Archive for June 30th, 2020

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 92

Tuesday, June 30th, 2020

It has been months since I’ve seen my friend Andrew, who is semi-retired from the road business (or, as we say in Texas, “bidness”).

Here’s a little something for him: “Anatomy of a Road”.

Made in the late 1960s or early 1970s (probably 1971) to promote the construction of new highways and the cars that drive them, the ANATOMY OF A ROAD is an unapologetic paean to progress.

“an unapologetic paean to progress”. I like that.

Bonus video: “We’ll Take the High Road”, a 1950s promo film for the Interstate Highway system, brought to you by “The American Road Builders Association”.

I thought I’d check something, and I’m glad I did: the American Road Builders Association was founded in 1902, and is still around (so they are 118 years old). The organization renamed to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association in 1977.

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Obit watch: June 30, 2020.

Tuesday, June 30th, 2020

The great Carl Reiner.

His contributions were recognized by his peers, by comedy aficionados and, in 2000, by the Kennedy Center, which awarded him the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He was the third recipient, after Richard Pryor and Jonathan Winters.

…

“I always knew if I threw a question to Mel he could come up with something,” Mr. Reiner said. “I learned a long time ago that if you can corner a genius comedy brain in panic, you’re going to get something extraordinary.”
As Mr. Brooks put it, “I would dig myself into a hole, and Carl would not let me climb out.”

…

Mr. Reiner returned to Broadway twice after moving west, but neither visit was triumphant. In 1972 he directed “Tough to Get Help,” a comedy by Steve Gordon about a black couple working in an ostensibly liberal white household, which was savaged by the critics and closed after one performance. In 1980 he staged “The Roast,” by Jerry Belson and Garry Marshall, two writers he had worked with on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” That play, about a group of comedians who expose their darker instincts when they gather to roast a colleague, ran for less than a week.

THR. Variety.

Also among the dead: Johnny Mandel, film and television composer.

Mandel was considered one of the finest arrangers of the second half of the 20th century, providing elegant orchestral charts for a wide range of vocalists including Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole and Hoagy Carmichael.
Mandel scored more than 30 films during his Hollywood career, including the 1960s films “The Americanization of Emily” (from which the hit song “Emily” emerged), “The Sandpiper” (which contained “The Shadow of Your Smile,” earning an Oscar and a Grammy for Song of the Year along with lyricist Paul Francis Webster), “Harper,” “An American Dream” (which included the Oscar-nominated song “A Time for Love”), “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” and “Point Blank.”

He was perhaps most famous for writing “Suicide Is Painless” aka “The Theme from M*A*S*H”.

Posted in 1970s, Books, Movies, Music, Obits, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed