Category: Music

Cabin in the Sky (1943) / Z-View

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Cabin in the Sky (1943)

Director: Vincente Minnelli, Busby Berkeley (uncredited)

Screenplay: Joseph Schrank based on the musical by Lynn Root

Stars: Ethel Waters, Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson, Lena Horne, Butterfly McQueen, Louis Armstrong, Rex Ingram, Kenneth Spencer, and Duke Ellington.

The Pitch: “Let’s make a movie version of ‘Cabin in the Sky!’”

Tagline: “Broadway’s big, fun-jammed music show is on the screen at last–crowded with stars and songs and spectacle in the famed MGM manner!”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Little Joe [Anderson] dies after being shot during a night of gambling and fast women. Before his soul can be claimed, Little Joe’s wife, Petunia [Waters] prays so hard for Little Joe that angels show up just as the Devil’s soldiers prepare to wisk him away.  A decision is made that Little Joe will be returned to the living and have six months to earn his way heaven or be claimed by the devils.  The catch is Little Joe will remember none of this.

The devils plot to place every obstacle possible in Little Joe’s path from fast women like Georgia Brown [Horne] to fast cash and no-account friends.  Will Joe make it to the Cabin in the Sky?

Rating:

16 Things You May Not Know About Ringo Starr

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Eddie Deenzen and Neatorama present 16 Things You May Not Know About Ringo Starr.  Here are three of my favorites…

10. In 1964, when the Beatles first came to America, Ringo was actually the most popular Beatle. At least he received the most fan mail of the four.

16. In 2015, Ringo was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (the Beatles had been inducted as a group in 1988). But now Ringo was (finally) elected on his own

3. Ringo was so sick as young boy, three times his doctors told his mother he wouldn’t survive the night. He was indomitable and did survive. Because of his incredible ability to survive, his grandfather’s nickname for him was “Lazarus.”

11 Facts About Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 11 Facts About Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. THE TITLE CAME FROM AIRPLANE SALT AND PEPPER PACKETS.
By the time The Beatles took a three-month vacation in the latter part of 1966, they were all tired of being The Beatles. McCartney and tour manager/assistant Mal Evans ruminated on this problem as the two traveled together, ending their international adventures in Kenya. On their flight back to London, McCartney was developing an alter ego for the band for their next record.

“Me and Mal often bantered words about, which led to the rumor that he thought of the name Sergeant Pepper,” McCartney explained to author Barry Miles about how he came up with the name. “But I think it would be much more likely that it was me saying, ‘Think of names.’ We were having our meal and they had those little packets marked ‘S’ and ‘P.’ Mal said, ‘What’s that mean? Oh, salt and pepper.’ We had a joke about that. So I said, ‘Sergeant Pepper,’ just to vary it, ‘Sergeant Pepper, salt and pepper,’ an aural pun, not mishearing him but just playing with the words.” McCartney then added “Lonely Hearts Club” to “Sergeant Pepper,” and figured it would be a “crazy enough” band name, “because why would a Lonely Hearts Club have a band?”

5. RINGO REFUSED TO SING ONE LYRIC.
The song originally began with the hypothetical, “What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and throw tomatoes at me?” Starr remembered what happened years earlier when fans constantly threw jelly babies on stage, after Harrison mentioned that he liked them. The drummer worried he would just be asking for it and take tomatoes to the face and other parts of his body for the rest of his life, and informed Lennon and McCartney there was”not a chance in hell” he was going to sing the line as written.

8. “SHE’S LEAVING HOME” WAS WRITTEN ABOUT A TEEN WHO REALLY RAN AWAY FROM HOME, AND HAD MET THE BEATLES YEARS EARLIER.
McCartney wrote “She’s Leaving Home” after reading in the local newspaper about 17-year-old Melanie Coe, who went missing without her car, checkbook, or any spare clothes. It turned out that Coe was shacked up with a croupier she had met at a nightclub, and ended up coming home 10 days later. What McCartney never realized was that he actually met Coe on October 4, 1963, when she won a miming contest on the TV show Ready Steady Go!. McCartney was the judge.

10 Things You May Not Know About The Monkees

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MeTV presents 10 Things You May Not Know About The Monkees.  Here are three of my favorites…

ONLY PETER TORK AND MICKY DOLENZ APPEAR IN EVERY EPISODE OF THE TV SHOW.
Don’t worry, the other two had good excuses. Davy Jones had to be written out of an episode so he could attend his sister’s wedding. Michael Nesmith missed three shoots due to a tonsillectomy, the birth of his son Jonathan and a family trip to Texas.

PAUL WILLIAMS AND STEPHEN STILLS AUDITIONED TO BE MONKEES.
More than 400 young actors and musicians auditioned for the four roles. Stephen Stills and Paul Williams were among those who did not make the cut, as were Danny Hutton (of Three Dog Night) and Harry Nilsson. The original idea was to cast an existing act, specifically the Lovin’ Spoonful. Both Stills and Spoonful frontman John Sebastian bristled at the idea of turning over their song publishing rights to the studio. Contrary to urban legend, Charles Manson did not audition.

MICKY DOLENZ AND MICHAEL NESMITH BOTH AUDITIONED TO PLAY THE FONZ ON ‘HAPPY DAYS.’
Hey, hey, we’re the Fonzies / People say we Fonzie around… There is no bigger “What If?” surrounding Happy Days than the potential casting of Arthur Fonzarelli. The creators were keen on Dolenz, and even Henry Winkler thought his chances were slim when he spotted this adorable pop star at an audition. But it came down to inches. Six of them. Dolenz was deemed to be too tall, towering over his costars. Nesmith also auditioned and was considered too tall. The 5′ 6″ Winkler fit the frame perfectly. Aaaaaayyyyy!

15 Facts About “Twister”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Facts About Twister.  Here are three of my favorites…

5. BOTH HELEN HUNT AND JAN DE BONT WALKED AWAY FROM OTHER MOVIES TO WORK ON THIS ONE.
Helen Hunt (Dr. Jo Harding) passed up working with John Travolta in John Woo’s Broken Arrow (1996). After more than six months of pre-production, de Bont left his Godzilla (1998 version) directing gig because of studio feuds over the budget and immediately agreed to direct Twister instead.

9. THE TORNADO SOUNDS ARE MADE UP OF VARIOUS ANIMAL NOISES.
According to Variety, an altered recording of a camel’s moan helped create the storm sounds. It was reported elsewhere that a lion’s growl and a tiger’s snarl were remixed as tornado audio.

14. BILL PAXTON THINKS THEY MADE THE “PEPSI LITE” VERSION OF THE MOVIE.
“I’d love to direct a sequel to that movie,” Paxton said. “I’ve always felt like there was a Jaws version of that movie. I always felt like we did the Pepsi Lite version of that movie.”

14 Up-Tempo Facts About “Saturday Night Fever”

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Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 14 Up-Tempo Facts About Saturday Night Fever.  Here are three of my favorites…

6. IT HAS SOME ROCKY CONNECTIONS.
First connection: It was supposed to be directed by John G. Avildsen, whose previous film was Rocky. Ultimately, that didn’t work out and Avildsen was replaced with John Badham a few weeks before shooting began. Second connection: Tony has a Rocky poster on his bedroom wall. Third connection: Saturday Night Fever’s 1983 sequel, Staying Alive, was directed by … Sylvester Stallone.

8. THE WHITE CASTLE EMPLOYEES WEREN’T ACTING WHEN THEY LOOKED SHOCKED. 
In the brief scene where Tony, his boys, and Stephanie are loudly eating at White Castle, those were the real burger-flippers, not actors. Badham told them to just go about their business. He also told his actors to cut loose and surprise the White Castlers in whatever way they saw fit. The shot that’s in the movie appears to be a reaction to Joey standing on the table and barking, but Badham said it was actually in response to something else: “Double J (actor Paul Pape) pulling his pants down and mooning the entire staff of the White Castle.”

11. THE COMPOSER HAD TO SCRAMBLE TO REPLACE A NIXED SONG.
For Tony and Stephanie’s rehearsal scene about 30 minutes into the movie, Badham had used the song “Lowdown” by Boz Scaggs, going so far as to shoot the scene, including the dialogue, with the song actually playing in the background. (That’s usually a no-no, for exactly the reasons you’re about to read about.) According to Badham, no sooner had they wrapped the scene than Scaggs’ people reached out to say they couldn’t use the song after all, as Scaggs was thinking of pursuing a disco project of his own. Badham now had to have the actors re-dub the dialogue (since the version he’d recorded was tainted by “Lowdown”); what’s more, he had to find a new song that would fit the choreography and tempo of the dancing. Composer David Shire rose to the occasion, writing a piece of instrumental music that met the specifications, and that’s what we hear in the movie.

18 Catchy Facts About “Footloose”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 18 Catchy Facts About Footloose.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. IT WAS BASED ON ELMORE CITY, OKLAHOMA.
Elmore City had forbidden public dancing by law since its founding. In January of 1979, the local high schoolers asked that the rules be changed so that they could have a prom, to the anger of the reverend from the United Pentecostal Church. The kids won and got to dance on prom night. Dean Pitchford (lyricist for Fame songs “Red Light”, “Fame”, and “I Sing The Body Electric”) read about all of it and visited the town. Pitchford had his screenplay after 22 drafts.

2. TOM CRUISE ALMOST PLAYED REN.
The producers wanted Tom Cruise, but he had a scheduling conflict with All the Right Moves(1983). Rob Lowe auditioned and blew out his ACL. “I have post-traumatic stress with anything having to do with Footloose,” Lowe said later, while recalling a party where Kenny Loggins asked him to do a karaoke duet of the theme song. “I was like, ‘I won’t do anything with that damn movie, but I’ll do Danger Zone from Top Gun.’”

4. MADONNA AUDITIONED FOR ARIEL.
Had she gotten the part, it would have been her first feature film role. That didn’t come until 1985, in A Certain Sacrifice. Lori Singer got to play Ariel Moore instead.