Since NATAN, the film Paul Duane and I made, is an unconventional length (not a short, but very short for a feature), the New York Jewish Film Festival wisely double-billed it with HOW TO BREAK INTO YIDDISH VAUDEVILLE, which is completely unlike it in every way but somehow complimented it sweetly. I don’t think you’d want another heavy subject to go with NATAN, so Jack Feldstein’s “neon animation” about a midwestern gentile who’s taught himself Yiddish and is carrying on the proud tradition of yiddisher vaudeville, was a perfect aperitif. It’s witty, quirky and poignant, since all the old stagers who taught Shane Baker their routines are now no longer with us.
Due to the predicted snowpocalypse, our flight the day before was cancelled so we flew into NYC on the day of the screening and were whisked to the venue only a couple of hours before the show started. Managed to stay awake for both screenings though I think my performance at the first q&a was probably a bit livelier/more coherent that at the second, which must have been around 3am UK time.
Returned to the Walter Reade Theater the following evening to see Hilla Medalia’s THE GO-GO BOYS: THE INSIDE STORY OF CANNON FILMS, which was hilarious, insightful and educational. It also connected up with my life and work in surprising ways. Let me enumerate:
1) I was just becoming conscious of film as a business in my teens when Cannon had their heyday, ultimately buying up EMI’s film production arm and the ABC cinema chain (which owned half the mainstream cinemas in the UK). I saw several of the BBC documentaries and news reports quoted in the documentary when they first aired, regarding the ebullient producers with a certain horror at the time. Now, even their trashiest productions seems relatively benign and the films they made while seeking to class up their reputation form a rather startling array. Cassavetes’ LOVE STREAMS, Zefferelli’s OTELLO, Godard’s KING LEAR: FEAR AND LOATHING, Mailer’s TOUGH GUYS DON’T DANCE, Ruiz’s TREASURE ISLAND, Polanski’s PIRATES… What were they thinking? But I’m glad those movies exist, and if the only production companies around were sane, they wouldn’t.
2) There’s a very weird connection with NATAN. When Golan & Globus overextended themselves, the white knight riding to their rescue and bailing them out was Giancarlo Parretti. This new alliance created a wedge between money-raising Globus and money-spending Golan, who left seeking independence. Parretti and Globus then tried to buy MGM, with money that turned out not to exist. Parretti had been laundering money for the Mafia, and went to jail. What boggled my mind was the film’s description of Parretti as the head of Pathe, which creates uncanny parallels with the story of Bernard Natan (also jailed for fraud). But what THE GO-GO BOYS doesn’t make quite clear is that Parretti never actually owned Pathe, although he planned to, and renamed Cannon “Pathe Communications” in anticipation of this.
3) Menahem Golan directed the one entry in the ’68 Cannes Film Festival (the festival that never happened) which Scout Tafoya and myself were unable to track down for our retrospective series The ’68 Comeback Special (here and here). TEVYE AND HIS SEVEN DAUGHTERS is based on the same stories that inspired FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. Having failed to source a copy via legitimate means or by the Dark Internet, I suggested Scout try Golan himself, which he did. The veteran filmmaker did not have a copy of his own film. (He’s dead now.)
Well, in THE GO-GO BOYS there’s a few seconds from the film, proving that it does at least still exist, at least in the German version. Someday, we shall complete The ’68 Comeback Special. Shalom!
shadowplay 