February 11, 2010
Can Burt come home to my house?
A
fannetastic new item has been posted over at the Experience
page, you simply must check it out! This is an interview from early 1975,
and I will confess that I feigned illness at middle school in order to
come home early to catch it on TV and record it on my audiocassette player
(no videos, no DVRs in those days, chickens). The only thing I've had from
this show all of these years is a pathetic audiocassette version, so it's
truly grand to be able to SEE it again! Annie looks fabulous.
Interesting item of which I know nothing -- if any of you can fill me in about this documentary and how to get my paws on it, do let me know.
The documentary Hello Actors Studio has interview clips about how Anne Bancroft could rehearse any scene a director chose for a given day. She’d worked on them all on her own. Extensively.
source
This is a sad blog entry, but interesting nevertheless. It shows reaction shots from the ladies who were up for the 1967 Best Actress Oscar and lost. Poor Annie!
Anne Bancroft looked very
sad/disappointed for some reason. She probably knew that after winning
only five years before, they would give it to someone else. Just hold in
those tears for a few more minutes, Annie!
I don't know how AB was feeling in that moment, for you see, I'm still stuck at the Oscars for 1964. I've never disliked Julie Andrews, but these past few years I have come to resent her for this. Put yourself in her place. Would you for a moment have accepted that Oscar? I would be mortified to go on that stage in front of Anne Bancroft and take her award!! Poppins is fun, but there is no depth, no dimension, nothing complicated, especially when compared to the palette Anne used to paint Jo Armitage. Here's what Julie should have said:
"I'm terribly sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but inasmuch as I am flattered to imagine you could want to present me with this wonderful award this evening, I simply cannot accept it, as the performance of Anne Bancroft in The Pumpkin Eater was far superior to anything that was achieved by anyone this year." Are we to give Julie the award for 1964 because we're oh-so-sorry about My Fair Lady? Ask Anne Bancroft about Two For the Seesaw and get back to me.
Also, it stuns me that TPE didn't even get a nom for cinematography or directing! Not even a blink or a nod. I think it was ahead of its time. Back then, I suppose audiences weren't ready for Jake or Harrod's or abortions or Philpot or tea with penguins at the London Zoo. They wanted tea with penguins this way:
(Hey, another similarity with TPE: Bert had trouble keeping his pants on in that scene, very much like Jake Armitage. Hmmmm.....)
Back in 1987, Ronald Harwood was writing a script about Nelson Mandela for television.
[Harwood] is pleased that the subject of apartheid is getting an airing in America. “I remember talking to Anne Bancroft when I was writing my script, and she said: ‘Nelson Mandela? Who’s he?’”
source
Answer to last week's Complete the Line: "The room's a wreck, but her napkin is folded!" OK, that was too easy. Try this one:
"No one knew about Agnes' pregnancy. No one. Not even ________!"
February 3, 2010
Hey, I have your record
How
often do you see a mainstream little piece like this
one? S'wonderful!
Backup links in case the
other one disappears:
Here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
and here.
Last update, I had a mention about a party at Petterino's. This from a fanne named Brandy M. tells us more:
Have you read "A Year With The Producers: One Actor's Exhausting (But Worth It) Journey From Cats to Mel Brooks' Mega-Hit" by Jeffrey Denman? If you haven't, I just wanted to let you know that it has a few Anne mentions. One in particular is on Page 90. Jeffrey talks about a party they had at Petterino's. It seems to be the same occasion that Nathan referenced in that article you just posted. However, Jeffrey states it was a birthday party for Cady, Nathan, and Doug Besterman. Anyway he states:
After the craziness dies down Anne and Mel start to dance. The band starts playing "The Way You Look Tonight," but no one is singing. I go over to the mike and sing it for them. At the end Mel thanks me --- "Thank you, Jeffry Denman"--- grabs the mike from me, and sings "It Had to Be You" to Anne. They finish with a duet to "Sweet Georgia Brown" (their bit from To Be or Not To Be). I turn to the waiter next to me and say, "You don't see this very often, do you?" Everyone in the room knows that we are watching something very special.
I thought that was very cute! What a moment!
Answer to trivia
question from last time:
Anne as Mrs. Kennsinger in Malice... what's in her pocket?
Answer: the Jack of Clubs!
Now it's time to Complete
the Line (I won't even tell you which film):
"The room's a wreck, but _________________________."
Today's photo courtesy of Wide World Photos.
January 13, 2010
Harrod's, of all places!
Happy
New Year, fannes! A big shout-out to that adorable destroyer of computers,
the Alureon virus, for frying my hard drive with the help of about 2 dozen
other viruses, thus keeping me away from my cherished website for months.
I think all is well now.
Some hopeful news here. I noticed that The Pumpkin Eater was made available on DVD in England this past October. Jody and I then saw this week that it had become available at Netflix for Instant Viewing. The funny thing is, we were enjoying so very much the ability to spy on Jo and Jake (and Philpot) for a day or two with just the click of a mouse... then today, Netflix has taken it away! I refuse to lose faith, however, and am certain that this fannetastic film will be released on DVD in the United States in my lifetime.
Lucky British fannes may
get theirs "despatched from Guernsey" here.
"Watching The
Pumpkin Eater, you wonder if the silver screen was ever graced with
another face as beautiful — and as beautifully pained — as Anne
Bancroft’s. The whole story of a dissolving marriage is played out on
her porcelain skin; her regal, glacial features reflect every indignity a
philandering husband can inflict on a wife."
When legends gather....here.
There's a blog that mentioned in passing that Anne withdrew from the film Niagara (1953) before Marilyn Monroe took the role. Is there any truth to this? I have never heard this before.
Nathan Lane, recalling wonderful times in 2001:
For Nathan Lane, the first weeks of 2001 in Chicago was the happiest of times. The out-of-town tryout of Mel Brooks ’ “The Producers ,” which starred Lane and Matthew Broderick as Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, was greeted by cheering Chicagoans right from the first public performance. “In Chicago, they were even laughing at the bad stuff,” Lane recalled over dinner at Petterino’s, his favorite theater-district haunt. “When we got off stage that first time, Matthew and I said to each other, well, it won’t be like that every night. But it was.”
With his beloved (and now deceased) wife Anne Bancroft at his side in Chicago, Brooks was in a similarly ebullient mood. “We had a birthday party for Anne right in this restaurant,” Lane recalled, scanning the crowded room as a wistful expression crossed his face. “And Mel got up on a table and sang ‘Sweet Georgia Brown.’”
source
Trivia for the day: Anne as Mrs. Kennsinger in Malice... what's in her pocket?
A must-click:
Dude, this organza / leopard print / crochet-flower-collared Manoush dress is KILLING me with its overt insanity. I mean, it's like watching someone get a pie to the face, slip on a banana and somehow end up upright, coasting on a skateboard behind a parade float. THAT'S how many things are going on here. It's like Anne Bancroft and Twiggy had a hardcore power struggle and paradoxically both and neither won. And really, how often can you say that?
See the monstrosity here.
Let's go to Mexico:
Habita Monterrey’s exterior is in a sixties mode so much so that you expect to see Jane Fonda, Natalie Wood, Kim Novak, and Anne Bancroft all together chatting, sitting so ladylike once you walk through the door, with their boas thrown so eloquently around their necks.
source
Speaking of The Pumpkin Eater, I found this terrific analysis here you will surely enjoy. Don't read it if you are one of those poor fannes who has not seen the movie yet! (I know that many of you write to me, searching desperately for this film. Keep up the novenas.) It's tricky to read the black-on-blue, so just highlight with your mouse for easier reading. Any time you find a discussion about this film, raves are lavished upon Anne, particularly for the scene in Harrod's. I'm not the only one who believes that this is Anne's best work which should easily have garnered her another Oscar.
As for Julie Andrews... well, bless her heart.
By the way, have you ever seen Scary Mary Poppins?
