stepale-1 Reviews

Anatomy of a Song (1976 TV Movie)

Giving credit where credit is due!

[8/10 · 8 January 2010]

Stephan Chodorov is a talented writer who comes from a family of distinguished writers, but he did not write the television program "Anatomy of a Song." He did not produce it either. I did. My name is Stephen Paley and I am listed as "Producer" in the credits when the program was originally broadcast on CBS on Sunday, March 28, 1976. I was also cited as the producer in the New York Times review that was published March 26, 1976. As it happens, it was I who conceived the program with Frank Rich and Stephen Sondheim, and personally supervised the filming in Mr. Sondheim's town house and spent a week with the editor in the editing room. Mr. Chodorov was not involved in the production at all, except to tell me not to include Hal Prince in the broadcast when it was still in the planning stage, and yet he is credited by IMDb as the "Writer" and "Producer." For the sake of accuracy and fairness, would someone please make the correction. I tried, but could not because the IMDb computer would not let me!

Dancing in the Dark (1949)

Dancing in the Dark was in Technicolor!

[4/10 · 25 October 2009]

To the person, I think her name was Blanche, who complained in her first sentence posted here that "Dancing in the Dark" was shot in black and white, I think she might want to get her television checked--the version broadcast on the Fox Movie Channel was in Technicolor. Also, I did not think Betsy Drake was that bad. Neither did Cary Grant. He was married to her at the time--and for the ten years after the movie was released. Ms. Drake's singing, on the other hand, was not so good. She was dubbed with someone else's voice, and it looked like they used a double for her in the dancing scenes as well. Betsy Drake is still among the living, by the way. She is now in London having given up acting to become a writer and a psychologist. Cary Grant left Ms. Drake for Sophia Loren, who, as it happened, would not marry him. She preferred Carlo Ponti.

Tall Story (1960)

Tony Perkins was not type-cast after acting in Psycho...not at first....

[24 August 2007]

Tony Perkins wasn't type-cast after "Psycho." Not at first. For the next six years, he went on to act in seven or eight other movies, most of which were shot in Europe by some of the world's best directors including Orson Welles, Claude Chabrol, Jules Dassin and Anatol Litvak and none of the roles were similar to Norman Bates. In fact, Perkins went on to be a bigger star in Europe than he ever had been in America after starring in "Goodbye Again" in 1961, for which he won he Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival. "Pretty Poison," released in 1968, was the first movie in which he played a similar character to Norman Bates, and only after that film did the "type-casting" begin. But it was really all of the "Pyscho" sequels that did him in, so to speak. Perkins had a wider range as an actor than producers, directors (and casting directors) had given him credit. Too bad he did not have a more "creative" agent for the second half of his career. (Ironically, he was represented by CMA also known as "Creative Management Associates.")