Sunday, June 30, 2019

LIBERTY #6


Posted by Chic Silber at 6/30/2019 10:21:00 PM

5 comments:

Richard King said...

Reese Witherspoon in Water For Elephants.

01 July, 2019 00:23
Roger Smith said...

OK, I gotta ask you. What friggin' show ever had web up there during the horse acts? This is what we get with Hollywood--you'd think these genius showmen out here would know their programming better than this, but they don't. DeMille shot the Ringling show as they staged it, and that part of it worked. Other Hollywood producers thought they had to have the entire performance working at once. Only in emergencies did John Robinson do that to avoid paying refunds for acts not seen. Before and after DeMille, Hollywood decided to Johnny all their circus flicks.

Wini McKay, who supplied the circus equipment for this one, told me the art director came to her later, embarrassed for how the circus scenes were shot. In post-production, he tried to do his pre-production homework.

01 July, 2019 20:09
Chic Silber said...


That's why they call it the movies

I've probably seen 18 in my lifetime

Some were very good but not all

Give me live entertainment (mostly)

Theater & Circus are sufficient

02 July, 2019 15:03
Chic Silber said...


My favorites included Song of the South

Treasure Island Cat Ballou The Great Race

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers & Frozen

(TGSOE not so much)

02 July, 2019 15:09
Roger Smith said...

For continual authenticity, mostly supplied by the true flying act people, my all-time favorite is TRAPEZE. Fay Alexander is given screen credit as "Technical Advisor - Flying Sequences". Eddie Ward has been mis-named as the main leaper, when his role was to don drag and double Gina Lollobrigida. Willie Krause doubled Burt Lancaster in the catch trap. All of Burt's coaching dialog came from Fay and his team, having the script carry just what they said to one another in practice. One scene had Tony Curtis chewing at the callouses inside his hand, as flyers are seen to do. Burt even argues the two-act purity with Bouglione (expertly played by Tomas Gomez), reminding him that Jules Leotard "invented the trapeze, on this circus, a hundred years ago." Give or take a year or two, the script had it right. How many girls today know their leotards are the tights designed and worn by a trapeze pioneer?


As for TGSOE, there are images there that cannot be filmed again--all of it is gone. But in other respects, as CHIC says, "...not so much."

02 July, 2019 21:21

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