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THE DVD SHELF: "Raisin in the Sun," "12 Angry Men," "The Red Balloon" and John Adams
By Steven Suskin
19 May 2008
I became a Francophile early on, when I saw David Merrick's brand-new Carnival at the age of eight. My sights were set on Paris several months later, when — for reasons unknown — I was taken to see a concurrent Merrick musical, Irma La Douce. ("Don't worry," as the narrator says, "quite suitable for the children.") The theatrical magic of Gower Champion was everywhere evident in Carnival. (Carrot Top and Horr'ble Henry, from the original production, are peering over my shoulder as I write this. Faded, alas; Henry's felt nose remains bright green, but his fur has turned into a pale peasoup. And Carrot Top looks — well, forty-something.) A very different sort of theatricality, with an emphasis on the inventive, was evident in every moment of Peter Brook's staging of Irma; and Onna White's choreography, too, with those dancing penguins. Irma takes place in the narrow backstreets of Pigalle, with the action centered around "the handiest hideout in Montmartre." This is the Paris which I fell in love with, some five years before I finally got there. And this is the Paris on display in Albert Lamorisse's 1956 classic, The Red Balloon [Criterion].
A 34-minute, nearly-wordless film about a boy and his balloon might not sound like something you'll want to run out and see. Trust me, "The Red Balloon" speaks for itself, with director Lamorisse eloquently conveying a world of meaning through pictures. He is greatly aided by a remarkable child actor, his six-year-old son Pascal. Mid-50s Paris is presented in gray and muted tones; Lamorisse knows how to use color, though, as per the title. (This is not Montmartre, actually, but Ménilmontant [Belleville].) The newly-restored print from the Criterion Collection, receiving its first DVD release, is almost startlingly refreshing to those of us who know the film through faded prints. No bonuses here, but "The Red Balloon" — without embellishment — is bonus enough. Lamorisse picked up the 1957 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. (This in the year of "Around the World in 80 Days," which also featured a balloon. Though not a red one). "The Red Balloon" is apparently the only short ever to win an Oscar outside of the Short Subject category; the second of only five foreign language films to win the original screenplay award; and the only dialogue-free film (other than a few incidental lines) to win since the talkies came in.
Here we are talking about the 1961 "Raisin in the Sun" and the 1957 "12 Angry Men," two remarkable films that are highly recommended. "The Red Balloon," which is just about as different as a film could be, fits right in with the two of them. One-of-a-kind, all right, and a treasure.
*
John Adams — that obnoxious and disliked patriot from Massachusetts — is back in the public eye, thanks to the seven-part, nine-hour HBO miniseries "John Adams" (derived from David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning 2001 biography). Acorn Media has understandably seized the moment to release the award-winning, thirteen-part, 13-hour 1976 PBS miniseries, The Adams Chronicles.
And an overflowing entertainment it is. George Grizzard plays the central role of John Adams; William Daniels, who gave an unforgettable performance as Mr. Adams in Broadway's 1776, takes the role of his son, John Quincy Adams, the sixth president. Prominent stage actors are very much in evidence, including Nancy Marchand, Pamela Payton-Wright, Leora Dana, Paul Hecht, Tom Aldredge, Alan Hewitt, Robert Symonds, Reid Shelton, George Hearn, Patricia Elliott, John Houseman, and even John Tillinger as George III. Fred Coe — of The Miracle Worker and Two for the Seesaw — directed and produced four episodes, and the unfathomably complicated job of costume design was undertaken by Broadway's own Alvin Colt, who died on May 4 at the age of 92.
(Steven Suskin is author of "Second Act Trouble," "Show Tunes," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com.)
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