#Charles Strouse

[doyouknowthismusical]

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?

Further notes:

Applause is available for license and the script for purchase through Concord

I don't think the other stage version is available for license yet, but it does seem like there are pro-shoot recordings that are or at least have been available

[thesobsister]

With the recent passing of TV legend Norman Lear, I thought it'd be interesting to spotlight the theme songs for the groundbreaking shows that he created and/or developed: the Bunkerverse, if you will, of All in the Family and its spinoffs Maude (which, itself, spun off Good Times) and The Jeffersons, as well as Sanford and Son and One Day at a Time.

The themes were written by top-shelf artists such as Quincy Jones (Sanford), Dave Grusin/Alan & Marilyn Bergman (Good Times), Lee Adams/Charles Strouse (All in the Family), and Jeff Barry and Ja'Net Dubois (The Jeffersons). And they're some of the most memorable theme songs of the era and of the medium.

[transfemgeorgecostanza]

the opening joke is so corny, so naturally i love it

[mygrowingcollection]

Charles Strouse

[onewordshy]

On Superman: The Ultimate Collection (a compilation of songs from Superman media) there's a really pretty extended instrumental version of "It's Superman" from It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman, and for fun I tried my hand at writing some additional lyrics for the two extra verses.

Did my best to embody the spirit of the original's cheeky wit, full lyrics under the cut. Also, excuse my vocals! I am not a singer! To my credit I did do a key change, just not in the intended direction.

Oh how I wish I weren't in love with Superman A wasted life is all I've got with Superman To hope that it could ever be Is just a school-girl fantasy Oh, is there no one else for me but Superman?

Does he ever hold me? Has be ever told me He could care? Tell me please when will he Learn it's not some silly Fly-by-night affair?

Sometimes I sit and wonder if he's strong enough Not to be a hero, but to be in love To be that one who's always mine As constant as the sun will shine But while I think, my heart is flyin' with Superman

Does he even miss me? Or is he too busy Saving every day How can I pretend when Conversations end with "Up up and away?"

I know that I should find myself another man Someone to give my love to, as I know I can The homey type who'll stay around The kind with both feet on the ground But, 'til he comes, my heart is bound to Superman

[ulrichgebert]

Als wir hier im Theater All About Eve anschauten, schrieb ich, daß ich mir wünschte, es würde mal jemand die Musicalfassung Applause spielen, oder wenigstens das Video restaurieren. Das ist jetzt nicht passiert, aber immerhin hat mal eine freundliche Person eine leidlich ordentliche (zumindest verglichen mit der ganz fürchterlichen, die wir bisher hatten) Kopie der Fernsehverfilmung auf Youtube gestellt. Es ist very 70es, mit herrlich eingängigen und groovigen Melodien von Annie-Komponist Charles Strouse und Lauren Bacall ist natürlich ganz fabelhaft. Wie schon bei Bette Davis hat man allerdings wieder Zweifel dran, daß das Stück mit Eve wirklich besser ist, und noch schöner wäre es wahrscheinlich mit Len Cariou statt seinem Ersatzmann Larry Hagman geworden. Aber wir wollen jetzt mal nicht quengeln, und womöglich restauriert es ja irgendwann doch noch jemand.....

[ring0ding0]

“Pound whisky like a sailor and keep up with me on the dance floor!”

[alteregozowie]

He's singing his heart out, while he finally, finally, cleans up this fucking radio tower. It looks like the apocalypse hit it twice over. Imagine....records, papers, drinks- empty or varying volumes of liquids, trash....everything everywhere.

This might be.....a two day project.

[hellishradio]

Mr Alastor, what are your favourite songs to listen to on not so good days if you have any???

" Ah, I absolutely enjoy listening to " You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile " by Charles Strouse. However if you're looking for a more soothing melody, then " Lush Life " by Billy Strayhorn is a wonderful listen. "

[doyouknowthismusical]

[citizenscreen]

Lee Adams and Charles Strouse’s musical “Bye Bye Birdie”, starring Dick Van Dyke, Chita Rivera, and Dick Gautier, opened at the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway #OnThisDay in 1960.

[muppetydyke]

Muppet Mainstage, April 7th, 2024

“Take Ten Terrific Girls” was written by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams in 1968. The song was performed by Statler (Richard Hunt) and Waldorf (Jim Henson) in season 4, episode 9 of The Muppet Show (1979). The song has several whatnot muppet chorus girls in the background.

[byneddiedingo]

Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967)

Cast: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Denver Pyle, Dub Taylor, Evans Evans, Gene Wilder. Screenplay: David Newman, Robert Benton. Cinematography: Burnett Guffey. Art direction: Dean Tavoularis. Film editing: Dede Allen. Music: Charles Strouse.

Calling a film a landmark, as Bonnie and Clyde so often has been called, does it a disservice in that it prioritizes historical significance over the aesthetic ones. It makes it difficult to appreciate or criticize the movie without recalling what it was like to see and to talk about the first time you saw it -- if, like me, you saw it in a theater when it was first released. It's a landmark because its success showed the Hollywood studios, which were mere surviving remnants of the old movie factories of the '30s and '40s, that there was an audience for something other than the big musicals and epics that had dominated American movies during the 1960s. There was a young audience out there that had grown up with the French New Wave and the great Italian and Japanese films of that decade, and was resistant to piety and platitudes. Along with The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967), Bonnie and Clyde gave this audience something they were looking for, and fed the revolution in filmmaking that made the 1970s one of the most adventurous decades in film history. It's no surprise that the screenwriters, Robert Benton and David Newman, were so familiar with the New Wave that they wanted François Truffaut or Jean-Luc Godard to direct their movie. And even today Warren Beatty, in the opening scenes of Bonnie and Clyde, is bound to remind one of Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless (Godard, 1960). It was a movie that launched the careers of Faye Dunaway and Gene Hackman, not to mention giving Beatty a boost into superstardom. It also put an end to some careers, most notably that of Bosley Crowther, who had been the New York Times's film critic since 1940 but was undone by his vitriolic attack on  Bonnie and Clyde, which he denounced not only in his initial review but also, after protests from the movie's admirers, in two subsequent articles. Crowther was replaced as the Times critic in 1968. On the other hand, Newsweek's critic, Joe Morgenstern, initially panned the film but, after being urged by readers to reconsider, recanted his original critique. So the question persists: Historical significance aside, is Bonnie and Clyde really any good? I'd have to say, after seeing it again for the first time in many years, that it holds up as entertainment. The acting is superb, and Burnett Guffey's cinematography, Dean Tavoularis's art direction, and Theadora van Runkle's costuming all provide a fine 1960s interpretation of 1930s style. Where it falls down for me is in substance: The screenplay, which was worked over by Robert Towne, is too preoccupied with Bonnie and Clyde as lovers with (especially Clyde) some psychosexual hangups. It only feints at demonstrating why the pair became cult figures in the Great Depression, most notably in a scene when Clyde refuses to take the money of a farmer who is in the bank they're robbing, and in a scene in which the wounded couple and C.W. Moss (endearingly played by Michael J. Pollard) stop for help at a bleak migrant camp. Only in scenes like these do we get a sense of the deep background of Depression-era misery, a fuller treatment of which might have elevated the film into greatness, the way Francis Ford Coppola's first two Godfather films  (1972, 1974) turned Mario Puzo's popular novel into an American myth. Otherwise, the criticism that it glamorizes the outlaws by turning them into fashion-model beauties still has some merit.

[stuff-for-your-scroll]

I haven't seen anyone dig up the little-known musical adaptation of Goncharov, so thought I'd share my knowledge on the topic.

After Matteo JWHJ 0715 was kicked off of the set of his passion project partway through filming, he decided that he would produce a stage version of Goncharov where he could have more control and wouldn’t be bound by the Hayes Code. He was so eager to do this that he started putting together a creative team while the film was still in production. He was originally going to approach Howard Sackler about writing a straight play based on the story but after seeing a production of the original run of Follies on Broadway, decided that a musical adaptation would allow him to tap into the inner lives of the characters better. Stephen Sondheim agreed to write the songs for the piece and JWHJ 0715 set to work adapting his script for a stage libretto.

Unfortunately, this project never saw the light of day. When word got back to the production company that JWHJ 0715 had gone behind their backs on this project, the studio took legal action and was ultimately successful in securing the stage rights to Goncharov.

According to an interview in The Sondheim Review (Vol. XI No.2) the adaptation was going to focus on the shifting relationships between Goncharov, Andrey, Mario, Katya, and Sofia, putting the politics on the backburner in order to explore their various romantic entanglements. Sondheim mentioned in a letter to a fan who wrote to ask him about the project that a total of five songs were written for his unfinished Goncharov musical. We know that one was called “Mario’s Lament” but as of now no music or lyrics have surfaced. (if that sheet of legal paper is sitting in your archive somewhere, let me know!) Two of them are entirely unknown and nameless, to the best of my knowledge. The other two, however, saw a second life. While Sondheim rarely used “trunk tunes” he couldn’t let go of two of the numbers written for the original Goncharov musical. “Goodbye For Now” was written to be sung by Katya to Sofia, after realizing that Sofia is a double agent, will have to return to her home country soon, and could be gone and completely out of communication for quite some time. It was later used as the title theme for the 1981 Warren Beatty film Reds.

The final song didn’t have to wait long at all to get its spotlight. After the project was scrapped, Sondheim was already thinking about romantic entanglements and shifting relationships and used that energy to adapt Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night into a Broadway musical called A Little Night Music. And the song that was written for Goncharov to sing during that fatal moment when Andrey betrays him was added to the show during its out of town previews and later became Sondheim’s biggest hit of all time: “Send in the Clowns.”

While Sondheim spoke little of the scrapped project, he was a lifelong movie buff and often included Goncharov while talking about his favorite films.

As for the Goncharov musical, that’s not the end of the story. Now that the studio had paid their legal fees and gone to the trouble of acquiring the stage rights, they decided to use them. They approached Martin Charnin and Charles Strouse to write the music and the project eventually became the 1974 show Signor Goncharov, a fish-out-of-water story that focused on the culture shock of the Russian characters living in Naples and infused the story with more comedy, though tried to keep a lot of the dramatic tension too, resulting in a major tone problem according to many theatre critics at the time. The show was a flop, closing after only six performances on Broadway. However, the songwriting duo bounced back in 1976 with their hit musical Annie.

A cast album was never produced, but there are rumors that there’s a demo recording out there somewhere. As a Sondheim buff, I’ve always put more effort into trying to track down the lost songs from the original project, but if anyone unearths the music from the show that made it to a Broadway stage, do let me know in the notes! Definitely an interesting moment in theatre history.