Forgotten 'FUNNY GIRL!'

Prior to its 1964 Broadway run, FUNNY GIRL did indeed have a title tune that ultimately did not make it to the great white way. (No - not the same title song that made it into the film version. This earlier effort is very different - and far more entertaining if you ask us.)

It was recorded on the flip side of Streisand's pre-opening Columbia 45' of "People" and got quite a bit of airplay as far south as D.C. when the show was trying out in Philadelphia. Ultimetly, the show didn't need the song but the single also got a brief and obscure lp release on a multi-performer anthology disc called "The Headliners '65," Columbia Record Club (S) DS-80.

Here's the lyric:
A fella loves to be with a funny girl.
The evening flies when he's with a funny girl.
Female gigglers do better than wigglers.
Fancy dancers are fast on their feet but slow with the answers.

The boys don't want the tragic and teary kind,
They've got a thousand problems to cloud their mind.
Some ladies find when they've lost their guys,
They should have made faces and crossed their eyes.
Debutants would give up the social whirl,
To be a funny, funny girl.

The boys don't want the tragic and teary kind,
They've got a thousand problems to cloud their mind.
But if true love should decide to come,
You'd better keep those laughs to a minimum.
And when his lips feel softer than bunnies,
Show him that you'll do more than make funnies.
Tell him it's real, if he ever leaves, you'll die.
I said "No jokes, funny girl."
Even funny girls can cry.

A DELICIOUS EPIPHANY

Well...

there
is that
heavy-
lifting
thing.

The tale of PETER PAN grows up in 'THE CHILD THIEF'

"A gruesome and darkly fantastical twist on a classic tale. Brom injects pure horror into fantasy." (Holly Black, New York Times bestselling author of Ironside and The Spiderwick Chronicles )
"Brom has always been an artist who gave us his nightmares fully realized, but with THE CHILD THIEF, he paints in words. A wonderfully nasty Peter Pan reboot that stands on its own as a dark, twisted adventure." (Christopher Golden )
"Ancient magics combine with feral logic to culminate in Brom's The Child Thief. A retelling of Peter Pan spanning America's earliest, magically rich beginnings to today's bare whispers of belief. Wickedly poetic, The Child Thief makes me want to believe." (Kim Harrison )

From the fantasy artist Brom comes this well-written reimagining of J.M. Barrie's immortal Peter Pan. But unlike Barrie's youth-friendly tale of childhood fantasies come to life on the faraway island of Neverland, THE CHILD THIEF resets the tale in the much darker present. Peter is still the youthful pied piper of children but in this case, he recruits them from the dark and seamy streets of Manhattan, taking them to Avalon, an island retreat which is far deadlier than in the original classic. Filled with flesh-eaters led by the Captain, Peter's new recruitment of Lost Boys (or "Devils" as he calls them) won't grow up primarily because they most likely won't live to. Peter and his ever changing band (which include girls as well as boys) have been at war with the Captain and his "pirates" for centuries. But when Peter's latest recruit Nick wishes to return back home, this Pan is less accommodating.

With wonderful illustrations by the author, THE CHILD THIEF is dark and bloody, violent and gruesome. This is not for the kiddies but it is highly recommended. A page-turner for those who enjoyed Gregory Maguire's WICKED or anyone who likes their fairy stories on the "grimm" side.

First the keys, the feather duster . . . then the children --- now this!

... and they're
ALWAYS in the
last place you
think to look.

Deliciously nasty! DEATH BECOMES HER spanks the liposucked fannies of Hollywood.

By Rita Kempley, Washington Post Staff Writer, July 25, 1992 (reprinted without permission) 

Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn battle Mother Nature, the witch who invented maturity, in DEATH BECOMES HER. This inventive black comedy ridicules two gorgeous fortysomethings in search of the ultimate wrinkle cream. More cosmetic than cosmic in its approach, it thrives on what it condemns and in its own weird, wonderfully savvy fashion, spanks the liposucked fannies of Hollywood. It's as irresistibly nasty as The War of the Roses and as cheerily Gothic as The Witches of Eastwick.

A tale in four chapters, it begins with Streep's parody of an Ann-Margret-inspired production number that asks the musical question, "When I look in the mirror, what do I see?" and answers, "I see me." Towed about the stage by a chorus of boy dancers, Streep is amazingly good at being bad. How gleefully she heads down Sunset Boulevard in the role of Madeline Ashton, an imperious star whose popularity is falling along with her face instead of growing with her waistline. That night the bookish Helen Sharp (Hawn) brings her fiance (Bruce Willis) backstage to meet her old friend, which is pretty foolish when you consider that Madeline has a history of man-grabbing. And since Helen's fiance is a mild-mannered plastic surgeon named Ernest Menville, we assume he represents not just one man but all who bear the XY chromosome. Well, before you can say, "Don't forget to moisturize," Ernest and Madeline are wed.

Helen, who gains 200 pounds on a diet of cake frosting and enters a mental hospital, returns 12 or so years later to find the brilliant doctor an alcoholic reduced to making up corpses. Motivated by her hatred for Madeline, she has transformed herself into a va-va-voomish beauty-book author who is determined to win back Ernest. Her taut little tush and her chipper little chin leave Madeline in a jealous rage. Madeline would do anything, she'd pay anything to get rid of those darned liver spots. And who should step in but Lancome spokesmodel Isabella Rossellini, ironically cast as a mysterious goddess endowed with a potion from hell. Drink it and you are forever young -- and beautiful, provided you take infinitely good care of your body. Unfortunately, Madeline takes a nasty spill down a flight of stairs and comes up looking like Linda Blair, with her lovely head on backward. When Helen gloats, Madeline retaliates by blowing a hole through her the size of a trash-can lid, after which the two women are condemned to an eternal cat fight. Fed up with the feud, the doctor goes into a new-age phase.

Director Robert Zemeckis, who took us Back to the Future (thrice), directs this technically complicated, stylishly imaginative extravaganza with the sure hand of Dr. Menville before he got into Scotch. It's rich in terms of offbeat lines and unexpected laughs, as might be expected from the authors of the kinky thriller Apartment Zero. It is also refreshingly old-fashioned, reminiscent less of Roger Rabbit and Back to the Future than of '40s screwball and horror spoofs. Overall, this is an excellent black comedy that boasts the talents of three A-list actors at the top of their game. The film maintains both a dry wit and a dark edge throughout, and its wonderful comic book feel gives it an originality, and a refreshing longevity, as Zemeckis (again) takes his audience into a superbly crafted fantasy world. It's delicious!

Health Care?... Global Warming?... The Seemingly Indestructible Military-Industrial Complex?...

I used

to care,

but now

I take

a pill

for that.

Today we attempt to unravel BARB WIRE - a deliciouly misguided remake of ...Casablanca!?!

The years between 1994 and 1996 were Bad Movie manna for fans of deliriously cheesy sci-fi thrillers set in the near future, what with Johnny Mnemonic, Strange Days and John Carpenter's Escape From L.A. But the ultimate booby prize in this genre we call "Aschlockalypse Now" goes to Barb Wire. And what boobies! From the opening Flashdance-esque strip club routine, in which millions of gallons of water are sprayed onto heroine Pamela Anderson's bared casabas, Barb Wire is a perky paean to the wonders of silicone. The unrated video version (which we'd call "the director's cut" if there were any signs there'd been a director), contains miles more footage of Anderson's nipples looking as sharp and deadly as her stiletto heels. Speaking of which, when a rowdy heckler calls Anderson a "babe," she high-heels the ringsider to death, before snarling, "If one more person calls me "babe'!" We can only surmise she'd prefer a more accurate nickname--say, "boob"?

As you may have heard, Barb Wire lifts its entire plot from Casablanca. In the Humphrey Bogart role, Anderson runs a bar friendly to both villains and freedom fighters in America's last "free city," circa 2017. Since she's a neutral mercenary-for-hire, Anderson plays no favorites, and to prove it moonlights as a hooker/hit woman, explaining, "You gotta use everything you've got." Cinched into rib-crushing leather bustiers, Anderson is definitely doing just that. But, dependent as the "Baywatch" vet is on careful lighting, she is frequently sabotaged by the cameraman -- with hilarious results. There are moments when she appears to be a Karen Black lookalike trying to pass herself off as Jessica Rabbit.

When corrupt police chief Xander Berkeley turns up to collect blackmail money, cop a feel and down a cognac, Anderson demands payment for the booze (the feels are free). "Add it to my tab," he sneers, finishing with the irresistable, inexplicable, presumably future-speak exclamation, "Boom, boom, boom!" Anderson puts up with some things, not with others. When a rude drunk snarls, "Blow me!," for example, she calls on her attack dog, Camille, and the faithful pooch bites the boor in his crotch and drags him out of the bar. Boom, boom, boom! And when the Ingrid Bergman character shows up in the guise of one Temuera Morrison, Anderson doesn't just mutter, "Of all the gin joints...," she decks him and screeches, "Get out!" Boom, boom, boom!

The clever dialogue doesn't stop here. Evil Colonel Steve Railsback roars at cop Berkeley, "I will personally rip yer heart outta yer ass and stuff it back down yer throat!" Boom, boom, boom! Casablanca fans will have dissolved so completely into helpless tears of laughter by the time Barb's kid brother (Jack Noseworthy) appears, they'll surely agree with this observation, "This must be a post-traumatic stress flashback."

Endearingly, Anderson maintains her haughty act of narcissistic self-assurance throughout this chaotic trash. To keep us awake, she does things like stroke her naked flesh in a transparent bubble bath. It all ends, as you'd hoped it would, with police chief Berkeley and out-of-the-closet Resistance fighter Lee alone on a rain-drenched airfield. When Berkeley confesses, "I do believe I'm falling in love," the endlessly self-enchanted one snaps, "Get in line!" Barb Wire only begins to tap the Bad Movie Pneumatic Goddess potential of Anderson. This girl is a find. She is Pia Zadora come back. But where is the cinematic Svengali who can package her genius? Alas, Anderson is Mamie Van Doren without Albert Zugsmith, Jayne Mansfield without Tommy Noonan, Joe Dallesandro without Paul Morrissey. Paging Zalman King!