I’m sure I’m about the last one to share a link to this video, in light of current events. But I knew about it before it was COOL.
Living long and prospering, William Shatner heads to space at the age of 90. Godspeed.
The webcast begins at 8:30 AM EDT
Watch the show William Shatner may have watched (for two seconds). Roy and I discuss “The Spy Who Loved Me.”
We’re off next week, but we’ll be back on August 6th at 7:30 pm EDT to talk about “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” (1961) – the movie, not the SUB-sequent TV series. (See what I did there?) Note the special start time!
We had originally scheduled “Voyage” for last night, only to discover it had apparently dropped off of all streaming services. So a big thank you to Alan Wendt, who was kind enough to share this link.
https://archive.org/details/voyagetothebottomoftheseaaction1961engsubs720ph264mp4
It is also scheduled to air on FXM this Monday, beginning at 11:25 am.
In the meantime, I’ll be on a “see food” diet. Leave your crab cakes in the comments section, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. We livestream on Facebook, August 6th – Friday after next – at 7:30 pm!
I’ve been silent about celebrity deaths recently – otherwise, I’d never be off Facebook!
But I have to acknowledge, I am very sorry to learn of the passing of Christopher Plummer. A seasoned veteran of stage of screen, Plummer had one hell of a career, and he was much-decorated and acclaimed for it.
Even so, Oscar remained standoffish. He received his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for “Beginners,” only in 2010. At 82, it made him the oldest person ever to be so recognized in an acting category. Six years later, he was nominated again, at 88, for “All the Money in the World.” He was now the oldest actor ever to receive a nomination.
Whether he was Iago, Cyrano de Bergerac , Sherlock Holmes, or Georg von Trapp, Plummer was a virtuoso, always in command of his instrument. That’s not to say he undertook everything in the service of art. In 1978, he appeared as the Emperor of the Galaxy in “Starcrash,” an Italian knockoff of “Star Wars,” because it allowed him a free trip to Rome. The film achieves its delirious apotheosis when Plummer assumes an authoritative stance and intones, “Imperial Battleship! Halt… the flow of time!”
In 1956, he essayed the role of Henry V at Ontario’s Stratford Festival. However, for one performance, he was laid low by an attack of kidney stones. This opened the door for his understudy, a struggling young actor by the name of William Shatner. Shatner and Plummer would later face off, with Plummer as a Shakespeare-spouting Klingon, in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.”
Here’s a fine recording of William Walton’s music for the Laurence Olivier film of “Henry V” (1944). Plummer supplies the big speeches, and then some.
The Stratford Plummer-Shatner “Henry” story is recounted here:
His greatest role?
R.I.P. Christopher Plummer, dead at 91.
PHOTO: Plummer in Walton’s “Henry V” with the New York Philharmonic in 2011
Did I ever tell you about the time Captain Kirk saved a Canadian Shakespeare festival? No? Read on…
Immediately following today’s Noontime Concert with the Rolston String Quartet (even as I type, performing Beethoven’s Op. 132), our Shakespeare celebration will commence, in honor of the possible anniversary of the Bard’s birth. Shakespeare died on this date in 1616. We don’t know when he was born, really, but he was baptized on April 26,1564, and for many the potential symmetry is irresistible.
Also, April 23 happens to be St. George’s Day. As I say, irresistible.
Among my featured highlights this afternoon will be an extended suite of William Wallton’s music for the Laurence Olivier film of “Henry V.” The speaker will be Christopher Plummer.
Plummer played Henry at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, of Stratford, Ontario, in 1956, when one night he was hospitalized with a kidney stone. His understudy for that particular production was none other than William Shatner, who had been cast in the role of Gloucester. You can read how it all panned out here:
Anyway, Plummer has gone on record as saying that Henry V is his favorite role.
Our Shakespeare salute will begin around 1:45. I expect I’ll start the Walton around 2:55.
We’ll be going batty for the Bard until 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
PHOTO: That’s Plummer as Baron von Tra — uh, Henry, I mean.
Aaron Copland (92) Beethoven (95) Composer (114) Film Music (120) Film Score (143) Film Scores (255) Halloween (94) John Williams (185) KWAX (229) Leonard Bernstein (100) Marlboro Music Festival (125) Movie Music (135) Opera (198) Philadelphia Orchestra (88) Picture Perfect (174) Princeton Symphony Orchestra (106) Radio (87) Ralph Vaughan Williams (85) Ross Amico (244) Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner (290) The Classical Network (101) The Lost Chord (268) Vaughan Williams (103) WPRB (396) WWFM (881)