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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 12:07 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| The Pagnol trilogy is classic, entertaining, and great. It was also turned into a Broadway musical, Fanny, which became in turn a non-musical movie using the Harold Rome music from the Broadway show as soundtrack music. Despite being directed by Joshua Logan, the Nora Ephron of his era, it had terrific performances by Leslie Caron and Charles Boyer. Caron played her fourth title role, following up on Lili, Gaby, and Gigi. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 12:08 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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Quote: Pagnol was a novelist, playwrite, memoirist. Turning his play Marius into a movie convinced him that film was the new medium. But strangely, his movies are pretty much filmed theater and nothing more.
not a very convincing pitch for a new forum topic. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 12:11 am |
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Location: Houston
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billyweeds wrote: The Pagnol trilogy is classic, entertaining, and great. It was also turned into a Broadway musical, Fanny, which became in turn a non-musical movie using the Harold Rome music from the Broadway show as soundtrack music. Despite being directed by Joshua Logan, the Nora Ephron of his era, it had terrific performances by Leslie Caron and Charles Boyer. Caron played her fourth title role, following up on Lili, Gaby, and Gigi.
Your line about Logan is a classic. The score to Fanny is wonderful. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 12:14 am |
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Marc wrote: Quote: Pagnol was a novelist, playwrite, memoirist. Turning his play Marius into a movie convinced him that film was the new medium. But strangely, his movies are pretty much filmed theater and nothing more.
not a very convincing pitch for a new forum topic.
Well, I find ambiguity interesting, so following the career of someone who loved cinema without becoming cinematic is interesting to me.
The movies had a huge impact on American interest in foreign film, and also probably had a lot to do with developing in American audiences an appreciation for the French again, after WWII.
There's more to talk about with movies than split screens and montage. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 12:24 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| I'll only participate if good French wine and cheese is served. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 2:07 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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The Fanny Trilogy is great, but I thought those were hard to come by. I only have crappy "public domain" editions.
Lola Montes was released recently by Second Sight, a British distributor. Check if Netflix has it, or I could get you a copy. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 2:21 am |
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| but what about "Lola Montez", the Spanish version? I believe that is the one Joe mentioned. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 3:10 am |
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Uh, the film is about a Spanish woman.
Montez is an alternate spelling.
And even the standard Montes spelling should have an accent: Lola Montès.
Internet responsibly. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 4:38 am |
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gromit wrote: The Fanny Trilogy is great, but I thought those were hard to come by. I only have crappy "public domain" editions.
Yes, I had watched really bad videotapes about ten years ago. I remember a section of Marius where the sound was out of synch with the images. But I believe the DVD transfer is the same as what's shown on TCM and it's a huge improvement. One reason I've considered buying the set is because the picture quality on TCM is so good. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:10 am |
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Billy,
I'd never watched Logan's Fanny (oh that sounds bad) because Logan is workmanlike at best, stilted at worse. But I'm taking your advice and checking it out. It's a shame that Logan, a major, major theater talent, was generally so uninteresting as a movie director. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 6:09 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Joe Vitus wrote: Billy,
I'd never watched Logan's Fanny (oh that sounds bad) because Logan is workmanlike at best, stilted at worse. But I'm taking your advice and checking it out. It's a shame that Logan, a major, major theater talent, was generally so uninteresting as a movie director.
A ubiquitous line at the time of its release was "I saw Josh Logan's Fanny on a wide screen."
Uninteresting is a kind word for Logan's film direction. He was really bad. The irredeemable South Pacific alone would be enough to qualify him for the "bad directors" pantheon. But there were also Sayonara and Mister Roberts (which was taken over by Mervyn LeRoy and John Ford) and (aargh!) Paint Your Wagon and (barf!) Camelot. His best movie was probably Fanny, but the William Inge adaptations Picnic and Bus Stop were the only other Logan films of any conceivable merit, and that was all about star power and the occasional felicitous camera angle. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 6:47 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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| The Pagnol trilogy is available from Netflix, along with a fourth disc containing "bonus material." I will screen Disc One soon and report on its transfer quality. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 6:49 am |
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| You and I are so much in synch about Logan that I look forward to Fanny even more. If I remember my Broadway/Hollywood history correctly, Logan had wanted to film the musical as a musical, but since the show didn't do nearly as well as hoped (an odd situation I've never figured out: it wasn't a flop, it opened strong, it petered out...maybe Pinza took the show to the grave with him?), he couldn't convince any studio to bankroll an adaptation. So he had to settle for a non-singing movie with Rome's score as background music. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 7:49 am |
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| I saw the musical with the original cast during its pre-Broadway tryout tour (yes, yes, I know this will make you hate me anew), and the movie version was--overall--better. But the musical had charm, Pinza, Walter Slezak (who sort of stole the show), Florence Henderson in the title role, and William Tabbert (the original Lt. Cable from the Broadway version of South Pacific) as Marius. Some of the songs were wonderful. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 7:51 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Picnic was a terrible, terrible movie in many ways, especially when Logan let Rosalind Russell play to the second balcony, but the Holden-Novak dance at the picnic is pretty darned hot.
P.S. In fairness to Logan, it was probably pretty hard for anyone to hold Roz back when she wanted something. Everything about her screams "diva." |
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