STANLEY DONEN, director of MGM musicals and comedies

well, Donen was a decade younger than Wise and 7+ younger than Fleischer; he started at MGM when he was 19.

right, i make that point ("slightly older directors") but he began directing at roughly the same time, late '40s and their careers all extended into the 1980s.

right. I kinda glided over that, sorry. Didn't he date Elizabeth Taylor at one point? I'm sure he moved in fab circles.

i've never heard that taylor story, though i wouldn't doubt it.

as someone in a long-term non-married relationship his multi-decade partnership w/ elaine may is very moving.

i remember as of maybe 15 years ago donen was making noise about wanting to direct another film but that never came to pass.

i rewatched to for the road and basically liked it, although everything is a little bit too on the nose for me, including finney's stentorian performance.

eleanor bron and bill daniels make a very inventively annoying couple though i can see some people running for the exits b/c of it.

*two

he directed some of May's theatre work since the late '90s.

did he do much theatre in general?

Started there as a chorus boy; infamous '90s Broadway flop of The Red Shoes.

https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/the-red-shoes-4591

To be clear, you're saying you were a chorus boy in The Red Shoes?

We regret to inform you that tonight Dr. Morbius has taken ill and will not be able to perform his role as a chorus boy in The Red Shoes.

Rewatched Bedazzled last night, still one of the saucier '60s comedies and the only pure movie expression of the Cook-Moore sensibility. Main flaws are the first couple "wish" sketches are OK rather than hilarious, but all the Pete-Dudley scenes have zip, and the guilt-ridden love scene in the car between Dud and Eleanor Bron is a scream, as is Cook playing the "saintly" cuckold. And then, of course, there are the B&W dueling pop stars -- "LOVE ME!" "I don't care" -- and the Leaping Order of Beryllians.

In the trailer, Donen is trumpeted only for his recent hits, Charade, Arabesque, and Two for the Road, I guess so no one went in expecting MGM numbers. Cook does work in a Seven Brides for Seven Brothers reference.

"You fill me with inertia..."

I wonder if they had anyone particular in mind with that parody...

have you seen the remake with Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley?

When it came out I did. It wasn't a disgrace, and Fraser was good, but y'know, so-so. Harold Ramis does an interview on the DVD of the Donen original; obv a big Cook-Moore fan.

Me too, I barely remember any of it. Bizarre that Fraser had a career as a leading man, however brief. I need to revisit Monkeybone.

I love the original Bedazzled.

Fraser has a couple of funny bits in the remake, but the original is so obviously a Pete & Dud vehicle that you wonder why they bothered at all. And I remember being deeply unimpressed with Hurley's comic chops.

"You fill me with inertia."

I was gonna cite this line.

i had forgotten P&D kept going as a team up til Moore's breakthrough to solo stardom. They hosted SNL in '76.

The first Derek & Clive record didn’t come out until ‘76.

dont think ive ever heard em

Me neither. Only read about.

See how much of this you can stand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI8cVdbP73c

absolutely do not attempt that

(the first Derek & Clive LP, which is just a bunch of different tapes of them riffing for themselves, rather than a dedicated session of edgelording for an audience that wanted to hear them being "offensive", is good)

What about the legendary crunchy frog bit?

^ the part where Derek falls through the bar is funny

do you mean The Frog & Peach, Redd? They did that on SNL.

Shame we don't have a Cook-Moore thread. Not much Donen content here.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Indiscreet is a real drag in the first half, picks up a little when the worm turns

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

fn hate singing in the rain, gene kelly is such a sleazeball

the dancing tho

I'd like to object to the age gap between Audrey and Fred in Funny Face, or the script's cheap shots at Beats and philosophy, but I don't (much). Think pink.

Like Silk Stockings the age gap undermines the credibility of the romance but i'm not watching those films for their realism so the casting just functions as another expression of artificiality i.e. yeah it doesn't bother me, i'm watching for the expressive aspects anyway

i mean, he's the only Astaire they had.

You think maybe it would have been better with Adele?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVC6nvXTt6s

Nowadays a Hollywood lead in his late 50s would look about half the age Astaire looks in those movies

coulda Benjamin Buttoned him

most pro-union musical?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w4mVycaC_o

I wondered during the first 30 minutes of Two for the Road why i had found it so irritating 20+ years ago... then in the last 80 minutes i remembered why. It def has one of the more charming Audrey H performances, and Albert Finney is prickly and tumbledown, but there are way too many cutesy "matched cuts," Eleanor Bron and William Daniels (both normally delightful) are around about twice too long, and while there are some funny lines it lapses into becoming a Statement on Marriage. It's very pretty of course.

haven’t rewatched so still on your first impression