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Post by fabtastique on Oct 9, 2013 10:06:23 GMT -5
Reading Linda's memoir recently I felt the need to watch this again .... the movie version. It really is quite delightful, comedic, beautifully sung and exactly as it should be, no pretences. I'm so pleased it was finally released on DVD. The live version is also very good but shame the quality is not better but at least it was captured for posterity. Where is that video of La Boheme hidden/locked away somewhere?
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Post by Tony on May 30, 2015 14:44:35 GMT -5
I found this review of Pirates of Penzance from New York Magazine, August 11, 1980. featuring Linda Ronstadt as off-coloratura.
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Post by fabtastique on May 30, 2015 14:58:35 GMT -5
Kind of harsh .... What a twit!
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Post by erik on May 30, 2015 18:18:14 GMT -5
When you try to do anything different with an established piece like Pirates, reviews like this seem par from the course. But I do agree, this review hit a few inches below the belt.
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Post by Partridge on May 30, 2015 19:51:52 GMT -5
New York Magazine also gave a bad review to the movie version, referring to Linda, as I recall as "plump and pallid." The magazine never really cared for Ronstadt, and never gave her any coverage when she was in the city for concerts and events.
I think I may have a New York article on Jerry Brown and his raising money with rock concerts, but I don't think it is relevant enough to bother posting.
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Post by northshore on May 30, 2015 21:44:58 GMT -5
NY times review sounds pretentious and snobby.
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Post by erik on May 30, 2015 21:53:39 GMT -5
Quote by Partridge:
Apart from John Rockwell, I don't think the New York critics ever gave her much coverage, or for that matter anything remotely resembling a little love. To this very millisecond, I maintain it was that NYC indifference and/or hostility that delayed her RRHOF induction until it no longer mattered, and she could no longer sing. I am absolutely convinced of it.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2015 8:51:54 GMT -5
What a poorly written article, any professor teaching Freshman English would have ripped to to shreds....D Minus
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Post by PoP80 on May 31, 2015 15:22:36 GMT -5
John Simon was notorious for his scathing, mean-spirited reviews, so no big surprise here. Don't get your shorts in a knot--Pirates was a huge hit with mostly positive reviews. As Mabel herself would say…"for shame, for shame, for shame…"
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Post by Guest on Jun 1, 2015 2:28:35 GMT -5
Someone forgot their Preparation H.
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Post by Booker on May 30, 2016 22:54:16 GMT -5
Pretty positive review. I don't know what everyone else read.
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Post by eddiejinnj on May 31, 2016 8:43:23 GMT -5
Booker, we all focusing on the words specifically printed about Linda to my understanding. This was the early performances in the park. This play was a big leap for Linda imo. She is not an actress. She focuses on how authentic she can be in her musical art so that in her case imo it makes acting difficult for her. I am not saying that actors are not authentic people. Just like not all actors can sing or dance etc. Linda did improve much so over time with the play imo. By the time I saw her in Juneish of '81 at the Uris her acting was more fluid and projected her lines. Her singing in that play just was unbelievable live. Nobody can take that from her. The whole movie concept and sets were not good. It was not her that messed that movie up. I mean it is not terrible but transferred to the movies and using very fake though beautiful sets imo made it seem a very simplistic movie including plot wise. A more detailed screenplay was needed allowing for more character development. Since it is an operetta, such in depth character development was not needed as the emphasis was the singing of lines etc in that genre but the movie I thought was going to be done different with "live" sets. That was just my perception/expectations. eddiejinnj
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Post by Guest on May 31, 2016 11:54:02 GMT -5
"Pirates" received almost universal praise including Linda Ronstadt's vocal performance and charm. Anyone who saw it in Central Park knew it was "special" and by the time it hit Broadway the cast was just magical. Mabel requires little acting other than to be wide-eyed and dreamy. Linda aced it and her voice was always gorgeous. John Simon of New York Magazine(not to be confused with the New York Times Magazine) was a notorious crank and misogynist. The same magazine had Pete Hamill's extensive interview and "Love Letter" to Linda. The film was very "stagey" but who the hell cares - so much music with Linda to explore.
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Post by rick on May 31, 2016 13:34:06 GMT -5
John Simon was notorious for being savagely cruel and mean. If any of you are familiar with the Peter Bogdanovich film "What's Up, Doc?" the "Hugh Simon" character played by Kenneth Mars is based on John Simon. John Simon was also Croatian and had a similar accent to the one Mars used in the film. Streisand had been the whipping girl for Simon for years. He often would review her nose instead of the performance. He once wrote: " Oh, for the gift of Rostand's Cyrano to evoke the vastness of that nose alone as it cleaves the giant screen from east to west, bisects it from north to south. It zigzags across our horizon like a bolt of fleshy lightning; it towers like a ziggurat made of meat. The hair is now something like the wig of the fop in a Restoration comedy; the speaking voice continues to sound like Rice Krispies if they could talk." OR " I find Miss Streisand's looks repellent. Perhaps this is my limitation, but I cannot accept a romantic heroine who is both knock-kneed and ankleless (maybe one of those things, but not both!), short-waisted and shapeless, scrag-toothed and with a horse face centering on a nose that looks like Brancusi's Rooster cast in liverwurst. "
and it got worse from there. When Bogdanovich was making the film, and Bogdanovich was adding things to Mars' character of "Hugh Simon," Streisand would encourage Bogdanovich to "make him meaner" because that's how bad John Simon was.
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Post by moe on May 31, 2016 18:40:06 GMT -5
I'm thinking of all the artists we've lost recently,Frey, Haggard, Bowie and Prince to name a few as well as Linda being sick and losing her marvelous voice, all folks who have made a contribution to a better world. Then I think of this Simon mook who is still around at 91. What further proof do need that there is no God?
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Post by moon on May 31, 2016 19:47:45 GMT -5
He is so awefull how could anyone take his reviews seriously.
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Post by travis222 on Sept 17, 2016 12:11:23 GMT -5
Surfing the cable channels this morning, and, wow!!...Pirates of Penzance was playing on the Starz network!!! Of course I recorded it...I cannot recall ever seeing on T V...What a hoot!!! "Poor wandering one................"..LOL
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Post by PoP80 on Sept 17, 2016 15:19:29 GMT -5
The movie has been shown on TV several times over the years. The live version at the Delacorte Theatre and on Broadway was a thousand times better than the movie. Amazon sells a poor quality video of a performance at the Delacorte, but it captures the essence of that wonderful production.
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Post by goldie on Sept 17, 2016 15:59:58 GMT -5
Loved that movie and the way it was tweaked. It was only made better and seems to be the preferred version in many of the high schools that produce it. Mabel is always called the "Linda Ronstadt" part now. Hilarious movie.
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Post by fabtastique on Sept 18, 2016 5:42:59 GMT -5
I love the movie and its cartoon-like set, the Delacorte version is great too - wonderful to have both.
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Post by Partridge on Jun 18, 2018 20:28:49 GMT -5
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Post by fabtastique on Jun 19, 2018 9:52:18 GMT -5
great - thank you Tony. I watched this again for the first time in ages - its surprising good, and shockingly ignored like a lot of Linda's work ....
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Post by erik on Jun 19, 2018 11:25:52 GMT -5
I think one of the reasons that PIRATES OF PENZANCE got ignored had to do with Universal's nonsensical decision to release it to theaters and to pay-per-view cable TV on the same day (February 18, 1983). That's an unusually brainless and thoughtless decision by the boys in the Black Tower (IMHO).
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Post by Tony on Jun 19, 2018 22:59:03 GMT -5
I remember watching that on the premiere night. It started out with a half-hour showing folks arriving for the premiere. Probably have that somewhere on a VHS tape. In that era, the living room was no place to watch a world premiere movie release on our 1:33 ratio screens. In this day and age, this could work with our big high definition sets. In my state of South Carolina, the movie did not play in one theater because they all boycotted it because of the home video being released on the same day. This could hardly be expected to be a big hit anyway-- I agree with the prevailing opinion of 1983- if the studios want to test home theater release schedules, try it with a Star Wars movie-- the theaters won't boycott those. Nowadays the window between movie screen and living room has shrunk so much that it doesn't matter. I have seen several movies get video on demand and theater release on the same day, but never a blockbuster movie.
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 19, 2018 23:51:24 GMT -5
I think one of the reasons that PIRATES OF PENZANCE got ignored had to do with Universal's nonsensical decision to release it to theaters and to pay-per-view cable TV on the same day (February 18, 1983). That's an unusually brainless and thoughtless decision by the boys in the Black Tower (IMHO).
Exactly. That decision basically put the kibosh on Linda's budding film career. It did show up in select theatres after the pay per view thing but few ever heard about it. It was fun to see it with hundreds of others in a theatre. The audience reaction was great. Continuous laughter and it was the first movie I had seen since BillyJack where the audience stood up and cheered it at the end. Made me proud and happy for Linda.
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Post by erik on Jun 20, 2018 9:03:39 GMT -5
Quote by ronstadtfanaz:
Why they did it at all, especially on this film, is particularly bothersome. It needed to find its audience in the movie house first, given its $15 million cost, and the fact that it was not a film that went into any ground that had been plowed over before. The way they did it basically amounted to a form of cinematic cruelty.
As for Linda's budding film career--well, she would have had to have wanted it; and even though she had already made one film appearance in FM (though playing herself isn't exactly the hardest thing in the world to do) and would do Corridos and La Pastorela for PBS and director Luis Valdez, I don't think she really did.
In any case, I think she could have done film work and eased into it had she started somewhat earlier in her career, especially if she had gotten a role in a Western.
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 20, 2018 16:27:33 GMT -5
In the day there was talk she was up to star in a movie about Belle Starr and around that time Ragtime was the other movie she was rumored to star in. Why she would turn down Grease I do not know but she has said she wouldn't be in a movie that wasn't a musical or mostly singing. She once commented (reportedly) that actors are "greasey." I took it to mean flakey which is fairly true. At least they tend to get that way after a while.Pirates Of Penzance Movie Premiere 1983 Actor Kevin Kline, left, arrives at the premier of the film version of "The Pirates of Penzance" with his co-star Linda Ronstadt in New York, Feb. 18, 1983. (AP Photo/G. Paul Burnett) Creation Date: February 18, 1983 12:00:00 AM
Submission Date: October 18, 2012 08:42:15 PM
Photographer: G. Paul Burnett
Source: AP
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Post by Richard W on Jun 21, 2018 9:33:09 GMT -5
Thanks so much, Tony. Nice to have the libretto!
I remember when the film was released and the controversy it -- the release -- caused. The Chicago Reader just about claimed the end of movie theaters and, as I recall, the film wasn't shown in theaters here because no one wanted to lose money booking it. I agree it was a stupid decision on Universal's part, considering the smash it was in Central Park and on Broadway. Granted, that's a limited audience to bank your $15 million film on but really, it's hard to imagine that the film wouldn't find its legs in a general release, especially once word of mouth got out about how much fun it is.
Not having cable at the time (or now!) and not having a theater showing it, I didn't see PoP until several years ago. First thing I thought: this would be smashing on a theater screen with an audience.
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Post by rumba on Jun 21, 2018 16:27:35 GMT -5
I actually think the videoed version of the stage performance in the park is a lot better than the movie.
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Post by erik on Jun 21, 2018 19:21:29 GMT -5
Quote by ronstadtfanaz:
As long as she didn't do too many of those, because doing that kind of thing became a treadmill for one of her childhood heroes in the 1960s, namely Elvis. Linda's advantage, of course, was that her manager was Peter Asher, and not Colonel Tom Parker (natch!).
And of course my idea about her being in a Western is based in part on her background of growing up in that kind of setting, and the fact that dozens of Westerns had been filmed in her neck of the woods, over at Old Tucson Studios.
Quote by Richard W:
It was unusual for the Boys in the Black Tower, to wit Lew Wasserman and Sid Sheinberg (the very same guys who helped a young Jewish kid from Phoenix named Steven Spielberg get his feet through the Hollywood door in 1969), to do something like this; and in my opinion, it should never have been done at all, not to PIRATES, nor to any other film. And given its cost, and the strange phenomenon in Hollywood known as "creative accounting", for PIRATES to have become a box office success, it would have needed to make at least $37.5 million (or two and one-half times what it cost to make). To my knowledge, it barely squeaked by in that department, grossing $40 million and actually being more successful in England (which is Gilbert & Sullivan territory) than here in America.
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