Do You Want Butter On Your Popcorn?

There's an awful lot of piracy going on in the country, right now. It's everywhere. It's a craze and it has swept the nation. Why, just yesterday Rachel and I happened upon PIRATES OF PENZANCE on cable--isn't that random? There have been any number of pictures like that on tv lately. I am, breathlessly, anticipating THE PIRATE MOVIE, next!!

I blame Johnny Depp.

I attended the midnight showing of the second PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, the night before the film was to open. I was in Texas and I took my 16 year old neice and my kid brother because they were so jazzed to see the picture. I never saw the first movie but I own the dvd. Pat saw it and loved it. I always intended to see it. I wish I had, before going to this new one. You see, I didn't like it. I thought I was going to a PIRATE movie and what I got was a ghost story filled with cartoon like ghosts that were computer generated and looked like creatures from STAR WARS...the prequels. I didn't have a good time. But the audience did! There were people who came in pirate costumes and that was fun enough for me. I liked looking at them as they entered and as they left the theater. I love that kind of enthusiasm from people--about anything that has a positive nature to it. I don't blame them for wanting to be pirates. I wanted to be one when I was a kid.

My first real pirate movie was SWASHBUCKLER. It starred the wonderful Robert Shaw, James Earl Jones and Genevieve Bujold. I must saw, now, that Robert Shaw is really the most unlikely of pirates. When you look at the men who have played pirates over the years, he is not remotely dashing and heart-throbbing enough. He was such a great actor, though, that it did (and still does, for me) work. I became with buckle and swash and attempted (at 12) to be as dashing as the pirates in the film; no easy task for a pre-teenager living in Portugal and going to a private school where the uniforms inluded neckties in blue, green and yellow...

Over the years I have had many opportunities to see pirate movies but, until last night, I had never seen what is considered, by many, to be the ultimate pirate movie, CAPTAIN BLOOD. Oh, I have adored Errol Flynn in movies like ROBIN HOOD and THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE but I never saw THE SEAHAWK or the film I just mentioned. As a lad I would sit for hours and gaze at the photos of Mr Flynn in my movie star books, a collection of coffee table photo books that I started when I was 11 and of which I have always (still am) been proud. I wanted to be and to have Errol Flynn. He was the ultimate in dreamy. Still is. Even if it is just a second rate Errol Flynn in the person of Jude Law in the movie THE AVIATOR--Errol Flynn is Errol Flynn. Dashing, devastating and dreamy.

The FILM FORUM here in Manhattan is doing a month called SUMMER SWASHBUCKLERS. They are showing pirate movies (and the like) every night. Some nights they are doing good old fashioned double features. It is difficult for me to sit through a movie that is longer than 90 minutes because I tend to have a lot of work that is crying out to me to be done, because I tend to have a short attention span and because I tend to fall asleep when left in the dark for any period of time (insomnia will do that to you). When Pat sent me the schedule of movies at the film forum, though, and asked me if I wanted to do the month long festival, I began planning afternoon naps. Inside of me, somewhere, is a thirteen year old who still wants to be Red Ned Lynch, Mack the Black and Captain Vallo, and I wasn't about to let the child within miss out on a month of living vicariously through the flickering lights of a darkened art house cinema. There is an adult me, too, who wants to devour every great and non great film that is out there to be seen. And, let's face it, don't we all miss the days of our youth and the great invention that WAS the double feature??!!

CAPTAIN BLOOD was the second movie on our double bill last night and I didn't doze once, even though I am, currently, averaging 2 hours of sleep every night, even though the heat lately has left me compromised, even though I had sat through two hours of another movie. There he was, on the big screen, the great Errol Flynn, those straight white teeth blazing down off of the canvas and those flowing, glowing locks of hair. Sigh. And then, there SHE was, those lips, those eyes! Sigh. Is there any more lovely sight than a smiling Olivia De Havilland with an enormous white hat covered in white plumes? Every time she rolled onto the screen I sighed. And roll, she did; whether Miss Bishop was riding in a carraige, side saddle astride a horse or walking, the glided across the screen. There was so much satin in every gown she wore that I was fearful for the rest of the movies made in Hollywood that year. The chemistry between she and Flynn, between Arabella Bishop and Peter Blood--ok, can we say this?--it just doesn't exist on film anymore!!! There is no point, no need for me to write any detail about the film--it's all there in the Hollywood history books on the shelves of stores, it's on the internet at movie based websites and it is in the hearts and memories of everyone who has seen CAPTAIN BLOOD. what I can say is how grateful I am that I live in a city where cinemas like THE FILM FORUM exist and that Pat and I would rather do exciting and mundane things like going to revival films, rather than drone along with the rest of the country, watching re runs of Larry The Cable Guy on tv while eating microwave popcorn. It's such a simple thing, going to the movies--but what do we have these days? Huge multi-plexes that are all showing the same six movies on all their screens. Three of the movies showing this week, I have seen. The other three I wouldn't go to unless I were in need of a nap (which, indeed, I am). What heaven it is to have the chance to re-visit and re-discover those incredible foundation building films that made Hollywood and the movie industry what it is. Thank God for the chances I have had to see, on the big screen, THE WIZARD OF OZ, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, BALL OF FIRE, MY FAIR LADY, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA....

I'm glad I never saw CAPTAIN BLOOD before. Can you imagine having your first exposure to the greates pirate movie ever made be on a television screen? I'll never stop squinting from the brilliance of his teeth and her satin. Heaven!! Pure heaven.

Now for the really disgusting confession. I never read the book THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL. I admit it--I am a bit of a literary snob. I read. I have read. These days I don't have much time but I do read. I am proud of the fact, always have been. I do shake my head when I think about the fact that this country is under-read and that people would rather watch COPS than pick up a copy of HUCKLEBERRY FINN. But here I am, card carrying literary geek, and I never read THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL. I never saw the movie either. Not the movie with Leslie Howard, not the movie with Anthony Andrews. I even discovered online that there was a miniseries done a few years ago with Richard E. Grant and Elizabeth McGovern--two of my favourites! (I did, in fact, search high and low for a photo, to no avail!) I shall have to track down a copy. I LOVE Richard Grant. I bet he is wonderful in the role!

No. My sole exposure to THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL was the Frank Wildhorn Broadway musical.

I heard that.

I heard the groans from people reading this. I even heard one or two people push back their chair and leave their computer.

Frank Wildhorn is a dichotomy. He writes succesful Broadway musicals and he has legions...let me say it again, more distinctly...LEGIONS of fans who put money in his pocket by returning, time and time again, to his shows. I cannot think of one Wildhorn show that has been (a complete) artistic success. PIMPERNEL was, pretty much, ravaged by the critics. I remember the headlines, many of which simply called the show THE SCARLET PIMPLE. The score was considered puerile, unsophisticated, even boring. The staging was called sophomoric and some of the acting came under attack. There was much derision surrounding the play when it opened on Broadway. I didn't care. I was going to see the great and luminous Christine Andreas, whom I have loved since 1982. I didn't know what the play was about and I didn't care. All I cared was that I was, finally, going to see Christine Andreas live. YeeHaw.

The play was very colourful. Christine Andreas was thrilling--as beautiful to look at and as beautiful to listen to sing as ever. Doug Sills, SO handsome. Doug Sills, where did that voice come from? Where does a person get that? The songs? To tell the truth, I have some songs from this cd in my Ipod and I listen to them. I like Vivez, When I Look At You, Where's the Girl?, Only Love, She Was There (ok, when Doug Sills sings this song it is flesh tingling), You Are My Home (it may not really fit but it is so lovely and Gilles Chiasson has such a lovely voice) and I LOVE The Riddle and StoryBook. LOVE them. That's a pretty good track record--eight songs in one score.

The problems with the play THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL, for my money, were as follows:
--Bad direction. Oy. So many scenes with people just standing in lines across the stage. During The Riddle, wouldn't it have been better to have the entire cast waltzing, changing partners, trying to find the person whom they can trust and the person who is their enemy? Why were they all standing in a line? Ech.
--Bad book. Sorry, Nan Knighton. I know, now, that the book was not good. After seeing the play I couldn't tell you the details of the storyline. Bad sign.
--Miscasting. Oh. Sorry. Didn't mean to say that. Miscasting. I love Doug Sills, I really do. But last night I saw the movie THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL and this is what I figured out (aside from the storyline, which I, now, know): it doesn't matter how talented Doug Sills is, or that he can sing like a God or an angel. Lord Blakeny has to be a slight of a man, efete and (for lack of a better word) wimpy in order for the shock of his being the Pimpernel to be effective. Doug Sills is a HUNK. He is gorgeous and has a big strapping body and appears to be a corn fed Iowa boy with a voice of purest platinum. That's not the pimpernel. And speaking of Iowa. Lord Blakeny is a blue blood. He has a quiet grace, an elegance, a sophistication that simply EXISTS in his merely being alive. Doug Sills has the appearance of being someone who could pull a tractor. He is far to masculine and muscular to be this character--the juxtaposition of the man and the myth don't work with this actor, no matter how delightfully talented he is. When Blakeny smiles, people should sneer over his smarmy aristocracy. When Doug Sills smiles, people swoon.

So I saw THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL on Broadway and I put the songs in my Ipod and I listen to them and thrill at the voices and recall, vividly, how sublime Christine Andreas was. That was PIMPERNEL for me, until last night. In fact, when Pat told me the double bill was CAPTAIN BLOOD and SCARLET PIMPERNEL, I rolled my eyes, wondering how I would get through PIMPERNEL.

WELL. It was no hard deal getting through it!! I was on the edge of my seat the entire time! I got (and followed) the story! I was always worried someone was going to get caught. I was invested! I couldn't breathe and my heart was pounding and I was laughing and cheering that foppish, impossibly tall and skinny POOF and waiting for the next moment he would say something witty while doing something dashing!! I NOW KNOW ABOUT THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL!!! I am in the know!!

Leslie Howard--perfection. I must see more of his films (funny, isn't it to see a double bill that had one movie with Ashley Wilkes and another with Melanie Hamilton Wilkes, eh?). Leslie Howard had some DAMN comic timing, let me tell you! And in spite of his intelligence and sophistication--no, BECAUSE of it--his Pimpernel was all the more dashing.

Merle Oberon. Ok. WHAT is THAT?! I have always known WHO Merle Oberon was because people have said, throughout my life, that my mother resembled (and, to that end, me too) Miss Oberon. But I have to admit my only Merle Oberon movie has been HOTEL (No, I haven't seen WUTHERING HEIGHTS--something that will be corrected, shortly, I guarantee it). THIS woman is a GODDESS!! What a face! And what acting! She understood about film acting of this era--when it was not only acceptable but required that one actually ACT, rather than be, as it is now. I am in love, in love, in love. I think it is wonderful that the women who have played Marguerite St Just should be women I happen to ADORE. I already said that I love Christine Andreas (and though I did not go back to see PIMPERNEL on Broadway when there were cast changes--the other Marguerites were Rachel York and the great Carolee Carmello--both of whom I revere). Have always loved Elizabeth McGovern, have always loved Jane Seymour, have always loved Merle Oberon's face and now I love her talent. I love new and wonderful discoveries.

And speaking of discoveries.... Can you imagine if I had gone my entire life without getting to know Baroness Orczy's story and characters? Can you imagine if I had gone my entire life without getting to see the glory of this fabulous old black and white melodrama? That's the thing about the movie--there really wasn't a lot of buckle and swash. It all happened offscreen. It was a psychological thriller and I was breathess the entire time. That, regretfully, did not happen to me in the Broadway theater while watching THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL.

Damn.

I deserved it. So did every other audience member; especially the ones who went in there knowing what they were SUPPOSED to see.

I don't want to criticize the play into oblivion. I don't want to focus on the disappointment; I want to accentuate the positive, as the saying goes. So today I am going to get out my copy of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (YES! I own the book and have never read it!!) and start reading and I am going to go online and see if I can find, for purchase, the films with Anthony Andrews and with Richard Grant and I am going to get out my Frank Wildhorn PIMPERNEL cd and listen to it.

I am going to take every opportunity I can, during the next few days and weeks, and fall in love with The Pimpernel and Lord Blakeney (and of course Lady Blakeney) over and over.

Naturally, there may be distractions, since tonight we are seeing PRISONER OF ZENDA with Ronald Coleman and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. on a double bill with THE MARK OF ZORRA with Tyrone Power.

Maybe I will even take out time to find out who Captain Jack Sparrow is by watching the FIRST Pirates of the Caribbean....

Please note that I did not take the photo(s) shown in this piece.