Does the voice on the airport PA in this song sound like somebody to you? It sure does to me. When this song came out, in 1967, he was about a year away from being hired as one of the writers on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
And here he is, on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
Scoptione video jukeboxes originated in France. Wait. France? Petula Clark was a star in France before she came to America. Duh! But of course.
http://youtu.be/ymc9hRcOJTg
Sometimes I amaze myself with how slow on the uptake I am. Have I always been this dense? I met Petula. I sat with her and we chatted for a few minutes. I could have asked about her Scopitone movies. But, no. I was clueless.
I love-ah, love-ah, love-ah everything about this fun, kitschy, and sexy music video! It’s from 1966, five years after Calendar Girl was on the charts. The 16mm film was made to be played on Scopitone machines. You’ll find some background on the short-lived Scopitone video jukeboxes at this link.
With 1966 belonging to the youth market, this film was obviously intended for an older audience — specifically, drunk men in bars! If I’d been one of them, I would have gone through a roll of quarters for this one selection. It’s both a throwback and very much of its time. The pinup girl calendar paintings by Gil Elvgren and other great artists were on the way out by then, and Playboy had taken over.
The virtues of the song are apparent, thanks to the way the film complements the recording. Sedaka is enjoying himself, and he’s suitably goofy compared to the charming girls. There are Sixties mod dresses, Vegas showgirl costumes, and bikinis. Every step and gesture is choreographed, the set is simple yet quite clever, and I like the way the girls are framed as they make each of their entrances. Note how everything changes to keep up visual interest, even the color of the piano. For such a limited production it’s a work of art. Most important of all, of course, are the four lovely ladies.
The Scopitone company went bankrupt only a few years later, so the chance there might be documents to be found somewhere is probably next to zilch. Debbie Reynolds lost money investing in Scopitone, and she reportedly doesn’t like to discuss the project. Neil Sedaka would probably be the best source for information, but if anybody has interviewed him about his Scopitone appearance I haven’t found it.
Follow-up: NPR did a feature on Scopitone five years ago.
1968 had a sound all its own.
The Beatles’ album Let it Be starts with John Lennon introducing I Dig a Pony with, “I dig a pygmy, by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids…”
[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Sep/CharlesHawtrey.mp3|titles=Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids]I assume “deaf aids” is wordplay on “hearing aids,” but have you ever wondered about the Charles Hawtrey reference? Hawtrey was an English comic actor, and in this video clip, from the movie Carry on, Constable, he’s the cross-dressing cop wearing glasses. At the end of the clip you’ll see Robin Ray, who played the TV studio floor manager in A Hard Day’s Night.
Hawtrey makes the BBC’s Paul O’Grady seem butch! Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams were regulars in the “Carry On” series of low-brow British comedy films. I’d known about the series for a long time, but I had never seen any of the installments until last night, when Turner Classic Movies showed four of them (Carry on, Teacher is particularly good fun). Williams was also gay, as if you couldn’t tell, but he had a more studied style of acting that bore a striking similarity to Jeremy Brett.
I haven’t written anything for a week, which is a rather sorry lead-in to today, being five years since I started this weblog. Five years was the time between the Beatles coming to America and the Let It Be rooftop concert. This past week I’ve been reading and running and thinking and ripping CD’s in WMA lossless format, to be played on the super-sounding Logitech Touch. This screenshot is from the free Windows application that works with the free Logitech music server software.
Here’s a photo Rolling Stone magazine posted that really knocks me out, man.
There’s George Harrison, in his Beatle suit, September 1963 (possibly early October), at the height of Beatlemania in England, but he was in New York, unknown and anonymous! I wonder if anybody who saw George that day at the Empire State Building recognized him 4-5 months later when the Beatles arrived in New York?
