into one word."
"I see it now," Alice remarked thoughtfully: "and what are 'toves'?"
"Well, 'toves' are something like badgers – they're something like lizards – and they're something like corkscrews."
"They must be very curious-looking creatures."
"They are that," said Humpty Dumpty: "also they make their nests under sun-dials – also they live on cheese."
"And what's to 'gyre' and to 'gimble'?"
"To 'gyre' is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To 'gimble' is to make holes like a gimlet."
"And 'the wabe' is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?" said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.
"Of course it is. It's called 'wabe' you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it––"
"And a long way beyond it on each side," Alice added.
"Exactly so. Well, then, 'mimsy' is 'flimsy and miserable' (there's another portmanteau for you). And a 'borogove' is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round – something like a live mop."
"And then 'mome raths'?" said Alice. "I'm afraid I'm giving you a great deal of trouble."
"Well, a 'raths' is a sort of green pig: but 'mome' I'm not certain about. I think it's short for 'from home' – meaning that they'd lost their way, you know."
"And what does 'outgrabe' mean?"
"Well, 'outgrabing' is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you'll hear it done, maybe – down in the wood yonder – and when you've once heard it you'll be quite content..."
I was amused by this story from Hannah Stott of Sky News Online...
XMAS FACTOR? Muppets Take on Cowell and Co.
Simon Cowell watch out: The Muppets are taking the X Factor winner's Christmas release on with their version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.
After becoming one of YouTube's most watched clips the furry characters' record label EMI has decided to release the song in time for the prized Christmas number one slot. If successful, it would be the third time the song has topped the charts over the festive period.
Although the wise money suggests it doesn't stand much chance of booting the X Factor off the summit.
William Hill is giving The Muppets 25/1 odds of claiming the top spot. A spokesman for the bookies added: "You'd have to be a real muppet to think anyone could beat the X Factor winner to Christmas number one."
All smiles: Kermy and Joe go head to head
I have to say, if I was sweet, young Joe McElderry and - after months of fighting my way through to X Factor victory - I was pipped to the number one spot by a bunch of multi-coloured fluffy puppets, I'd seriously think about ditching show-biz!
However, no doubt the Wisdom of the Great British Public will prevail!
Meanwhile, at the risk of exposing my readers to a surfeit of Muppetry, here's another of their latest video specials: Beethoven as you have never experienced him before - thanks to the incomparable Beaker...
I've always been intrigued by what makes a good film poster and whether that sometimes differs from what makes an effective film poster...
In my book (or, I suppose, on my wall) an iconic movie poster is, well, ICONIC...
I mean, consider any of the following. The merest glance and you know just about all you need to know about the movie on offer...
One image said it all. We all knew where you were with posters like that!
So, how come there have been so many posters going around for Robert Zemeckis' version of A Christmas Carol?
It started, many months ago, with this 'teaser' poster...
Since when there's been this one...
And this one...
And this one, which - like its predecessor - features a historical detail strictly for the cognoscenti - the Westminster Clock Tower ('Big Ben') under builder's scaffolding: Dickens' novella was written in 1843, the year in which building commenced on the famous clock tower...
As well as this is one which is, undoubtedly, the most stylish offering, though possibly not quite mass-market enough...
And, depending on where you are the world, you might see it advertised like this...
Hmmm...
The trouble is, of course, if a movie is iconic then the poster tends to become iconic, too; but it doesn't work the other way around: an iconic poster does not an iconic movie make!
When it comes to A Christmas Carol, as several of you commented the other day, there are already several iconic film versions of Dickens' classic, including this much loved one...
What gift Jim Henson bequeathed to us all! The Muppets are - and always will be - totally and indispensably part of our lives.
Back in 1977, Kermit the Frog's nephew, Robin, sang 'Halfway Down the Stairs' (Words from A A Milne's When We Were Very Young, set to music by H Fraser-Simpson) which, incredibly, made it into the British Top 10 and earned an appearance on the BBC TV show Top of the Pops...
And just last week, the Muppets demonstrated their staying power with their hilarious rendition of the Queen anthem, 'Bohemian Rhapsody', which is, at the same time, a witty pastiche of the original Queen video.
Supposing you have never, hitherto, contemplated the similarities between Freddy Mercury and Rowlf, now's the time to do so!
If you missed this gem, here it is; and if you didn't (and with 3.5 million hits in two days that would hardly be surprising) here it is again...
