This Kos diarist calls columnist Bob Herbert a liar. Why? Because Herbert wrote that, in 1968, ""The Sound of Music" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie" were hit movies, both starring Julie Andrews." Writer Bill in Portland Maine considers this claim a mistake, because The Sound of Music was actually released in 1965.
Kids...! They think that the film business was always as it is now.
In those days, major movies were released on a "roadshow" basis. They opened in big theaters in big cities, often in 70mm prints with six-track magnetic sound. We're talking maybe forty theaters in the entire country. Ticket prices were high. In Los Angeles, SoM opened at the Fox Wilshire in Beverly Hills, the city's best 70mm venue. I passed by the place a few months ago; they don't show films there anymore.
A roadshow movie would play out its run in premier locations, as families were expected to travel 20, 30, 70 miles to see a "big event" picture. (Gas was cheap.) Such films were never supported by television ads, which were considered gauche.
SoM made $150 million dollars, the equivalent of a cool billion in today's coin. The roadshow run lasted a long, long time. Years.
By the time the film finally hit the "nabes" -- the crummy neighborhood theaters running scratched-up 35 mm monophonic prints -- the year was 1969. That's when my Mom dragged my brother and me to a double bill of The Sound of Music and With Six You Get Eggroll at the wonderfully scummy Reseda theater -- the same place where I was usually dropped off to catch the latest Hammer gore-fest. (Moms back then had little idea of what those Hammer films were like; kids got a real eye-full.) The Reseda, which can be glimpsed at the beginning of Boogie Nights, is also no longer used as a movie house.
I suppose that confluence -- Dracula Has Risen From the Grave one week, Sound of Music the next -- is one reason why I've always felt that there was a touch of old Vlad in Christopher Plummer's performance. And Christopher Lee, who was desperate for quality roles with actual lines of dialogue, probably would have preferred to play Captain Von Trapp.
Ah, childhood memories! Forgive my indulgences.
Bob Herbert stands vindicated -- although I don't think that Thoroughly Modern Millie (which I've never seen) was a terribly popular film.
PS: Today, DHRFTG looks kind of creaky. But in 1969, I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
9 comments:
Also, back then new movies opened on Wednesdays, not Fridays like now. After malls sprouted everywhere in the late 1960s, Jerry Lewis Cinemas provided tiny screens but included the new Surround Shopping feature.
I actually first saw SOM in a packed Radio City Music Hall, when I was a little kid--and since I was born in 1968, that suggests SOM was still packing premiere venues for at least five years after its debut.
emptywheel
emptywheel, I suspect you saw the film in 1972. That's when it had a major reissue.
Hello!
I've gotten a few comments like yours today. Since I was intending to make myself look like a fool harping on trivial things (while giving Richard Cohen a free pass---barf), I'd say I double succeeded.
Although Bob Herbert did make a rather big boo-boo, I've learned. He said that MLK was shot and killed on April 3. It was actually April 4.
Can we start this day over?
Cheers! Bill
It's sooo weird that in our society it's okay to admit to seeing The Sound of Music but if you say you smoked pot or dropped acid you're disqualified from everything involving responsibility.
Thoroughly Modern Millie was actually Universal's highest grossing film at the time. For some reason, Millie has received the reputation of being a flop, but it was not.
I remember the "Sound of Music" stayed put in our then "big" cinema (in Hamden, CT) until "Millie" played there. When "Star!" (also with Julie Andrews) opened at the same cinema, the marquee read "The Home Of Julie Andrews Movies." Sadly, "Star!" was a flop and so ended Julie's reign.
So cynical, H. The film has its virtues.
The cinematography and editing are superb. The opening on Mount Untersberg and environs is actually pretty trippy if you see the film in 70mm on a massive curved screen. (Even a big-screen TV gives you no clue as to the visual impact it originally had.) Charmian Carr was actually pretty hot, especially for anyone who ever had fantasies of ravishing a virgin. The Laendler scene is downright charming, although the dance is not performed according to Austrian tradition. (Incidentally, Mahler wrote the best Laendler ever: Symphony 1, movement 2.) It was nice to see Marni Nixon get some screen time. And...
(Dare I say this? Dare I take the risk of forevermore destroying my carefully cultivated characterization as a captious curmudgeonly cur? Yes. I dare!)
... Julie Andrews had a phenomenal voice.
I think the lasting appeal of the film had to do with a collective cultural fantasy of what family life SHOULD be like. And rarely is.
anon, thanks for the information about "Millie." I may have to catch it one of these days, although I'd be too embarrassed to rent a movie like that.
It isn't cynicism, Joseph, not even close. It's unrequited love for Julie's Guenevere (I refused to see the Camelot movie.) If that show came out next year (with Julie, Bobby, and Richard) it would still be hip, witty, and breathtaking. Last week I watched an old clip of Julie singing the Vera Lynn classic, "We'll Meet Again" (telling Dick van Dyke what life was like during the London Blitz), and I choked up. In my (personal) Eclectic Pantheon there's Julie, Emmylou, Janis, Nina, and Kiri, but I need a sixth crown for Gladys.
Plummer was better as Oedipus (another family values flick he made around the same time), and great as Nabokov doing his famous Cornell U lecture on Kafka's "The Metamorphosis". You'd think seeing him as Macbeth with Glenda Jackson would give anyone bragging rights, but I walked out (and we had great seats!)
Would you call Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" cynical? Sometimes I think it is, sometimes sarcastic, but always terrifyingly ironic. Like whenever (for 40 years) Louis played "When You're Smiling".
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