Friday, June 15, 2007
Fade, Faded, Fading
(Picture from Flicklives.com, a treasure trove of all things Jean Shephard-ia)Jean Shephard, my generation's S.J. Perelman, was a cracking-wise maestro of the wordy set. Where Mr. Perelman offered an almost imperceptible vertical lift of the eyebrow as his "tell" that something wickedly funny was coming your way, Mr. Shephard opened his eye wide and winked with a perceptible click of his closing lid. His talent for both the written and the spoken word was huge. He was most generous in distributing his gifts.
In 1982, on public tv, his Travels on I-95, was required watching for a high school/college student in need of tutoring in the Art of the Gab. The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters was particularly outstanding. It came out on tv (Channel 13 in NYC) a year before this well-known little movie that could (and did). The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski was also one of the short movies (56 minutes) shown in the Jean Shephard I-95 series. All of these films were based on the clutter of his books. Story lines in his various collection of short stories were lifted and randomly place in front of the cameras. Blessed with a blowhard voice of shuck 'n' awe, he was a natural on radio and later on TV and the big screen. To some of us growing up within earshot of his radio broadcasts, his voice became our inner voice. Our silent self-proclamations took on the timbre of his mid-West voice along with the truckloads of words Jean revived from the depths of dictionaries. His ability to roll a fine word in his mouth, sucking, tonguing it like a fine old wine held our envious attention. "If only I could talk like Jean Shephard..... why, no woman of a pro-creative age would be safe from my charms (and advances)!", we said to no one particular but ourselves in his voice.
The Travels on I-95 series has been on my mind lately. I would have thought that the local PBS station, WHYY, heavy into its fund-raising programming, would have re-broadcast these tales of the road at some point. But the station is in lock-step into playing older rock groups from our youth. You know, Yes, Moody Blues, even Cream. Even Mr. Leitch made it onto the small screen recently, emoting his old songs, hoping to hit our memory's ear and bypassing the criticism of our outer ear. It was sad and brutal.
Which brings me back to The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters. Fond memories of this short TV amalgamation of Shephard's stories prompted a search on the 'net for bygones obtention. Lo and behold Cindys Boots had versions available. The DVD's rating was plainly visible as B,, which was explained as
"B = VERY GOOD QUALITY; ONE OR TWO GENERATIONS REMOVED BUT STILL ENJOYABLE.. The next category was C,
described as "C = FAIR QUALITY; SEVERAL GENERATIONS REMOVED AND A BIT FUZZY."
I'd say the DVD I played was a B- or C+, bit Vaseline-y if you know what I mean. The important thing was that I was able to view my memory again, or so I thought.
The sharpness in my mind's eye was too much for the dullness of the DVD. Had I puffed up the greatness of this 1 hour movie to a size totally out of proportion to the lackadaisical, overly lit, lamely acted (in general), directionless story line that I was now watching? Was the gigantic sound and tone of Jean Shephard's background voice too much for even accomplished actors like James Broderick and Matt Dillon to ply their craft successfully? Why did they mainly just make faces and then hold them in some unnatural state while Mr. Shephard piled on declarations and realizations into every scene? Luckily, great Shephard-ian names like Ludlow Kissel, Flick, Wilbur Duckworth, and Wanda Hickey had stayed the same from the version of my youth. But, sadly, that aspect of the film was the only thing that hadn't faded. Was it my absolute adoration at the time of Mr. Shephard's suburban boulevardier's style and verbal cojones that blinded me to the schleppiness of how the movie was rendered? I believe so. While attending the Church of Cool, I'd been blinded by the Word and robbed of reasoning powers. Now, inured to the magic and craft of film, I saw what a horrible and, even worse, minimally funny movie The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters was. Oh, Jean, how did you let that happen? Like Ludlow Kissel, this movie's now just fading away, a memory hopefully not to be resucitated again.
Labels: Movies, Only in America
Comments:
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Yes, CP, that is so true, even if that home is Jersey.
Noticed that you took two sentences, 10 words, what took me multiple paragraphs and links. Bloviation at its best. Poke that hog of verbosity!
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Noticed that you took two sentences, 10 words, what took me multiple paragraphs and links. Bloviation at its best. Poke that hog of verbosity!
<< Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands
