Surprise, we had a tie in the shorts category! As my way of making up for the lack of reviews this year, here’s a little Christmas bonus for you all.
Last year we said goodbye to a giant in the field of animation, the one and only Richard Williams. In honor of his memory, I added some of his work to the Shelf, including this, a retelling of A Christmas Carol produced by fellow legend Chuck Jones with animation by Abe Levitow, Ken Harris, Grim Natwick and Richard Purdum among others. Adding to this auspicious company is Allistair Sim and Michael Hordern returning to voice Scrooge and Marley twenty years after playing them in the iconic 1951 film adaptation; it’s not Christmas in my household until I watch it with my father, the tree glowing in the corner as we huddle together in the dark in front of the TV, so hearing these voices again is a special treat.
Of course, since this is a Richard Williams’ production, there was no shortage of drama behind the scenes. Williams was a man who expected nothing less than perfection from his employees, and his stringent standards nearly proved to be his downfall (not for the last time either, if you know what happened to The Thief and the Cobbler). Work fell so behind schedule that the animators were forced to pull 7-day 14-hour workweeks with unpaid overtime, and the final product still wasn’t ready until one hour before the deadline! The results, however, speak for themselves. This is a beautifully crafted feature. Though Williams and crew had to resort to some rotoscoping to finish the job, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where they did.
This short was originally made for television, but the high praise it received emboldened ABC to distribute it theatrically. It would go on to be nominated for and win the Oscar for Best Animated Short the following year. This also gives it the distinct honor of being the only version of A Christmas Carol to win an Academy Award. Imagine, 200+ versions of the same story made over a period of nearly a hundred years yet only one gets that kind of recognition! Members of the Academy chafed at the idea that a short first shown on television took home the gold, and would quickly change the rules so that any future works that premiered on TV would not qualify for a nomination.
Despite its accolades and the high-profile names attached, Richard Williams’ Christmas Carol is surprisingly hard to find on home video. The version I watched for this review came from Youtube via TheThiefArchive, where you can find all things related to Williams uploaded for posterity.
So, classic story, some of the greatest animators of the twentieth century, all brought together by a man whom I consider the definitive Mad Genius of animation. What’s the worst that could happen?
Happy 30th anniversary to the incredible fantasy that I’ve praised multiple times before, Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen! I was shocked to see it not come up on the movie anniversary sign-up list for MovieBabble and immediately set out to rectify that.
If you haven’t seen it before or need a reminder as to why it’s a film that deserves more recognition, click HERE to read my article on it. Also, please enjoy this fan-made trailer I made a while back. For glory, adventure, and the defiance of reality!
Book Adaptation Tag banner created by Madame Writer. Image found at her blog.
It’s National Reading Month, so why not share some of my thoughts on book-to-film adaptations? 18 Cinema Lane did a fun book related tag in her blog (go check it out, she’s got some good reviews on there), so I decided to give it a try too. Just so we’re clear, these are all my own opinions, and if you disagree with me you’re not in the wrong. Let’s get started!
1. What is the last book adaptation you saw?
Gone With The Wind. Classic movie with great acting and gorgeous visuals, but that racism and nostalgia for pre-Civil War Old South is almost unbearably cringy.
2. What book movie are you most excited for?
Good Omens. Yes I know it’s a miniseries and not a movie but I love me some Neil Gaiman and I adore the casting. Plus, if you binge watch it, it’s basically a long movie with credits between each part! Doesn’t that count for something?
3. Which upcoming book movie will you definitely NOT see?
If it’s got Nicholas Sparks’ name in the title, it’s not getting my money.
4. Which book movie would you NEVER watch again?
Ella Enchanted. They took one of my favorite books and completely wrecked it in order to make a watered-down Shrek clone. Not even Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy botched their own plot and characters this badly (yeah, I said it, come at me). The only good thing to come from this movie is Anne Hathaway’s cover of Somebody to Love, and thankfully you can listen to that on its own without having to watch this stinker.
5. Is there a movie you saw that made you want to read the book, if you hadn’t yet?
Coraline, and The Last Unicorn. Both are proof that you can make successful animated adaptations of classic stories. I also caught bits of Can You Ever Forgive me on the flight home from Argentina and now I want to read the book it’s based on as well.
6. Conversely, is there a movie that made you never want to read the book?
A controversial one, but the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’ve said it before in my Unexpected Journey review but Tolkien’s writing in The Hobbit focuses way too hard on the minutiae of world building that it gets dull pretty quickly. Peter Jackson’s movies on the other hand are so well made that I never want to relive the stories with a heaping dose of doorstopper exposition and superfluous characters attached (lookin’ at you, Tom Bombadil).
7. Name an adaptation that has almost nothing to do with the book it’s supposedly based on.
Most any adaptation of The Jungle Book I found has little do to with Rudyard Kipling’s novel. The 2016 Jon Favreau one was closer in spirit than the ones what came before it, but it was still a loose remake of the animated one.
8. Have you ever left the theater during a movie adaptation because it was so bad?
No, I normally don’t leave the theater during a movie.
9. Do you prefer to watch the movie first or read the book first?
Depends on the book/movie, I suppose. It usually comes down to whether or not I want to make comparisons as I’m watching the movie or if I just want to sit back and enjoy it. Or if I have time to read the book in the first place.
10. How do you feel about movie adaptations that age characters up? (ex. characters that are in middle-school, but in the movies they’re all 18)
Annoyed, because it shows the studio doesn’t have faith in the younger demographic and want to pander to the safer, older crowd. Do they really believe they can’t get good actors who haven’t hit puberty yet? Granted they are hard to come by, but it’s not impossible.
11. Do you get angry when the actors don’t look like how you thought the characters should have looked?
Not really, no, unless they try to make them too pretty. Heaven forbid we get some diversity in our features!
12. Is there a movie you liked better than its book?
If it’s Disney and it’s based on a fairytale, you can bet that I probably like it more than its literary origins (with the exception of Frozen, but the sequel looks like it’s headed towards a good place).
13. Name a book that you would love to see as a movie.
I’ve got a shortlist, but here goes:
Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews (yes, THAT Julie Andrews)
The Palace of Laughter by Jon Berkeley
Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George
Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Can you tell I’ve got a thing for fantasy?
Have you ever participated in a tag? What are your thoughts on book adaptations? Let me know in the comments! I promise the Fantasia review will be up by next week, see you then!
“When You Wish Upon A Star
Makes No Difference Who You Are Anything Your Heart Desires
Will Come To You…”
In my last review, I compared Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Star Wars; a blockbuster that captivated audiences, revolutionized filmmaking, and was an all-around fun adventure with a likable cast. Well if Snow White is Disney’s Star Wars – before Disney owned Lucasfilm, I mean – then Pinocchio is undoubtedly Disney’s Empire Strikes Back: refined visuals, more complex storytelling and characters, and much, MUCH darker.
The success of Snow White marked the beginning of big things for Disney animation. The sizable influx of cash meant Walt could build a bigger studio, hire more staff, and give his projects a noticeably larger budget. The question is, where to go from here? What movie could possibly follow the fairest one of all? Investors were clamoring for a sequel and the idea was toyed with for a time, but Walt was not a one-trick pony. Then animator Norm Ferguson brought a copy of Carlo Collodi’s Le avventuri di Pinocchio to Walt’s attention. Walt and a few of his key guys had attended a performance of Yasha Frank’s successful staging of Pinocchio prior to Snow White’s release and noted the story had possibilities for adaptation – plenty of spectacle, cute comic relief critters, etc. Seeing that book sparked Walt’s memory; after reading it, he intended to make Pinocchio his third animated venture behind the upcoming Bambi. But when that movie ran into production troubles, Pinocchio was bumped up to its place. Does it measure up to Snow White, though? Let’s find out.
As the song goes, “Let’s start from the very beginning, a very good place to start…”
In September of 1938, Georg and Maria von Trapp, who, along with their seven children, made up the talented singing group The Von Trapp Family Singers, emigrated from Austria to America to escape the growing hostility of Hitler’s early years in power. Their story was made into a film in 1956, “The Trapp Family”, which was seen by Broadway director Vincent J. Donehue. He thought it would be the perfect vehicle for his actress friend Mary Martin and brought on Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, aka Rodgers and Hammerstein, aka the songwriting team known for “South Pacific” and “The King and I” among others, to write a couple of songs for it. Eventually R&H ended up turning the play with music into a full-out musical, and in the process created one of the most iconic and beloved shows to date. The original production won five out of its nine nominated Tonys, many of its songs have become vocal standards, and it’s enjoyed countless revivals on Broadway and the high school theater circuit (I myself was in my school’s production; despite the fact I had a good chance of playing Liesl I got the role of the housekeeper because the director liked to play favorites when casting).
Naturally the show’s success meant a film adaptation was inevitable, and much of the show’s original creative team was on board. Cancer had other plans, however, and it sadly took the life of Oscar Hammerstein shortly after the original theatrical production premiered, leaving Rodgers to re-work the music and write new songs on his own. Despite losing half of Rodgers and Hammerstein, there wasn’t much difficulty in getting the film made apart from coaxing Robert Wise – who had already directed the Oscar-winning adaptation of West Side Story and was the first choice to direct this movie – to sign on. Another first choice to play Maria was Julie Andrews, who screenwriter Ernest Lehman clamored to join immediately after seeing her in Mary Poppins. A much harder actor to get was Christopher Plummer for the role of Captain Von Trapp; he eventually agreed but only if he could work with Lehman to improve the character. Normally when an actor does this it rarely turns out well (and Plummer later admitted that he was quite arrogant at the time due to his successful stage career), but I think Plummer’s enhancements were a major improvement to Captain Von Trapp, and I’ll get into why later.
The Sound of Music is often cited by critics and theater fans in general as one of the greatest musicals of all time, and arguably the best stage-to-screen adaptations to date – and they’re not wrong. As someone who’s been in the stage version, I personally think the movie is even better (and that’s not bitterness towards the director talking). The musical numbers are iconic to the point of being parodied countless times AND most revivals of the show go out of their way to incorporate elements from the film rather than follow the show’s original book. The Hollywood Bowl in California has a sing-along with the movie every year that always sells out, Austria has a popular tour route that visits locations where the film was shot, it’s been shown annually on ABC during the holidays since 1976, and it has the unusual distinction of being Seth McFarlane’s favorite movie (then again, looking at how many times he’s referenced it on his shows, it’s no big surprise. I swear he hosted the Oscars just so he could make this joke when introducing Christopher Plummer).
So after all that buildup, how does the film hold up? Let’s find out.
We open on a version of the 20th Century Fox logo without the traditional fanfare. Sounds weird, huh? It’s hard to imagine it without the music that always accompanies it, but it leads into the film in a way that took Robert Wise a lot of convincing on his part to accomplish, and pays off brilliantly. The film truly begins on a montage of the Austrian countryside, starting through the clouds and flying over the mountains. I remember hating this part as a kid because there was no music and it felt like it dragged on forever. It was something I never truly appreciated until I was older, however. Slowly the film draws us into its world, showing us the majesty and making us anticipate the Also, thanks to the magic of blu-ray, we can hear the orchestra starting up in places like snatches of birdsong on the wind, all leading up to the film’s most iconic shot – in one long take, we pull in on a vast green hill, where a tiny lone figure climbs up and spins in rapture as we draw closer.
And the opening song…my words can do no justice. Enjoy.
Everything from the visuals to Julie Andrew’s beautiful voice makes it one of the greatest film openings of all time. I admit, it’s hard for me not to get a little choked up seeing it.
The sound of church bells calls Maria away and after returning for her discarded habit, she runs to the abbey. After the opening credits, we see the nuns in the abbey performing mass, and regardless of whether or not you’re religious in any capacity, this whole scene is beautifully shot. It gives you the idea of how these nuns live, showing their devotion to God through their solemnity.
After the mass, Mother Abbess (Peggy Wood) is approached by one of the sisters who is searching for Maria. Mother Abess recommends searching somewhere unusual since Maria herself is “unusual”. This leads into her and the rest of the nuns, Sister Margaretta, Berthe and Sophia (Anna Lee, Portia Nelson and Marni Nixon respectively) discussing the situation that is Maria – she is a novice hoping to take her vows, but she has a youthful enthusiasm and playfulness that is impossible to tame. Sisters Margaretta and Sophia find her antics amusing, but Sister Berte finds her immature and out of place in the abbey. The others are split, and they sing about her transgressions – her lateness for everything except supper, her honest penance but (gasp!) singing in the abbey – in “How Do You Solve a Problem Like a Maria”, a tune that’s impossible to get out of your head once you hear it. As if to prove their point, Maria herself interrupts the number by running in to wash up and sneak into the chapel, only to realize she’s been caught and skulks off.
Also, if I may, I’d like to give a shout-out to Marni Nixon. You’ve probably heard her sing in a lot of other classic musicals but have never seen her face – this is because she was hired to dub over the singing for some of the actresses. Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Deborah Kerr in The King And I, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady are all guilty of “stealing” her voice.
Robert Wise liked Miss Nixon enough to recognize that she could act as well as sing, and gave her a role in the film. It’s nice that after a long time of singing behind the scenes, she was able to finally do so onscreen.
