Elf: Oh My Gosh, we know that movie!

    Watching holiday movies throughout the yuletide season has become a tradition in many households throughout the world—some beloved because of their holiday themes, and others simply taking place during December. One that takes advantage of a full-on Christmas focus, however, is Elf (2003). An instant classic now beloved for 17 years, “Elf,” was released on November 7th, 2003, and grossed more than $220 million dollars worldwide. It played to critical and public acclaim, with hilarity, romance, and of course a story that speaks of family to all ages. 

First, a quick synopsis: “Elf,” is the tale of a baby who stowed away in Santa’s bag one Christmas Eve from the children’s home where he was given up by his mother. Adopted by Santa’s elves, and now groun up, Buddy the man has trouble fitting in (all 6 ft. 3 in. of him), and sets off to find his biological father Walter. Walter is a stressed out workaholic with no interest in a potential son he never even knew about. Among hi jinx at his father’s publishing company and a department store where he gets a job, and a new girlfriend. 

As I mentioned, this is a hilarious movie. Buddy the Elf, played by Will Ferrell has lots interactions with the New York City culture…including chaos at the department store where he gets a job as an elf, he unmasks who they hired as a Santa which leads to a chaotic mess, he rounds around a turnaround door tell he throws up, and he even accidentally walks in on Jovie in the shower singing “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” to which it becomes a duet between the two of them. Buddy also causes a dancing riot between the other coworkers when he briefly becomes drunk in the mailroom of Greenway Press, his father’s publishing business. And he unintentionally offends his father’s collaborator, Miles Finch by calling him a “south pole elf.” 

The movie is also a true family movie, demonstrating how beautiful forgiveness is. Buddy’s Christmas spirit gives him the strength to forgive his father because he knows that his father does care about him. Buddy also enjoys being in his life and having a relationship with him, along with his wife, Emily and son Michael. Buddy’s forgiveness in turn inspires Walter to be confident in himself that he is a good, hard worker and he doesn’t need to keep a job that his distracting him from his family. And at the end of the movie, he starts his own book publishing business “Walter Hobbs & Son,” a business that becomes all about family, with he and Buddy running the business together.   

“Elf,” is also an endearing romantic comedy. When Buddy first meets Jovie, he is completely blown away by her beautiful singing voice. Jovie isn’t too sure what she thinks of Buddy and thinks his holiday spirit is quite awkward. And it originally looks like they’ll be enemies because Jovie doesn’t like it when Buddy inadvertently happens into the women’s locker room. However, she learns to forgive and later accepts an invitation to go out with him. Though the date gets off to an awkward start, they really begin to connect and share their first kiss and realize that they are meant to be. (Spoiler alert: a baby elf is in their future!)

All in all, “Elf,” is a movie that shows that we can all become preoccupied with worthless things during the holidays and that we need to find valuable things that truthfully bring the true Christmas spirit. To quote the movie “The bet way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear”—we can get in the spirit from Christmas songs, but what’s an even better gift during the holidays is family and spending time with them. While it is true that families wrong one another in complicated ways, we can and should learn to forgive them, and always value time with them no matter what. 

The Snow That Saved Radio City

        Disney has a remarkable history of shows that have been produced on Broadway, including several beloved movie adaptations. The first Disney show produced on Broadway was Beauty and the Beast, which opened at the Palace Theatre on April 18th, 1994, and played a total of 5,461 performances. The most recent Disney show to hit the Great White Way was Frozen which opened at the St. James Theatre on March 22nd, 2018 and played a total of 825 performances prior to the pandemic shutdown. But did you know that long before Disney started producing shows on Broadway, they produced a live stage version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Live on Stage at Radio City Music Hall? In today’s blog, I’d like to tell you about how that production came about, and it’s success left an impactful legacy.

Robert Jani (Yan-e) was first employed by the Walt Disney Company when he was 21 years old, working as the head of the Guest Relations Department at Disneyland. His many responsibilities included coordinating the staging of Disneyland’s Grand Opening in July of 1955. In 1967, he was promoted to Director of Entertainment and not long after, to Creative Director of Walt Disney Productions. Throughout his time at Disney, he was the brains behind the “Main Street Electrical Parade,” which continues to run at both Disneyland and Disney World. While at Disney, his unique skills earned him the nickname “P.T. Barnum for the Modern Age,” and in 1978, Jani left Disney to form his own company, Robert Jani Productions, in New York City. 

Throughout the 1970s, regular theater-goers had chosen to either stay home and watch television or attend multiplex movie houses for entertainment, so in New York, Radio City Music Hall experiences a major recession. Business was so poor that the Rockefeller Center Board of Directors even chose to permanently close the doors of Radio City and fired the Rockettes. There was consideration of turning the hall into a shopping center, tennis courts or even a new location for the American Stock Exchange. There were some loyal Radio City patrons who were infuriated by this, they didn’t want to see it happen. Since Robert Jani had his own production company, he became in charge of all of Radio City’s live stage productions, determined to revitalize the historical New York landmark. At this point, the country was preoccupied with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and even a lewd oil crisis, but Bob wanted to make the country believe that no matter how much trouble there is in the world, there is always some good in it somewhere. He decided to do so by convincing Disney to let him adapt Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a stage production to be performed at Radio City.

After Disney agreed to green-light Snow White Live! (1979), Frank Wagner was hired to direct the show. Wagner was known for directing shows on Broadway such as “Ziegfeld Follies of 1957,” and “New of Faces of 1968,” though he also was best known for founding the International School of Dance at Carnegie Hall. The creative team knew that the most important casting choice for the show would be Snow White, and after a very strenuous search, in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, they found Mary Jo Salerno, who at the time was working as a singing cocktail waitress at Chicago’s The Gaslight Club. Salerno auditioned for the part in both Chicago and New York. She, herself, thought the idea that she would be cast was very far-fetched, but was ecstatic when she learned she got the part. The rest of the cast featured Richard Bowne as Prince Charming and Anne Francine as the Evil Queen. While the show included all of the original film’s beloved characters, it also included new characters created exclusively for the show, including Snow White’s father, The King (played by Thomas Ruisinger) and the Evil Queen’s right-hand-lady, Luna (played by Yolande Bavan). Charles Hall doubled the roles of the Magic Mirror’s voice and the Evil Queen’s “old hag” alter-ego.

Robert Jani was determined to see that the show was as faithful to the film as possible. Although stressful for the rest of the crew, they were granted unlimited access to the Walt Disney Archives in Burbank and made sure no detail was overlooked. In addition to using the original film’s music by Composer Frank Churchill and Lyricist Larry Morey, Jay Blackton and Joe Cook collaborated together on new music for the stage version. Rehearsals were stressful for the actors as well because they required a lot of physical moving around the stage and most of the actors weren’t regular exercisers. Despite these challenges, the show opened at Radio City on October 18th, 1979, and the performance was a smash. The audience applauded Snow White and the Dwarfs, hissed at the evil queen, and even sang along with the songs throughout the show. The kids in the audience even shouted out to Snow White, warning her not to eat the apple given to her by the witch at the very end. The show became a sell-out hit, and closed on November 18th, 1979 after a total of 38 performances. It was thanks to the success of this show that the Radio City Christmas Spectacular was finally able to come back on November 25th.

“Snow White,” however, embarked on a national tour, performing in Chicago and Washington D.C. The tour ended in New York City, with the Radio City Christmas Spectacular closing on January 6th, 1980, and due to popular demand, “Snow White,” returned. It reopened on January 11th, 1980 and played a total of 68 additional performances, closing on March 9th. When Walt Disney released his film version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in December of 1937, the film made over $400 million dollars and paved the way for to Disney to produce Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940) and all the other films that followed. Who would have thought that more than 40 years later, a stage production of Snow White would have saved Radio City Music Hall in New York City?

The Name's Sir Connery...Sir Sean Connery

    On October 31st, 2020 we lost another legend in the entertainment industry. This Scotland-native legend was known primarily for originating the character of James Bond, otherwise known as Agent 007, in the James Bond franchise (1962-present). But in addition to his “Bond” role this legend had a wonderfully versatile career. With roles ranging from an anti-heroic submarine captain, to Indiana Jones’s disgruntled but caring father, to Eliot Ness’s crime fighting mentor, he always portrayed tough guys that could easily take care of themselves. His name? Sir Sean Connery.

Thomas Sean Connery was born on August 25th, 1930 in Fountainbridge, an area just west of Edinburgh, Scotland. His mother, Euphemia “Effie” McBain McLean worked as a cleaning woman while his father, Joseph, was a factory worker and lorry (motor truck) driver. Young Thomas was named after his grandfather, though he later started going by his middle name, Sean, because as a child he had a friend named Seamus, and others who knew both boys liked the idea of saying the names of Sean and Seamus together whenever both were present, and the name stuck with him the rest of his life. When he achieved his fully grown height of 6’2’’ at the age of 18, he also earned the nickname “Big Tam.”

In his adolescence, he worked a great deal of jobs: as a milkman, a lorry driver (just like his father), and even an artist’s model for the Edinburgh College of Art. He joined the Royal Navy at the age of 16 and trained at the naval gunnery school and an anti-aircraft crew in Portsmouth and later served as an Able Seaman on the HMS Formidable. He was discharged from the Royal Navy at age 19 due to a duodenal ulcer, and as a result decided to begin bodybuilding and playing football/Soccer as new hobbies. He excelled at both and showed a great deal of potential to even make a career as football player. When he entered a bodybuilding competition in London at 1953, he heard from another competitor that there were auditions for a production of Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. He decided to audition for that and was cast a bit role as one of the Seabees chorus boys. 

The production of South Pacific toured throughout the United Kingdom, and while on tour, Connery continued to play in football matches whenever he could. He played in match where he was spotted by football scout Matt Busby, who was impressed by his “ball” skills and even offered Connery a 25-pound-a-week contract. Connery was later quoted as having said “I realized that a top-class footballer could be over the hill by the age of 30 and I was already 23, so I decided to become an actor and it turned out to be one of my more intelligent moves.” Connery ultimately worked his way up to playing the role of Lieutenant Buzz Adams in South Pacific and he had an uncredited role in the British-produced film Lilacs in the Spring released in 1954. He landed several roles as extras in plays and movies, but those didn’t pay enough so he took another job as a babysitter, which earned him 10 shillings a night. It wasn’t long though, before he befriended American actor Robert Henderson who later helped him get cast in a production of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution at London’s Q Theatre. This also led to playing major roles in productions produced by the Oxford Theatre, including Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie.

Sean Connery made his American film debut when he was cast in Walt Disney’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959). Playing the role was challenging for him because it required him to talk in an Irish twang instead of his natural Scottish accent. He also wasn’t terribly fond of singing the duet “My Pretty Irish Girl,” with co-star Janet Munro. In spite of the challenges, the film was a hit, but little did Connery know that the film would catch the attention of producer Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli who at the time was working on a film series adaptation of Ian Fleming’s James Bond. He was searching for someone to play the suave spy, and when he saw “Darby O’Gill,” he knew his quest had ended. When he offered the role to Connery, however, Connery initially was skeptical at the idea of portraying the same character in a film series. He relented however when he realized how his career would progress if the films were successes, and made his very first appearance in Dr. No (1962).

Connery portrayed James Bond in seven films: “Dr. No,” From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Never Say Never Again (1983), all of which were successes. In between those films, he also starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964) and Sidney Lumet’s The Hill (1965) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974). He later grew tired of the Bond character and was very eager to prove his versatility, also saying “I am fed up to here with the whole Bond bit,” and “I’ve always hated that d***** James Bond. I’d like to kill him.” His close pal, Sir Michael Caine, with whom he appeared inThe Man Who Would Be King (1975) and A Bridge To Far (1977), said “If you were his friend in those early days you didn't raise the subject of Bond. He was, and is, a much better actor than just playing James Bond, but he became synonymous with Bond. He'd be walking down the street and people would say, ‘Look, there's James Bond’ That was particularly upsetting to him.”

Connery did succeeded in proving his versatility throughout the ‘80s, starring in films such as Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1984) and The Name of the Rose (1986), which garnered him a BAFTA award. And at 1988 Oscars, he was awarded the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as Jim Malone in The Untouchables (1987). To this day, Connery and David Niven remain the only actors to have played James Bond ever to win an Oscar (Niven won for Separate Tables (1958)). Connery received the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe for “Untouchables,” as well. Shortly after this triumph, Steven Spielberg cast Connery as Henry Jones Sr., father of Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), the third installment in the “Indiana Jones” franchise. The film featured John Rhys-Davies and Alison Doody both of whom had roles in the “Bond,” franchise.

Connery starred in The Hunt for Red October in 1990 and 1991 he briefly reunited with “Untouchables,” co-star Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) in which Costner played Robin Hood or Robin of Locksley and Connery made a cameo as King Richard the Lionheart. In 1995, he was awarded the Cecil B. Demille Award for a lifetime of achievement in film. In 1996 he starred in Hollywood Pictures’ The Rock (1996) and also made his debut as a voice-over artist, voicing the character of Draco the Dragon in DragonHeart (1996). He made his last theatrical film appearance in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).

Sean Connery will forever be remembered by those who watched him build the James Bond character. But an overview of his accomplished career, however, proves that he was much more than Bond…he was a gifted and versatile actor. And the legacy of that versatility and talent lives on!