No time to type today, so how about some musical sleigh-rides?
Here’s “Jingle Bells,” in its original version, as it was published in 1857 (as “The One Horse Open Sleigh”), by James Lord Pierpont:
And a rowdy sleigh-ride, courtesy of Leopold Mozart (father of Wolfgang), complete with horses, dogs, whip-cracks and sleigh-bells. The whole thing is worth hearing, but the fun really begins at 3:38.
It’s times like this that I really miss my morning air-shifts!
“The horse was lean and lank;
Misfortune seemed his lot,
He got into a drifted bank,
And we, we got upsot.”
My mention of Charles Dickens in yesterday’s post about malevolent puppets reminds me that ‘tis the season for Dickens adaptations.
So it’s no surprise that Turner Classic Movies: TCM will be presenting a Dickens double-feature tonight as part of its evening line-up. Neither film is an adaptation of “A Christmas Carol,” though there are several in TCM’s holiday rotation. There must be something up with the rights to the 1951 version, with Alastair Sim as the definitive Scrooge, since the network is always passing over it in favor of the inferior 1938 version, starring Reginald Owen, even to the point of arranging big screen showings nationwide.
The 1938 version of “A Christmas Carol” is actually a rare example of mediocre Dickens on the silver screen. From the 1930s up through 1951 and the Sim version (released in England as “Scrooge”) – which LOOKS as if it were made in the ‘30s – Dickens enjoyed some very fine advocacy.
One of the best adaptations, of course, is David Lean’s “Great Expectations” (1946), with its atmospheric touches and top-notch cast (Alec Guinness made his film debut as Herbert Pocket). It takes some liberties with the novel, especially toward the end, but who cares? This is as idiomatic a film version of Dickens as one is likely to get. The same could be said for Lean’s “Oliver Twist” (1948), again with Guinness (brilliant, though controversial, as Fagin).
I often wonder if there is something in the black and white cinematography – and, in the case of some of the British productions, the often limited budgets – that just makes them seem more authentic, both because of their sense of history – these obviously being films of the distant past – but also because of the effectiveness of the at times murky technology in conjuring an atmosphere akin to that of dreams and fairy tales – which is how I often view films made in the ‘30s.
The 1951 version of “A Christmas Carol” is made even better by the at times indistinct images. This is exactly how I imagine things to have looked in Dickens’ day – although, of course, it is complete nonsense. Everything then was as vivid and mundane as it is now. Yet put modern actors in immaculate stove pipe hats and capture the images with sharp, state-of-the-art technology, and it all seems like play acting. There’s something cheap-looking about it, like a “Masterpiece ” (formerly “Masterpiece Theater”) import, where most of the budget is spent on costume rentals and hiring Judy Dench.
I mean, Judy Dench is a fine actress, but she is nowhere near as Dickensian as Edna May Oliver, who plays Aunt Betsy in “David Copperfield” (1935). It was one of producer David O. Selznick’s lifelong ambitions to get “Copperfield” on the big screen in a respectable, mostly faithful form, and despite some stunt casting (W.C. Fields as Micawber), it really works. There is no way any movie featuring Basil Rathbone, Elsa Lanchester, Lionel Barrymore and Una O’Connor can be bad.
TCM will show “Great Expectations” tonight at 8 ET, and “David Copperfield” at 10:15.
I also highly recommend “A Tale of Two Cities” (1935), “Nicholas Nickleby” (1947) and “The Pickwick Papers” (1952) as further examples of early, murky, delectable Dickens. Later adaptations are more comprehensively faithful, perhaps, yet somehow manage to lose much of the flavor of the original novels. Dickens’ appeal may be timeless, but the costumes and character ticks just seem to suit those times (circa 1935 to 1952) much better than our own.
To keep it musical, here is a suite from Richard Addinsell’s score for “A Christmas Carol,” from 1951:
Addinsell, of course, is the composer of the “Warsaw Concerto.” His suite will be among the selections I’ll be playing this Friday evening at 6, on “Picture Perfect,” as I offer up a “literary Christmas,” at http://www.wwfm.org.
If you’ve ever had a nightmare about a grimacing nutcracker or found yourself profoundly disturbed by a Rankin-Bass Christmas special, then this one is for you.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we present as our centerpiece Paul Hindemith’s unusual Christmas fairy tale, “Tuttifäntchen,” written in 1922, in which a wooden figure carved out of a fir by a master woodcutter comes to life and causes all sorts of havoc. He literally robs a young girl of her good heart, thrashes children, and sends all of the Christmas trees in the world out onto the marketplace – all en route to a desired reunion with the fir of his origin. (Fortunately, his reign of terror spans only 24 hours, and everything ends well.)
It may sound like a real horror show, but the music is disarming in its simplicity and warmth. Hindemith’s score incorporates familiar Christmas songs and a contagious foxtrot, called “Dance of the Wooden Puppets.” A delightful suite from “Tuttifäntchen” was released on the CPO label back in 1999. In 2013, CPO issued this complete recording, from which I excise most of the spoken dialogue, since it is in German.
This allows time for two additional pieces. From “Tuttifäntchen,” my thoughts travel immediately to Pinocchio. In Carlo Collodi’s original story – published in the 1880s, over a half century before Walt Disney gave him a good scrubbing up – the boy-puppet is an absolute terror. He even kills Jiminy Cricket with a hammer!
His exploits inspired Ernst Toch, a Hindemith contemporary, to compose “Pinocchio: A Merry Overture,” in 1935. Toch was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1956, for his Symphony No. 3.
The hour will open with the “Punch and Judy Overture,” from 1945, by American composer Leroy Robertson. Punch, of course, is the classic murderous puppet, who outsmarts the Devil and even Death himself.
“THAT’S the way to do it,” as he’s fond of saying. (If you’ll notice, Mr. Punch is always self-satisfied – hence the phrase “pleased as Punch.”)
“In my opinion the street Punch is one of those extravagant reliefs from the realities of life which would lose its hold upon the people if it were made moral and instructive. I regard it as quite harmless in its influence, and as an outrageous joke which no one in existence would think of regarding as an incentive to any kind of action or as a model for any kind of conduct. It is possible, I think, that one secret source of pleasure very generally derived from this performance… is the satisfaction the spectator feels in the circumstance that likenesses of men and women can be so knocked about, without any pain or suffering.”
– Charles Dickens (Mr. Christmas, himself), in a letter from 1849
I hope you’ll join me for “Hindemith Branches Out” – celebrating the holidays with the naughty puppet Tuttifäntchen and friends – this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.
PHOTO: In Collodi’s original, Pinocchio kills Jiminy Cricket, eats the Cat’s paw and pays the ultimate price. The publisher thought the ending too depressing and made Collodi change it. (The puppet still commits pesticide and maims the cat, though.)
If Christmas acts as a beacon against the shortest day, then it shines most brightly for the young.
Three local youth choirs feature prominently on this weekend’s concerts, as the Princeton High School Choir joins the Princeton Symphony Orchestra at Richardson Auditorium, tomorrow at 4 p.m.; the Princeton Girlchoir joins the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra at the Trenton War Memorial, Sunday at 3 p.m.; and the The American Boychoir holds its own, again at Richardson, Sunday at 4 p.m.
Read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times:
Frankly, my dear, an awful lot of people have given a damn.
“Gone with the Wind,” which opened on December 15, 1939, is one of the most beloved films ever made. It was also one of the most successful. Adjusting for inflation, GWTW is still the highest grossing film of all time. At 21st century ticket prices, its global gross is estimated to be in the neighborhood of 3.3 and 3.8 billion dollars. That’s roughly a billion dollars more than “Avatar,” “Star Wars,” and “Titanic.” Quite an achievement for a 3 ½ hour movie from 1939!
This Friday evening, we’ll celebrate the 75th anniversary of this landmark film with an extended suite from Max Steiner’s score. Steiner wrote over three hours of music for GWTW, of which 2 hours and 36 minutes were used. Incredibly, he accomplished this in twelve weeks, while at the same time writing scores for three other movies. GWTW was one of 13 films the composer scored that year. By 1939, he had already been in Hollywood for ten years and had provided music for 100 movies.
There will be just enough time at the end of the hour to sample music from Steiner’s “Four Wives,” written concurrently with his score for GWTW. “Four Wives” is a sequel to “Four Daughters.” It was followed by a third film, “Four Mothers.” The series is mostly forgotten, save by classic movie buffs, but it has the distinction of having introduced John Garfield as a cynical pianist from the wrong side of the tracks.
The series also starred the three Lane sisters – the singing trio Priscilla, Rosemary, and Lola – and Gale Page, as the musical daughters of Claude Rains, who plays a Schubert-loving music professor, befuddled by popular trends.
We’ll hear Earl Wild, the pianist, in the “Symphonie moderne,” drawn from Steiner’s score.
Join me, as we celebrate 75 years of “Gone with the Wind,” on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6 ET, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.
