FOLLIES 1971 Video Footage (and some Merrily 1981)- Page 2

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 9:41am

For the reasons I stated above. I know somebody who was there while they filmed this (she even remembers them instructing those few in the audience watching the rehearsal to clap loudly so that it would sound like it would be an actual performance). You can see clearly Suzanne Rogers as Young Phyllis (she later did television and is unmistakable) and also Jan Clayton who wasn't in the New York run. Also the stage of the Winter Garden is much wider than the Shubert in Los Angeles. You can tell that difference when you watch the other footage, which as Pal Joey states definitely IS from New York.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 9:44am

Sorry if I'm completely missing what you're saying, but why couldn't 60 MINUTES have filmed it in LA?

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 9:51am

I don't know what it was filmed for - so yes, it could have been filmed for 60 MINUTES, but you said people remembered 60 MINUTES filming footage in New York and this footage is definitely not from New York.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 9:55am

Well people do say they remember that. And like I said, people also remember it being filmed in Boston so clearly memories are hazy. The one thing I'm most sure about is WHY it was filmed.

And keep in mind some people also remember COMPANY being filmed onstage in New York which has never proven to be true. And this is 8 years of my life trying to track that down. But they swear they remember it...

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 10:20am

There could have been something professionally filmed in Boston - but likely would have been for a local station (they didn't do b roll or television commercials in those days), and most of us would be able to spot that footage almost immediately - it was a very different show then.

I would guess that if 60 MINUTES filmed something it would have been in New York, but its possible they could have also have filmed something in Los Angeles if they were profiling Sondheim in anticipation of A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC.

Keep in mind that most of the cast of FOLLIES stayed the same in Boston, New York and Los Angeles - so memories are likely to be hazy about when things were filmed. A lot of this footage was also reportedly filmed by members of the cast, and there is so much of it, I don't doubt cast members 'remembering' it being filmed but not exactly where.

The person who I know and who confirmed to my tastes that the professionally shot footage is from Los Angeles was ONLY in that production. She seemed very certain that this was the footage she watched being filmed during the tech rehearsal while she was taking notes about the tracks. The cast and costume changes as well as the theatre space in the footage seem to corroborate that.

I've never heard that COMPANY was filmed, but again its possible that parts of the show were taped for local television. I would imagine most of that footage would have been purged and hasn't been preserved.
Updated On: 5/18/11 at 10:20 AM

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 10:32am

Memories are extremely hazy which is a big problem. People remember a lot of things that might or might not have happened or happened very differently. In the end though, it really doesn't matter who filmed it or where. The important thing is that it was done and it exists for us to see.

"Facts never interest me. What matters is the song." Updated On: 5/18/11 at 10:32 AM

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 10:39am

Yes, we are truly lucky that so much of that original production was preserved. I think the only song that wasn't captured in any way was "One More Kiss"

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 11:45am

Jan Clayton did, indeed, join the original New York cast later in the run. I have the program.

Posted: 5/18/11 at 4:52pm

Wait, Suzanne Rogers who has been on Days of Our Lives for decades joined the Follies cast in LA?

Not that this really clears up anything, but Ken Mandelbaum in the appendix to his book on Michael Bennett does list filmed records from LA but not from Boston. And I think MB is right, that if it was Boston we would see a different prologue and montage, etc.

As for Company, the only stage footage he mentions is the well known B&W complete film of the tour with Donna McKechnie, and George Chakiris,a nd Julie Wilson...

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 5:42pm

In my experience owning a copy of the Follies in Miniature video over the past 15 years or so, the memories of "people involved with the original" are as faded and confused as the memories of the characters in Follies themselves.

But I'm more disposed to trust Michael Bennett's source and the memories of the actors who look at the footage and say "I remember when that was filmed" over anyone who says "That must be the footage from the 60 Minutes that never aired..."

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 5:49pm

Well that "anyone" created the show, PJ.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 9:51pm

Exactly my point.

Exactly the point of the show, too.

And Suzanne Rogers was in the cast from the beginning, as one of the singer/dancers. So was a funny little girl named Rita O'Connor, who later gave up singing and dancing and changed her name to Rita Rudner.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 9:55pm

I think Rita Rudner was actually a replacement. And I'm pretty sure Rita O'Connor is a different person.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 10:01pm

Rita Rudner - Sally
Elayne Booselr - Phyllis
Andrew Dice Clay - Ben
Bobcat Goldthwaite - Buddy
Phyllis Diller - Carlotta


Updated On: 5/18/11 at 10:01 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 10:11pm

Hmmm...you're right about Rita. She always says she was in the "original production of Follies" when she was 15, but her family name was Rudner. So

My apologies to Rita O'Connor, who was also in Bennett's PROMISES and COCO.

And, Jordan, I love your stand-up FOLLIES! Phyllis Diller's "I'm Still Here" would have KILLED. (Sent you a PM.)

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 10:12pm

She was in the original Broadway production, she just wasn't in it when it opened.

Another tip that's it's probably LA is the woman who rushes to Roscoe before and after "Beautiful Girls." In LA there's a credit for "Roscoe's Daughter," at least according to this page.

http://www.sondheimguide.com/follies.html Updated On: 5/18/11 at 10:12 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/18/11 at 10:41pm

Oh, cool. That page lists the 1973 production my cousin and I saw.

We saw it at the Westchester County Playhouse, which it lists as "dates unknown" but it must have been mid-July 1973, between the Tappan Zee Playhouse in early July and the Storrowtown Theatre 7/30-8/4, because I graduated from high school in June and went to college in September.

Also I didn't see any of the replacements that page lists: I saw Jane Kean as Sally (she was surprisingly wonderful), Vivian Blaine as Phyllis (she was surprisingly not--and I would have loved to have seen Julie Wilson!), Lilian Roth as Stella (she was dynamite--but I also would have loved to see Selma Diamond!), and Hildegarde (who was the best Solange I've ever seen). And I have no memory whatsoever of Lynn Bari as Carlotta, which was probably the story of her life. (She's not still here, so may she rest in peace.)

But watching the show was dispiriting. Arlene and I realized at the Westchester County Playhouse that what we had seen at the Winter Garden would never, could never happen again.

Posted: 5/19/11 at 6:48am

I had NO idead there was a stock tour--and so soon after the original. Was this a completely new production--reading the credits, or does it just mean they somehow did a version based on the original?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/19/11 at 11:14am

It was based on the original, tabbed down. Jayne Turner and Steve Bookcvor had been in the Broadway and LA companies and they reproduced (as best they could) Michael's choreography.

I didn't realize until I looked at Phyllis's link that Christopher Hewitt directed it. (He was the original Roger De Bris in the movie of The Producers.)

They did their best.

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 5/19/11 at 11:45am

It can't be Boston. There was a completely different Prologue than the one everyone knows now (the ghosts dancing to an instrumental of ALL THINGS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL). The out-of-town Boston production opened with a surreal, pre-recorded audio montage of fragments as waiters set up for the party and the guests entered.

Re: COMPANY. It is my understanding that it was recorded on the National Tour in Washington, D.C.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/19/11 at 11:58am

Yes, you can watch that COMPANY is at Lincoln Center.

[temms]

Posted: 5/19/11 at 11:52pm

I've mentioned this before, but in addition to the fact that the "Boston Sound" footage uses material that wasn't in the Boston version (the Prologue, for instance) there is also the voice of the conductor, which is audible when "Waiting For The Girls Upstairs" breaks down and he says "We have to stop". I am virtually certain that voice is Paul Gemignani and it's definitely not Harold Hastings - Gemignani played drums in the pit and became a conductor on the show and presumably did the tour (and just about every Sondheim show since.)

So I take that as another bit of evidence that this is the L.A. dress rehearsal and not Boston.

Also, if anyone is in NYC, the original set models for Boris Aronson's sets for "Company" and "Follies" are on display at the Lincoln Center Library in the 3rd Floor reading room (to the right in the back as you walk in.) I had no idea they were there, and once I realized what I was looking at I was floored. Those iconic sets in scale-model 3D renderings done by the man himself. You can see the stair units that fan out under the upper platform, the drops in the wings, etc. Amazing. Well worth a visit if you're nearby.
Updated On: 5/19/11 at 11:52 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/20/11 at 12:37am

I think we're all in agreement that the "Boston Sound" is Los Angeles. Maybe even the man himself agrees by now.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/21/11 at 7:16pm

Boris Aronson's set for the Finale.

[charlesjguiteau]

Posted: 5/21/11 at 7:31pm

pj, where'd that photo come from? It's one I've never seen before. Amazing.