Saturday, September 13, 2008
PACIFIC SUNSET
Today's Best NYTimes 1176 Film was Rodgers and Hammerstein's
A big yawn here.
It was made as a 'road show'. Overture. Intermission. Reserved tickets.
Todd-A-O. A big screen by American Optical. Mike Todd was a producer who got killed in a plane crash. One of Liz Taylor's husbands.
Oh.
Am I wandering?
I guess so. This movie will do that to you.
Mitzi Gaynor is very cute and hardly convincing here and her boyfriend, Rosanno Brazzi, doesn't do his own singing.
They opened up the show by putting it on a real island with a real beach. Hence, no real dancing. Sand.
They put color filters on the principals whenever they sing a ballad. They grease the lens. They put smoke in the background. Nuts. Of course it hides the lackadaisical performances.
Once again, a big lush orchestra sound. Totally inappropriate. One 'musical supervisor'. Four musical arrangers? As I recall, Richard Rodgers stood alone with his conductor and the pit orchestra.
I skipped some of it. Tedious.
They had Ray Walston as an original cast Luther Billis. I remember it was Myron McCormick. Walston must have been in the second cast. John Kerr is the lieutenant. Skinny and looks as though he has a headache. And so on.
I am giving it a 1 out of Netflix5. I didn't like it much and I skipped through the reel. I reduced it from a bloated 2.5 hours to a tiresome 1.5. At least they didn't alter the plot.
Labels: best films
