I haven't seen it in a while, either. It's chilling.

Do you know David Lean's Oliver Twist? Bill Sykes' dog. It was supposedly terrified of a stuffed cat that was held off-camera, which they use as the dog's frenzied reaction to Nancy's murder. Not sure how modern audiences would react, but it's hardly the most controversial aspect of the film.

AI spellcheck "defeated" my word choice, but you seem to have gotten the gist.

I think about Noel Coward commenting on a musical with a notably shrill child actor and a horse that defeated on stage. He suggested that they could have used the child to stop up the other problem.

I can't stand child actors. There are relatively very few performances that are worth the trouble. But a good animal performance is a thing of beauty. Because you never see them on stage, do you? Rarely.

I learned it from a comic book.

Never heard that one. 🤣

Sweet.

@wychstreet.bsky.social The dialog is wonderful. Martin and Candy had to stop improvising. "Those aren't pillows" apparently came from Martin. That said, it's such a good film, & such a visually interesting film, you could probably enjoy it & understand it if you didn't know a word of English.

@wychstreet.bsky.social The music is so completely 80s. But I also just saw "A Night at the Opera," where all of the music that isn't opera is strictly 1935 pap, and that film still has legs. 90th anniversary. People probably don't even process the music, other than to notice it's old.

The "Pop Life" cover got cannibalized into "The Bridge I Burned," which could be read as EC saying goodbye to the Attractions, Bruce Thomas, Warner Brothers, or something less definable.

I think the other well-regarded cover they played with the "Spinning Songbook" tour was Prince's "Pop Life." The Artist vetoed a studio cover for EC's "Extreme Honey" compilation. Not sure if that was the Purple One's antipathy toward WB or because of the Stephen Stills incident.

I would love a cleaner version of this one.

I always figured the problem with "Chess" was the fact that their genius didn't translate to knowing what made for a good book. But they did get a monster single out of the process...