Well, dear readers, I did, in fact, have me a ME day yesterday, a rather uneventful day filled with unevents. Not a single event was in view, although several uns were. I only got about six hours of sleep, but I think that was because I slept three hours prior to going to bed. Once up, I did answer e-mails because one simply must, I did make a quick Gelson’s run so I could make two tuna sandwiches on onion rolls, I did come back and immediately make said tuna sandwiches on onion rolls and I did eat them all up. They were fine – perhaps a bit too much onion, but still fine. I did have a couple of telephonic conversations, but mostly I listened to Drat! The Cat!, wrote down a few ideas that came to me, especially about the overture and what that involves. It’s quite a decent recording, but I certainly can hear things I don’t care for in the mix. Such is life. I better get through these here notes a lot quicker, for she of the Evil Eye will be here all too soon and I would like to get a good night’s beauty sleep. I did watch a motion picture last night that I’d never seen before, Paddy Chayefsky’s Middle of the Night, starring Fredric March, Kim Novak, a young Lee Grant, Martin Balsam, and others, directed by Delbert Mann. It began life, like several other Chayefsky films, as a live TV drama back in 1954 – that starred E.G. Marshall and Eva Marie Saint. Then he made it into a play, and that starred Edward G. Robinson and Gena Rowlands. Martin Balsam and several others also ended up in the film version. Interestingly, the live TV version was directed by Delbert Mann, but Joshua Logan directed it on Broadway. It had a national tour, too, with Edward G. Robinson doing his role opposite Mona Freeman, the actress I was so taken with in I Was a Shoplifter, who later became a painter. Also in the cast was Martin Landau. It played the Biltmore Theater here, and wouldn’t it have been cherce if I could have been taken to the theater back then? The movie itself isn’t great, and, for me, the problem is Kim Novak, who isn’t quite up to the role – one can only imagine what Eva Marie Saint or Gena Rowlands or Mona Freeman would have been like. Make no mistake, I like Miss Novak a lot, but here she seems to be pushing really hard and it doesn’t quite work. Fredric March is excellent – he’s playing a fifty-three-year-old, but he looks more like he’s in his mid-sixties. He was, in fact, sixty-one when he shot the film. It’s a May/December thing but with hardly any humor at all, which is odd because in reviews of the play on Broadway and tour all mention hilarious bits that seem to have been either rethought or have been excised. I did enjoy it, though, and the sparse score was wonderful, by George Bassman, who didn’t do many films, but did do a favorite film of mine, Ride the High Country. I don’t think the movie has ever come out on Blu-ray.
After that, I just relaxed and here we are.
Today, I’ll be up by eight and out the door by eight-thirty. I’ll go have some breakfast, I’ll do banking, I’ll do a return at Macy’s and then I’ll come back home in fine fettle. I hope to remain in fine fettle as I do whatever needs doing and get ready to start our Drat! The Cat! journey.
Tomorrow, I’m meeting our choreography at eleven-thirty to go over stuff and then we have our first music rehearsal and I’m very much looking forward to our meet and greet, my usual spiel, and then hearing the cast. That will continue on Wednesday night and Thursday night. Friday I’m off, and then Saturday we have a four-hour staging rehearsal for our two leads.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eight and out the door by eight-thirty, I must have breakfast, I must bank, I must do a Macy’s return, and then I must come home in fine fettle, after which I’ll get ready for our Drat! The Cat! journey. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite performances of Mr. Fredric March, Kim Novak, and Martin Balsam? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I shall awaken in fine fettle.