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Post by rick on Jul 3, 2018 14:26:46 GMT -5
From the website Talkin Broadway. It says the release date is July 3.
Pirates of PenzanceThe Pirates of Penzance Blu-ray
(Universal - new blu-ray)
1983 film adaptation of Joe Papp / Broadway production of the Gilbert & Sullivan comic opera. Cast includes Kevin Kline, Angela Lansbury, Linda Ronstadt, George Rose, Rex Smith, Tony Azito. Directed by Wilford Leach.
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Post by erik on Jul 3, 2018 19:06:26 GMT -5
Probably a cliché to say it at this point, but...I hope there are plenty of extras. I thought the film itself was a very worthy and successful experiment, to do a film version of a Broadway production of an English opera (only Universal's decision to release it to theaters and pay-per-view cable TV on the same day kept it from finding an audience); and it deserves as much of a respectful treatment as is humanly possible (IMHO).
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Post by Tony on Jul 4, 2018 2:36:56 GMT -5
I went to the talkinbroadway.com website and placed a pre-order from Amazon. They said release date was if I recall correctly August 11. This is one of my lesser favorite Ronstadt projects, but I will buy it anyway. I do hope they have some interesting extras.
Next we can look forward to the 40th anniversary release of Llving in the USA, and I certainly hope we get a deluxe 50-year reissue of Hand Sown Home Grown. (Some anniversary releases have gotten out of hand.. I saw a 2-year anniversary DVD of Deadpool.)
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Post by fabtastique on Jul 4, 2018 6:31:20 GMT -5
love POP, can't wait for this .... hope its region free as its so annoying copying with regions still in this day and age!
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Post by fabtastique on Aug 12, 2018 1:29:24 GMT -5
this seems to have disappeared from Amazon - you can't order / preorder it?
did anyone who preordered get any notification? .... according to Blu-ray.com it is released on 14 August but that is a posting from June still. has it been dropped?
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Post by rick on Aug 12, 2018 14:46:38 GMT -5
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Post by sliderocker on Aug 12, 2018 15:36:58 GMT -5
It will be difficult and painful for me, but I won't be one buying the movie. It was a dull and lifeless movie, even with Linda in it. It may have worked as a Broadway stage play but I didn't live in New York City to see it from that perspective. The movie version just didn't work for me. I believe appearing in movies would've been better for Linda to have done rather than Broadway, though she disagreed with that idea. But, appearing on Broadway did prove Linda could've been an actress if she had put her mind to it. POP just wasn't an ideal start or finish.
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Post by rick on Aug 12, 2018 15:59:44 GMT -5
Slide, I count myself fortunate to have seen Linda in “Pirates” on Broadway. It was a very well-directed production and Kevin Kline was fantastic as The Pirate King and George Rose was “the very model of a modern Major General.” I say this as someone who loves Linda’s work very much, but she was rather stiff as an “actress” in the stage version, IMHO. However, Wilford Leach hid a lot of that with the style he used from the Victorian era for Mabel and her sisters. I am glad the film exists. She does some glorious singing and she looks so beautiful. Mabel, in my opinion, was a part that suited her. We’ve all pretty much heard Linda tell the story of Jerry Brown answering the phone while Linda was in the shower and later telling her that The Public Theatre’s Joseph Papp wanted her for a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” and Linda got excited. She might not have been as interested if Papp had asked her to play Miss Hannigan in “Annie.” I think we’re lucky it was a light opera that lured her onto a stage.
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Post by sliderocker on Aug 12, 2018 16:48:13 GMT -5
Slide, I count myself fortunate to have seen Linda in “Pirates” on Broadway. It was a very well-directed production and Kevin Kline was fantastic as The Pirate King and George Rose was “the very model of a modern Major General.” I say this as someone who loves Linda’s work very much, but she was rather stiff as an “actress” in the stage version, IMHO. However, Wilford Leach hid a lot of that with the style he used from the Victorian era for Mabel and her sisters. I am glad the film exists. She does some glorious singing and she looks so beautiful. Mabel, in my opinion, was a part that suited her. We’ve all pretty much heard Linda tell the story of Jerry Brown answering the phone while Linda was in the shower and later telling her that The Public Theatre’s Joseph Papp wanted her for a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” and Linda got excited. She might not have been as interested if Papp had asked her to play Miss Hannigan in “Annie.” I think we’re lucky it was a light opera that lured her onto a stage. Linda, being a novice, whether on stage or on film would've accounted for her being somewhat stiff. I believe she would've more relaxed as she got comfortable. Watch Elvis in "Love Me Tender." He was stiff in places, overacted in other parts of the movie (especially the parts when he was supposed to be angry) and relaxed sometimes. It was his beginning and one can blame the director for Elvis' acting in the movie. Elvis received assistance and encouragement from his co-stars, but the director should've put Elvis at ease. When you watch him in the movies that followed, Elvis was far more relaxed and comfortable, which owed to the directors he had, especially Norman Taurog, who took a liking to Elvis and was skilled in working with young actors. Linda probably would've benefitted from having a director used to working with a novice. Directors can be intimidating as can the other actors who know what they are supposed to do. With Linda, I think she may have also went in with some very preconceived ideas and discovered it wasn't as easy a process as she thought. That's where it would've helped for her to have a director who was used to working with beginners, and perhaps why it would've been better for her to have gone the movie route rather than the stage route to work out the stiffness and nervousness and get more comfortable. |
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Post by erik on Aug 12, 2018 17:06:26 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker re. Linda's film experience:
And in my opinion, Linda would also probably have done pretty well working with a director whose reputation she knew very well, like, say, Steven Spielberg, a director known for making cast and crew feel at ease on the set. He's something of a perfectionist, but he knows how to get what he wants without doing more than five or six takes on any given shot.
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Post by sliderocker on Aug 12, 2018 21:58:43 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker re. Linda's film experience: And in my opinion, Linda would also probably have done pretty well working with a director whose reputation she knew very well, like, say, Steven Spielberg, a director known for making cast and crew feel at ease on the set. He's something of a perfectionist, but he knows how to get what he wants without doing more than five or six takes on any given shot. I agree with that assessment, but I also think had she had a movie career, and it had started when she was still in her early 20s, it probably would've been easier getting used to what she needed to do. She had already worked in TV and it wasn't that much difference between a TV show (even if it was a variety or talk show) and a movie. As a singer, she was good with remembering the words to a song. And although she dismissed it, saying she was never interested in a movie career, I can't help but feel maybe it was something not pursued by her various managers or if they ever inquired as to whether she'd care to do a movie. Managers have to be creative people with their artists, and they have to be involved and invested in their client's career. The manager who does virtually nothing for his or her commission is a manager not worth having, regardless of whether they are getting 10% of their client's earnings or a quarter, a third, half. Getting her to agree to a movie or two to give her experience and see if it was something she wanted to pursue or to get her music included in movies only could've helped with her music, which back in those days wasn't earning her a lot of money. |
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Post by the Scribe on Aug 12, 2018 22:46:00 GMT -5
I don't think Linda ever wanted a movie career. The only possible way to get talked into one is if it was predominantly a musical with hers a musical part. Her on stage performances were pretty good though (in Pirates) and she could have done it but she has stated it was not her preference or expertise. If I remember correctly she said it would be a very boring career.
I would have loved it had she been in the rumored films; Grease, Jesus Christ Superstar, Bell Star and Ragtime. Don't know if there ever were offers for sure but it would have been a nice movie career albeit short. If George Lucas couldn't get her in a movie no one could've.
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Post by fabtastique on Aug 13, 2018 0:53:14 GMT -5
It will be difficult and painful for me, but I won't be one buying the movie. It was a dull and lifeless movie, even with Linda in it. It may have worked as a Broadway stage play but I didn't live in New York City to see it from that perspective. The movie version just didn't work for me. I believe appearing in movies would've been better for Linda to have done rather than Broadway, though she disagreed with that idea. But, appearing on Broadway did prove Linda could've been an actress if she had put her mind to it. POP just wasn't an ideal start or finish. I really don’t think this movie is dull a lifeless at all - its a fun, musical romp with a great deal of enjoyment. I wish Linda had pursued more acting projects, apparently plenty were offered but she declined. POP was a project during the most musically diverse period of her career that she was passionate about, and I am grateful it was recorded for posterity.  |
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Post by Partridge on Aug 13, 2018 1:35:39 GMT -5
I no longer have a concrete ship date and it appears Amazon is not taking new orders. However, my pre-order has not been canceled.
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Post by fabtastique on Aug 13, 2018 3:19:57 GMT -5
hmmm strange - if you search for Pirates of Penzance bluray it does not come up on amazon.com any longer, which makes me suspect the 14 August supposed release date is not correct. but lets see - bluray.com note that it is region locked to USA which is so annoying these days .... I am going to have to fork out $200 to get my DVD player chipped now!
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Post by PoP80 on Aug 13, 2018 7:31:59 GMT -5
I agree with you 100% about the movie. I saw the show hundreds of times between the Delacorte Theatre and Broadway and never got tired of it, but I can't bear to watch the movie. It lost all it's flavor and liveliness in this lackluster film and you can't appreciate the quality of the production. I would much rather watch the poor quality, amateur version filmed live at the Delacorte that I purchased on Amazon any day.
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Post by sliderocker on Aug 13, 2018 22:19:40 GMT -5
I don't think Linda ever wanted a movie career. The only possible way to get talked into one is if it was predominantly a musical with hers a musical part. Her on stage performances were pretty good though (in Pirates) and she could have done it but she has stated it was not her preference or expertise. If I remember correctly she said it would be a very boring career.
I would have loved it had she been in the rumored films; Grease, Jesus Christ Superstar, Bell Star and Ragtime. Don't know if there ever were offers for sure but it would have been a nice movie career albeit short. If George Lucas couldn't get her in a movie no one could've. Probably not, yet I can't help but feel no one asked her if she'd be interested in appearing in a movie. Now, what I mean by that is that in the early days, her first manager didn't seem to have a clue as to what to do with Linda. If a movie producer was interested in Linda, would he have asked Linda before turning down such a project? One can only look at Linda's hit records between 1967 and 1970 to see her first manager didn't have a clue at all when it came to making her a success. "Different Drum" was the first hit and should've had the momentum going for it that made the next record a hit, and the next record a hit after the second 45 was a hit. Instead the momentum was lost. I frequently blame Capitol but her manager bears some of the blame for the lost momentum. And much as I like John Boylan and the fact he's managing Linda again and is there for her, but in the early 70s, the lost momentum was continuing. I don't know how long he had been managing before he took on Linda, but it couldn't have been too long working as a manager. The hit records again proved to be very elusive, which is not conducive to an artist being kept on with the record company. As mentioned, managers have to be very creative people, if they are going to make an artist or actor or any entertainer a success. When it came to movies, if Linda had agreed to appear in the movies, I think the Elvis kind of movie would've been her forte. Since she had no desire that we know of, she might've been agreeable to have appeared in a few movies, just to see what it was like. She might have discovered it wasn't as bad as she feared and if she had fun making a few movies just to see what it was like, she might have been more agreeable to keep doing them. She was photogenic, and had a face a camera could love. But, again, maybe producers approached her managers and they turned them down without consulting Linda. It's like those who said Elvis never wrote a song. No one ever asked him if he could write. Sam Phillips didn't ask. Parker never asked and never wanted Elvis to write his own songs. Producers Chet Atkins and Steve Sholes never asked. They assumed he couldn't or worse, assumed his musical skill was minimal. Had someone just asked to write some of his songs, it's possible he would have and could have done just such a thing. But, no one asked, and it's hard to believe Linda, as beautiful as she was in her 20s and older, was never sought after by movie studios to make movies. It seems more like the opposite would've been true. And maybe Linda's denying she was ever interested may have been from thinking no one had asked. How sad would it be if that was not the case at all? |
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Post by erik on Aug 13, 2018 23:46:13 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
I believe Boylan started managing Linda starting either in late 1969 or early 1970, while having managed Rick Nelson when he made his comeback in country-rock in 1969. And context is important here: Like Rick, and Poco, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Linda was working in a field that almost no record company, Capitol included, thought there was actually a market for at the time: the mixing of country instrumentation, vocal harmonies, and twang into a rock setting. I don't think it had to do with any supposed ineptness on either Boylan's, Linda's, or Capitol's part, because I don't think there was any on either side. Linda was just a few years ahead of her audience.
And as her former Corvettes sideman Chris Darrow has said, Linda really doesn't get a whole lot of credit (if any) for the growth of country-rock in the early 1970s.
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Post by rumba on Aug 14, 2018 2:11:07 GMT -5
I agree with you 100% about the movie. I saw the show hundreds of times between the Delacorte Theatre and Broadway and never got tired of it, but I can't bear to watch the movie. It lost all it's flavor and liveliness in this lackluster film and you can't appreciate the quality of the production. I would much rather watch the poor quality, amateur version filmed live at the Delacorte that I purchased on Amazon any day. Yes that video of the stage show is far superior to the movie which is flat and lifeless. The stage video has much better energy and exuberance. |
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Post by Guest NYC on Aug 14, 2018 14:14:56 GMT -5
Nothing will touch those days and nights in Central Park, summer of 1980. RONSTADT and Pirates were the talk of the Town. (I remember one show with Jerry Brown, Lauren Bacall and Paul Newman and Joanne W, Quincy Jones in the audience behind us). While she certainly performed as an ensemble member - she was the draw - and lived at the Majestic with her Akida hounds. Everyday there was coverage in the papers and on the news. We were young, the Pirates were gay and the audiences were usually overjoyed. Very great memories.
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Post by the Scribe on Aug 14, 2018 16:24:20 GMT -5
Nothing will touch those days and nights in Central Park, summer of 1980. RONSTADT and Pirates were the talk of the Town. (I remember one show with Jerry Brown, Lauren Bacall and Paul Newman and Joanne W, Quincy Jones in the audience behind us). While she certainly performed as an ensemble member - she was the draw - and lived at the Majestic with her Akida hounds. Everyday there was coverage in the papers and on the news. We were young, the Pirates were gay and the audiences were usually overjoyed. Very great memories.
Guest and anyone else. If you have any specific memories to share about your experiences there or what you observed please share before you go to get that big Pirates Booty in the Sky. I am sure many will enjoy your stories of the time, even personal ones. I recall someone here saying they were outside of the theatre waiting for Linda and the crew to arrive or leave when a woman commented to him "I wish I could sing like that!" And that woman happened to be Leslie Gore, the late great pop singer. Stuff like that is magical to us fans. |
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Post by PoP80 on Aug 15, 2018 7:38:34 GMT -5
It certainly was a magical time in NYC! I have lost count as to how many times I saw Pirates that summer, but somehow I found myself on line in the Park waiting for tickets several times a week. I remember seeing many celebrities there, too. The best part for me outside of the show was that Linda wore the roller-skate keychain that I gave her. She was little less wary of fans then, because it was before John Lennon was shot. She was actually living at Hayden House at that time--not The Majestic. We used to see Linda and some of the cast members hanging out at The Museum Cafe on CPW & 77th Street after the show.
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Post by rick on Aug 21, 2018 21:45:47 GMT -5
According to the Talkin’ Broadway website, the Blu-Ray of “Pirates” is now listed as “Available” on Amazon.
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Post by Tony on Aug 21, 2018 22:36:32 GMT -5
Yes, my new estimated delivery date is Sept 10
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Post by fabtastique on Aug 22, 2018 0:26:27 GMT -5
Good news but wonder why so long for shipping?
Still not available in UK either but will take risk and order it .... and see if it plays!
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Post by fabtastique on Sept 15, 2018 0:58:10 GMT -5
me again - did anyone get this? I am currently not working and so holding off on buying this just now due to cost of item and shipping to UK but would be interested to hear any comments / thoughts on the Blu-ray !
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Post by Partridge on Sept 15, 2018 2:23:54 GMT -5
Perfect picture and sound. No special features. I was going to check to see if it had a region code, but I seem to have already misplaced it.
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Post by Partridge on Aug 22, 2019 23:07:19 GMT -5
Here is a link to download an auditory gem you probably don't have. This is from the Pirates of Penzance motion picture soundtrack, not the Broadway cast album. I think Linda's vocal is stronger here, and Rex Smith's as well. This is Rex Smith singing Is There Not One Maiden Breast, leading into Linda singing Poor Wandering One. What do you think? download Poor Wandering One- ultimate version |
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Post by PoP80 on Dec 23, 2019 8:32:58 GMT -5
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ted
A Number and a Name
Posts: 11
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Post by ted on Jun 11, 2020 12:11:30 GMT -5
First time poster here! What I remember when the POP came out was the controversy because it was available for pay for view at the same time it was going to have it's theatre release. So there was a lot of pushback from the theatre chains which perceived that as a threat back in the day. Still remember the Linda and the cast performing numbers live on Saturday Night Live.
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