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Melancholy March.
Meet Melancholy Me.
melancholy babe
shah
The Bing Crosby version comes out.
Not Barbara.
Yeah, Spike Robinson, great tenor sax.
Gone now.
Out of K-town.
a feature on Spike Robinson one of these days.
But I want to talk about the Oscars this evening.
Now they have best songs.
I say now because it wasn't always that way.
The Seventh Oscars.
1934, finally the songs became honored.
Ah, it's political.
Come on, it's political.
Well, the musicians do the nominations.
That part's all right.
But then they turn it over to the academy.
I mean, that's everybody.
Every member gets to pick his or her favorite.
They pick 15 songs.
And then they announce the nominees.
got to have the lyrics or it doesn't make it.
You got to understand the lyrics.
That's why I wonder how some of those songs got nominated.
And you have to use it in the movie.
There's a story here to them.
But the High and the Mighty, tell you about that later.
Fred Astaire made it pretty good with the first nominees, the continental karaoke.
The orchestra are written just for Julie London.
Here they are.
Melancholy March.
Your bloom is showing.
Your winds are blowing across the sky.
Melancholy March.
Your clouds are crying.
Your trees are siding.
As though they'll die I know you're late for winter's day Too early for any spring So we stay
You have no reason or rhyme to be
O wild-west wind, thou breath of autumn's being, Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead are driven, Like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow and black and pale and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes, O thou who chariotists to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, Until thine azure sister of the spring Shall blow her clarion or the dreaming earth, And fill.
driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air, with living hues and odors plain and hill, wild spirit, which art moving everywhere, destroyer and preserver, here, oh, here, thou on whose stream mid the steep sky's
1947, I believe.
Good picture nobody's heard of.
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
No, no, I didn't make that up.
That's Shelly.
Hollywood, I don't know, they picked some really awful stuff nowadays, I think, to nominate for best this and that.
Like 2005, it was a motion picture called Crash, where people got a kick out of smashing into each other with cars.
No, I'm not making that up.
Oh yeah, about melancholy, baby.
Many years ago, there was an in-joke among musicians.
The drunk at the end of the bar would come up to the piano player and say, can you play Melancholy Baby?
Or more like, will you play Melancholy Baby?
It's one of the all-time great torch songs.
Tony Tamborello wrote that March 4th.
It was a pun.
He decided.
Okay, I'll write a march poem.
Everybody march to my music.
Good composer, nice guy.
It's on the Everest label.
Spike Robinson on Tenor Sacks.
Surprised he doesn't have more recognition among the Hoy Palloy, but Rudy Valley does.
He's from Cuddehy.
I wasn't born there, but his dad ran the Cuddehy school system.
Ran the Coast Guard Band during the Second World War.
Had a rock and roll hit.
Believe it or not, in the mid-century.
Motorcycle boots, ever that?
No?
That's okay, don't worry.
Rudy Valley.
Always liked the guy.
Rudy was really proud of his stuff.
So much so that if anybody decided to Well, they called him okay, I'll tell you called him mushroom.
That's the way he sang he had operatic training in a and I I got a few songs.
I want you to hear that maybe Maybe you're not familiar with but there's a lot of stuff in Hollywood when you go to the movies and you hear a song that strikes you you don't forget it
Not entirely, you wind up with an earworm, and there it is, and you can't forget it for sure.
How do you get rid of an earworm?
Just repeat the song over and over.
Like this one.
Waking up out of a sound sleep.
William Ross conducts the orchestra for Barbara.
I've dreamed of you.
You ever see a dream movie based on almost woke but well here.
Charles Lawton wrote this.
The night of the hunter don't be fooled.
It's scary.
1955, the picture failed so badly at the box office that Lawton never did another picture.
Morris the Pity, Robert Mitchum, Lillian Gish, Shelley Wetterers, The Night of the Hunter.
You like movies?
us on TCM.
I'm Ben Mankiewicz.
If you're into classic movies, and we know you are, especially those from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, you're no doubt familiar with the work of Charles Lawton.
Lawton was a British actor who moved to Hollywood in the early 1930s.
He quickly earned starring roles, including Mutiny on the Bounty and the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Up next today, we've got the Oscar-winning actor behind the camera as we bring you the only film Charles Lawton ever directed.
Some argue it's among the best Hollywood movies of its era.
Certainly, it's one of the most unique.
From 1955, it's The Night of the Hunter.
The film was once described by Lawton as, quote, a nightmare mother goose tail.
The story surrounds two little children who have a big secret.
They know exactly where a lot of money is hidden.
When a very scary man, played by Robert Mitchum, shows up in search of that money, the nightmare part of this story begins.
Mitchum knows the kids know where the loot is, and they know he wants it badly enough to kill for it.
The screenplay is credited to novelist, essayist, and film critic James Agee, but in all likelihood, Lawton rewrote much of Agee's original script.
The movie he made is one of a kind, in many ways unlike anything made before or since.
A bit creepy, oddly elegant, always interesting.
largely ignored by moviegoers when it first came out, but as I said, today it's considered a masterpiece.
From 1955, also with Shelly Winters and former silent film star Lillian Gish, here's The Night of the Hunter.
a change.
Put
some records on while I pause.
Baby,
it's bad out there.
Are you up in this place?
No camps to be had out there.
I wish
I
knew how.
to land you, to the public, to be seen.
You ought to be in pictures.
You're wonderful to see.
You ought to be in pictures of what a hit.
You would be.
Your voice would thrill a nation.
Your face would be adored.
You'd make a great sensation with wealth and fame.
Your reward.
You should kiss the way you kiss when we are all alone.
You'd make every girl and man a fine worshipping at your...
should be offered a starring part right away.
You're sweet as a gainer and you're hot as a gal named West.
You'd even make garbo jealous if you took a movie test.
You ought to dress like fashion and ride in motor...
Astaire.
An invitation to moonlight and romance It's quite the fashion, the continental Because you tell of your love while you dance Your lips, whisper
so tenderly Her eyes, answer your song
Two bodies swaying the continental And you are saying just what you're thinking of
So keep on dancing the continental For it's the song of romance and of love
dancing it's continental
you sing while you're dancing your voice is gentle
you'll know before the dance is through
that you're in love with her and she's in love with you and you'll find while you're dancing that there's a rhythm in your heart and soul a certain rhythm that you can't control and you will do the continental all the time beautiful music
Dangerous rhythm.
Beautiful music.
Dangerous rhythm.
Tender is the night.
So tender is the night.
There's no one in the world except the two of us.
and chanted
memory.
Where even sad turns to fun.
Hosts.
Say hello to the audience.
Hello to the audience.
I'm directing this show.
How does it feel to be 73 years old?
Well, I'm not 73 years old.
Well, I know you idiot, but you're supposed to be 73 years old.
As Koch, as the character.
Some old guys don't behave like old guys are supposed to behave.
Dog.
Two cows.
An inexperienced spermatozoan, about 15 years old, asking directions to the nearest palopian tube.
There's a young girl named Deborah Winters,
playing the part of the 15-year-old girl.
What's your relationship with her, since you had never met her before?
Vinny
and I only did it three times.
I know lots of girls would do it almost all the time, practically, and nothing ever happened.
Well, that's baseball.
They said, we're going to be doing a Western.
Westerns were not very in in the early mid seventies or anytime throughout that decade.
But he says, great, I love Westerns.
Well, obviously did a lot of Western songs and they, they gave them the music to blazing saddles.
Now, if you listen, it's a parody.
Frankie didn't catch on when he found out.
Wasn't too happy.
1974.
Off a battle, two bad men near and far.
He conquered fear and he conquered hate.
He turned dark night in today.
He made his blazing saddle a torch to light the way.
When outlaws rule the west and fear filled the land.
to take the West in hand.
They needed a man who was brave and true, with justice for all as his aim.
Then out of the sun rode a man with a gun, and Bart was his name.
Yes, Bart was his name.
He rode a blazing saddle, he wore a shine.
star.
His job to offer battle to bad men near and far.
He conquered fear and he conquered hate.
He turned dark night into day.
He made his blazing saddle a torch to
Peaky.
How much I love you So little time To let you know How much I care
It's just my heart that I deceive.
Because I know, oh yes, I know this sad.
And as bright So hold me in your arms Until tomorrow
So...
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