The Little Professor

Replay IV

I'm currently reading Deep, Serious Books (Walter Benn Michaels, Kathryn Sutherland), not to mention executing writing about Anne Boleyn.  [Just how long have you been working on that article? Shouldn't you set a better example for your graduate students--like the ones who know this blog's address?--Ed.]  What better way to relax than to indulge one of my secret vices--namely, breaking out the DVDs and watching people dance?  [Actually, that vice would be even more secret if you refrained from writing about it on your blog.  Really, dear.--Ed.]  Previous installments here, here, and here.

• Follow the Fleet (1936): "Let Yourself Go," "Let's Face the Music and Dance."  Fred Astaire! Ginger Rogers! What else is there to say? (OK, it's not my famous Astaire-Rogers flick, but any Astaire-Rogers is better than no Astaire-Rogers, right?)
• House of Flying Daggers (2004): "The Echo Game."  Granted, the editing has wandered in from MTV, but it's still a nifty idea--and quite a spectacle.
• Kiss Me Kate (1953): All of the dance numbers are terrific, but I'm partial to "Tom, Dick, or Harry" and "From This Moment On," courtesy of Ann Miller, Tommy Rall, Bobby Van, and a very young Bob Fosse.  Carol Haney (the unluckiest dancer in the history of musical theater?) and Jeanne Coyne (Gene Kelly's second wife) also put in appearances. 
• The Pajama Game (1957): Granted, I don't much like the rest of the film, but "Steam Heat" (with Haney, Peter Gennaro, and Buzz Miller) is Bob Fosse in a nutshell. 
• Swing Time (1936): "Pick Yourself Up" may be my favorite Astaire-Rogers number. 
• The Toast of New Orleans (1950): Eugene Loring's choreography for "The Tina-Lina" probably qualifies as "cute" rather than "good," and it doesn't help that a teenaged Rita Moreno struggles a little too visibly to keep up with her partner, James Mitchell--but the number is still peppy, at least. 

Linking about: Victorian music hall

Footlight Notes: Performers, sound files, images, etc. 
Music Hall Guided Tour: General overview, performers, and acts. 
The English Music Hall: Performers and songs, both nineteenth-century and contemporary. 
Music Hall Performers: Brief overviews with sound clips. 
The Music Hall--The End of an Era: End of the music hall's heyday post-WWI; some sound clips. 
Victorian Popular Music: Exhibit of illustrated sheet music. 
"London Music Halls": An article by F. Anstey. 
Wilton's Music Hall: Introduction to a famous hall that opened in 1858.
The Old Bedford Music Hall: Brief essay with some images. 
The Music Hall War: Discusses the emergence of a music hall/variety union in 1907.
Dan Leno: A number of images.   
Arthur Lloyd (1839-1904): Overview of a major star; the site is operated by a descendant.
T. S. Eliot on Marie Lloyd: An article published in 1922. 
Marie Lloyd, Vesta Tilley, et le British Music-Hall: French page with some sound clips. 
Vesta Tilley (1864-1952): A famous male impersonator. 
Music Hall & Variety: Some photographs. 
Evanion Catalogue: British Library collection devoted to all sorts of Victorian ephemera, including a number of music hall playbills. 
Windyridge CDs: Sells CDs of Victorian and Edwardian recordings. 
British Music Hall and Variety: A Bibliography: Books and articles compiled by Don B. Wilmeth.   

Replay

Yes, I know: all the cool kids do the iPod shuffle.  I, being uncool, lack an iPod.  Instead, I break out the DVDs and watch people dance.  New dance numbers in the rotation:

• Seven Brides for Seven Brothers: Michael Kidd's brilliant barn-raising challenge dance, which must be the most testosterone-heavy choreography ever created.  Dangerous, too.  The men are super: Jacques d'Amboise, Matt Mattox, Marc Platt (the original Dream Curly from Oklahoma!), Tommy Rall (who ought to have had a far more high-profile career), and Russ Tamblyn. 
• The Band Wagon: The "Girl Hunt Ballet," featuring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in a dead-to-rights parody of film noir.  Once again, choreography by Michael Kidd. 
• Broadway's Lost Treasures II: This compendium of performances from the Tony Awards includes the late Michael Jeter's almost unearthly Charleston from Grand Hotel (choreographed by Tommy Tune). 
• Oklahoma!: Back to the classic movie musicals and Agnes de Mille's "Out of My Dreams" ballet, with James Mitchell, Bambi Linn, and (doing his best) Rod Steiger.  The Freudianism dates it, I think, but it's still powerful.  Incidentally, Mr. Mitchell (who is still working) has aged astonishingly well...

• Deep in My Heart: Cyd Charisse (again) and James Mitchell (again) have sex tango in Eugene Loring's staging of "One Alone" from The Desert Song. Er. Um. Yeooowwwza. How did that get by the censor?!

Musical

A former classmate has discovered Stephen Sondheim, which is all to the good. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street certainly gets my nomination for Best Musical of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century. OGIC might also want to try some of the post-Sondheim experimental composers/lyricists, like Adam Guettel (Floyd Collins in particular); Audra McDonald's Way Back to Paradise

offers a handy overview of new composers.

More aids to procrastination

Granted, it's a bit odd to be posting this now, since I stopped procrastinating today: two pages of my conference paper down, five more to go. Of course, there's still Emily Sarah Holt (twenty-five pages down, at least five or six more to go). Reading David S. Katz's God's Last Words feels a bit like procrastination, because it's quite a fun book (yes, really), although the first Amazon reviewer has a point about its slightly idiosyncratic take on the history of Biblical criticism.

In any event, new additions to the procrastination lineup:

"Bouncin' the Blues" from The Barkleys of Broadway (1949): I've always loved this jazzy little divertissement, even if it's in one of the lesser Astaire/Rogers vehicles.

"All Ashore," "Please Don't Monkey with Broadway," and "Beguin the Beguine" from Broadway Melody of 1940: Eleanor Powell does incredibly athletic things, Fred Astaire and George Murphy duel, and Astaire and Powell duet. (I admit to fast-forwarding through Powell's singing, though.)

"The Red Blues" from Silk Stockings (1957): Cyd Charisse and proles in a vaguely Russian-themed dance number. (There's also something weirdly engaging about "The Ritz Roll and Rock," which tries to meld Fred Astaire's style with a mock rock n' roll beat.)

"When the Foeman Bares His Steel" from The Pirates of Penzance (1980): picture quality is eh, but I like the staging rather better than the 1983 film version with the same cast.

The challenge dance from The Cotton Club (1984): Charles "Honi" Coles, Gregory and Maurice Hines, Jimmy Slyde, and a number of others show us how it's really done. (This movie, by the way, has the most infuriating editing--was it necessary to chop up every Cotton Club number?)

The challenge dance from Tap (1989): Arthur Duncan, Bunny Briggs, Jimmy Slyde, Steve Condos, Harold Nicholas, Howard "Sandman" Sims, Gregory Hines, and Sammy Davis Jr. show us (again) how it's really done. (I saw Jimmy Slyde perform live a few years ago; still very high on my all-time Extremely Cool Things list.)

The Newcomer's solo from Bojangles (2001): Savion Glover is brilliant, as per the usual.

Musical comedy moments to procrastinate by

Current DVD playlist (things rotate in and out a bit):

• Call Me Madam: "What Chance Have I" (Donald O'Connor, tap-dancing with a xylophone and a lot of balloons)

  
  

• Singin' in the Rain: "Make 'Em Laugh" (Donald O'Connor, many pratfalls, also that whole backflipping-off-the-walls thing), "Moses Supposes" (O'Connor and Kelly harass a specialist in elocution), part of the "Broadway Melody" (not really my favorite ballet sequence, but I'll sometimes watch Kelly's pas de deux with Cyd Charisse)

  
  

• Sweet Charity: "The Rich Man's Frug" (it's all about the angles)

  
  

• All That Jazz: the cattle call sequence (brilliantly edited, IMHO), "Everything Old is New Again" (deceptively simple choreography; I like this and the opener better than either the infamous "Airotica" sequence in the middle or that whacked-out disco death number at the end...)

  
  

• Fosse: "Steam Heat" (nifty trio), "Sing! Sing! Sing!" (in pretty decent technical shape--most of the ensemble numbers on this recording are depressingly sloppy)

  
  

• West Side Story: "Dance at the Gym," "America," "Cool" (all brilliant, path-breaking ensemble pieces, plus outstanding soloists)

  
  

• Sweeney Todd: "The Worst Pies in London" (terrific comic song, even if it does look as though it's been overdubbed in post-production), "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir" (Ken Jenning has one of musical theatre's weirdest voices...), "A Little Priest" (comic cannibal recipes--what's not to like?), "God, That's Good!" (great choral work), "Johanna" (some of the evening's most melodic music--accompanied by Todd slashing several throats)

  
  

• Guys and Dolls: "Luck Be a Lady" (the gamblers' ballet)

  
  

• The Pirates of Penzance (Stratford Festival or the film version): "When the Foeman Bares His Steel" (amusing policemen who sing [Stratford] or dance [film])

  
  

Yo, yo mir geyen

"When the Foeman Bares His Steel" in, er, Yiddish, from Al Grand's Di Yam Gazlonim. No, I can't read it. But even without knowing any Yiddish, I can tell that Grand takes just a few liberties with "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General," what with the allusions to Einstein, Purim, latkes...

Sounds rather fun, actually.