1962 - Flower drum song (Flor de lótus)

I don't remember the method I used to choose what films to see or not when I was a lad of 13. Sao Paulo was a big city and it had dozens of cinemas to choose from. Every week there were lots of new movies joining the myriads of older releases already being shown around town.

1962 was a great year to go to the movies. One could see 'West Side Story', 'Guns of Navarone', 'El Cid', 'King of Kings', 'O pagador de promessas' and other great productions.

Of all the films I saw that year 'Flower drum song' stands out as my favourite musical ever. I could not stop singing 'Chop suey'after I left Cine Barão and took tram back to Vila Madalena where I used to live.

As I hadn't seen those 1930s MGM operetas yet - I would only see them in January 1964 - I may well say that 'Flower drum song' was the best musical I had ever seen in my life.

'Flor de lotus' was the Portuguese title of such a gem. I fell in love with the music as well as with various actors. Mainly, Miyoshi Umeki. But I also loved bombastic Nancy Kwan, suave James Shigeta and adorable Juanita Hall singing 'Chop suey' which became an earworm immediately after hearing it on the screen the first time.

Even though the sound-track album was never released in Brazil I knew many of those songs almost by heart especially 'One hundred million miracles' sung by Miss Umeki and Kam Tong who played her father in the story.

23 September 1962 - 'Flower drum song' premiered on Monday, 24 September 1962. I must have seen it on the Saturday, 29 September 1962.

14 October 1962 - 'Correio da Manhã' revieweer of 'Flower drum song' refers to Miyoshi Umeki as 'deplorable' (deploravel) which misses completely the point of informing the reader. This was his/her opinion and should be kept to him/herself. 

Film reviewing in Brazil was a topsy-turvy occupation done by journalists who did not have the least idea what their role should be. If I were the editor of an entertainment-page in a major city newspaper I would hire someone who kept in touch with what was happening in Hollywood and other centres of production but I would make sure he/she would write articles to enlighten the reader about the films he/she intended to see.

Have a read at these two pieces of 'film-reviewing'. To start with most Brazilian reviewers would not have seen any of the movies they were to supposed to write about. Okay, the film distributors didn't care to have a sneak preview so one had to make do with whatever he had at hand. 

Most of the comments were done based on the names that appeared in the credits the journos received from the distributors. Then they figured out what the film must be like and write their 'review' based on assumptions. This is not real journalism. It might be called 'divination' for all that I care.

30 September 1962: even though 'The world of Suzie Wong' was released in the USA on 10 November 1960 when 'Flower drum song' hadn't been shot yet, it appeared in the Brazilian market 2 years late after Nancy Kwan's 2nd feature had premiered.

RKO's Golden Gate Theatre waits to premiere 'Flower drum song' in San Francisco. 

MC Paul Speegel welcomes James Shigeta and Nancy Kwan; Miyoshi Umeki & her husband Wyn Opie, a TV producer at the post-premiere party later on. 

here you'll find everything you always wanted to know about 'The flower drum song':

http://loyd-theater.com/movie-collect-1/20th/flower-drum-song/flower-drum-song.html

James Shigeta & Nancy Kwan. 

Nancy Kwan in her breakthrough role 'Susie Wong'.

Cary Grant dropped in during the shooting of 'Flower drum song' and didn't miss a chance of photo opportunity with Nancy Kwan. 

Nancy Kwan weds Peter Poc.

Comments about the movie version of 'Flower drum song' at YouTube:

sunny chuang (2012)

Everything is in "Flower drum song', 1961 Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic movie musical - a lavish spectacle of campy-and-peppy musical numbers / edifying-and-satisfying narrative / galvanic-and-graphic characters / gushing-and-joshing moments / fad-and-rad stellar-headliners / bubbly-and-gnarly step designs / hefty-and-lofty production designs / hit-and-fit scoring and sound / congruous-and-precocious camera-works / capable-and-palpable scene-executions. This old-fashioned and impassioned musical number - the American-invented Chinese dish "Chop Suey" - is entirely groovy-and-savvy.The succulent song-duet of Ms Juanita Hall and Mr James Shigeta and the ebullient solo-dance of Mr Patrick Adiarte truly stand out. The well-blended "east-and-west" cultures in this musical sequence are brilliantly interpolated and manifested without misfire and disgrace to the moderatists and the modernists. I can't resist but diligently-and-frequently flip through this classic film clip for the reason that it is too chummy and so yummy.

Joe Gomez (2016)

When I was a kid, visiting San Francisco with my parents & sister we went to eat at the Imperial Palace in Chinatown. It had a plaque in front saying: This restaurant was used for some of the scenes in the film 'Flower drum song'; very cool place with lots of pictures of movie starts; old school style.

 

Guy Takamatsu (2016)

I only found out through a YouTube post with another video that James Shigeta had passed away in 2014. For some reason, I missed the story of his passing. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems as if his death did not get that much coverage as other celebrities. This may be a little late but James Shigeta R.I.P.

John Province (2020)

The great silent film star Anna Mae Wong was supposed to come out of retirement to play the Aunt role but died unexpectedly.

Ron (2020)

Juanita Hall is African American and Irish. Not Asian at all.

Victoria Grace (2020)

It blew my MIND when I learned as a teen that the actress Juanita Hall here was a Black American! She was so utterly, thoroughly convincing as a person of Asian heritage, even Polynesian as well, as her Bloody Mary role in "South Pacific" showed. What a chameleon! And super talented.

AsiaMs (2020)

I love that the square-dance guy is calling in Chinglish, specifically Cantonese and English.

Margaret Bohls (2015)

My mom would play this entire album when she would make her chop suey. 

C.Y. Lee, ‘Flower Drum Song’ author, is dead at 102

C.Y. Lee in 2002. Mr. Lee, the author of “The Flower Drum Song,” about life among new arrivals in Chinatown in San Francisco, was one of the first Asian novelists to find commercial success in the United States.

C.Y. Lee in 2002. Mr. Lee, the author of “The Flower Drum Song,” about life among new arrivals in Chinatown in San Francisco, was one of the first Asian novelists to find commercial success in the United States.

By Katharine Q. Seelye for The New York Times

11 February 2019

The manuscript had been rejected by more than a dozen publishing houses. Finally, an elderly man who was screening new books for what was then Farrar, Straus & Cudahy read it and liked it.

Too ill to write a full critique, he just scrawled, “Read this.” And then he died, the manuscript beside him on his bed.

“Without those two words, the novel would have never been published,” C. Y. Lee, the manuscript’s author, told The Associated Press in 2002.

The novel was “The Flower Drum Song,” a story of generational and cultural conflict among newly arrived Asians in San Francisco’s Chinatown. It was published in 1957 and became a best seller. It was adapted as a Broadway musical, which received six Tony nominations, and then as a movie, which was nominated for five Academy Awards.

With “The Flower Drum Song,” Mr. Lee, who died on 8 November 2018, at 102, became one of the first Asian novelists to find commercial success in the United States.

Mr. Lee’s daughter, Angela Lee, said he died from complications of kidney failure under hospice care at her home in Los Angeles. Word of his death appeared at the time in Chinese-language newspapers; Ms. Lee said the family did not think to reach out to the English-language news media. The Washington Post recently learned of the death and became the first English-language news outlet to report it.

Mr. Lee, who was born in China, wrote other books, including “China Saga” (1987) and “Gate of Rage” (1991), about the 1989 uprising in Tiananmen Square. But none achieved the fame of “The Flower Drum Song,” which Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II turned into a musical, directed by Gene Kelly.

The first big Broadway show with Asian-American actors in leading roles, “Flower Drum Song,” as the adaptation was known, ran from 1958 to 1960. The next year it became a movie, with a cast that included Nancy Kwan, Miyoshi Umeki (who also starred in the stage version), Jack Soo and James Shigeta. It was among the first major Hollywood productions with a mostly Asian-American cast.

But for all the commercial success of the play and the movie, and the pride felt by many Asian-Americans at seeing Asian actors, the reviews were mixed. Critics complained that the story line — more nuanced in the novel — was simplistic and dated in the adaptations, and that all three versions perpetuated stereotypes about Chinese immigrants. As time went on, the story was also seen as sexist. And some dismissed the music as second-tier Rodgers, not on a par with “South Pacific” or “The King and I.”

The criticism did not bother Mr. Lee, as he said in an interview published in 2004 for the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States. He said he had been writing about a particular period, when people were more traditional. And he was happy with changes made for the dramatic versions; his real desire, his daughter said in a telephone interview, was to be successful.

“Dad really liked being popular,” Ms. Lee said. “He wasn’t trying to be a highbrow literary author. He just wanted to reach the widest audience possible.”

The playwright David Henry Hwang, best known for “M. Butterfly,” was a longtime fan of Mr. Lee’s novel and spearheaded a revival of the musical in 2001. He updated the original libretto, written by Mr. Hammerstein and Joseph Fields, and tweaked the characters and the plot. He felt the novel had a bittersweet tone that had been lost in other adaptations.

“C. Y. brought complexity and humanity to Chinese-American characters and stories during a period when American culture portrayed Asians as caricatures: oversexualized women and men to be ridiculed or killed in battle,” Mr. Hwang said in an email.

After opening successfully in Los Angeles, the revival moved to Broadway in 2002, where reviews were mixed. It received three Tony nominations and ran for 169 performances.

Chin Yang Lee was born on 23rd December 1915, in Hunan Province, the youngest in a family of eight boys and three girls. Ms. Lee and her brother, Jay, said that his father was essentially a feudal lord.

“The family called our grandfather a ‘philosopher king’ because he never worked,” Jay Lee said. “He walked around the property writing poetry and contemplating nature.” The family was well off until the Communist revolution in 1949, when they lost everything.

C. Y. Lee, who had enrolled at Shandong University in Jinan, was often on the run from military clashes that took place during the second Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945. He graduated from National Southwestern Associated University, in Kunming, in 1942.

He worked for a time as a secretary for a maharajah on the border between China and Burma, now Myanmar. He said in the interview published in 2004 that this was the best year of his life. In China, he said, “I was a refugee all the time,” escaping bombing, war, bandits and famine, but on the border, “life was so relaxed, the countryside so beautiful.” In that job, he translated letters, but he mainly entertained the maharajah’s bored young wife by playing badminton with her.

Mr. Lee came to New York in 1943 after fleeing the Japanese on the Burma Road on foot, with a pen and a typewriter, his children said.

He enrolled at Columbia University and studied literature but had a hard time because of the language barrier. He transferred to the Yale School of Drama, where he felt liberated when a professor told him not to worry about using proper English and to focus on telling his story.

His final project at Yale, from which he graduated in 1947 with a master of fine arts degree, was a play about working with the maharajah. It became a series of short stories for The New Yorker, then a book called “The Sawbwa and His Secretary: My Burmese Reminiscences” (1959).

Later, while living in California, he met Joyce Lackey, an American, at a writer’s group that also included Ray Bradbury. Ms. Lackey and Mr. Lee married in 1963; she died in 1997. Mr. Lee’s son and daughter are his only survivors.

Mr. Lee struggled as a writer for many years in San Francisco, working for Chinese-language newspapers and barely making a living when he began “The Flower Drum Song.”

When no one would publish it, his agent suggested he try another profession. And, as the often-recounted story has it, his career as a writer might have ended then, if not for the unnamed man who read the manuscript on his death bed.

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 12, 2019, on Page A20 of the New York Times edition with the headline: C. Y. Lee, 102, who wrote ‘The Flower Drum Song’.

 

C.Y. Lee, Chinese-born author of bestselling novel ‘The Flower Drum Song’, dies at age 102

Book shot up the bestseller list and was adapted for stage by the Broadway team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein; a 1961 movie adaptation received five Oscar nominations

4 February 2019

Washington Post

C.Y. Lee, a Chinese-born author whose bestselling 1957 novel 'The Flower Drum Song' explored conflict among first and second-generation immigrants in San Francisco’s Chinatown, provided the source material for two Broadway productions 43 years apart and sparked a cultural debate about Asian stereotypes, died on 8 November 2018, at his daughter’s home in Los Angeles. He was 102.

The cause was complications from kidney failure, said his daughter, Angela Lee. The family did not publicly announce the death.

Over a career spanning seven decades, Lee wrote nearly a dozen volumes of historical fiction, but his best-known work was his debut novel, 'The Flower Drum Song', which brought instant literary stardom upon its release.

He was called an overnight sensation, but in fact he had spent years toiling in obscurity after having arrived in the United States from China on a student visa during WWII. 

He wrote 'The Flower Drum Song' while renting a room above a Filipino nightclub in San Francisco’s Chinatown and working as an editor and columnist for one of the city’s Chinese-language newspapers.

The book concerned Wang Chi-yang, a first-generation Chinese immigrant struggling to accept the cultural and generational gap he had with his American-raised son, Wang Ta, particularly in matters of love and marriage.

Lee’s agent was turned down by nearly every major publisher in New York and was about to give up after a year, when Farrar, Straus and Cudahy made a bid.

Lee said the book’s salvation came from an elderly man who had been paid by the publisher to screen manuscripts and had scrawled two words on the book before dying: “Read This”.

In a review for The New York Times, novelist Idwal Jones said Lee “writes with no omission of slang and sex and every regard for the popular taste”.

The book shot up the bestseller list and caught the attention of screenwriter Joseph Fields, who persuaded the Broadway team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein to adapt it for the stage. The three simplified Lee’s narrative, and the musical comedy 'Flower Drum Song' had a two-year run on Broadway, starting in 1958.

The musical, which Lee said was “funny and more commercial” than his book, was directed by Gene Kelly and received several Tony Award nominations. It was the first mainstream play about Asians featuring a mostly Asian cast.

Japanese-American actress Miyoshi Umeki portrayed Mei Li, the “picture bride” intended for Wang Ta, in both the Broadway musical and its 1961 movie adaptation.

James Shigeta starred in the film as Wang Ta, who is beguiled by the seductive showgirl Linda Low, played by Nancy Kwan.

It was the first major Hollywood film about Asian-Americans featuring a fully Asian cast and received five Oscar nominations.

As with the play, some critics viewed the film as an exotic stereotype of Chinese Americans that did not match the musical or dramatic standards of the Pacific Rim-set Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals South Pacific and The King and I.

In The New Yorker, critic Brendan Gill called the movie an “elaborate fraud”, bloated with “pseudo-Oriental intricacies … every bit as authentic as Fu Manchu.”

More than a half-century later, in an interview with literary scholar Andrew Shin, Lee said he wrote the book for a broad American audience in the hope of windfall success, and he defended the way he depicted Asian-Americans.

“I have received criticism, you see, saying that even the novel is a little stereotypical,” he said. “But it was the period. I have written novels with characters who have bound feet and pigtails. But this is an accurate portrait of people during the period I was writing about … So people who criticise the novel in that way forget about when the events take place. They just rush to say that I am stereotyping Chinese culture.”

Lee’s book fell out of critical favour and went out of print, in large part because it was so identified with the hit stage play and film.

In the late 1990s – after Lee had written several other Chinese-inspired novels that received little fanfare – there were stirrings of a revival of interest in the 'Flower Drum Song' musical, championed by Asian-American playwright David Henry Hwang, author of the Tony Award-winning drama M. Butterfly.

Hwang had long called the film version of Lee’s novel a guilty pleasure.

“It was the only place on television where you could see Asians acting like Americans,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that he often watched it despite its reputation as dull, sexist and “inauthentic”. It also led him to the source material.

In 1996, Hwang received permission from the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organisation to proceed with a “revisical”.

He wrote a new libretto to better reflect the nuances of Lee’s work – which Hwang said for the first time in American popular culture portrayed Asian women as “complex, fully human characters.”

He tinkered with the conflict at the centre of the plot: it would now hinge on whether to turn the father’s failing opera house into a nightclub.

The musical was a high-profile hit when it opened in 2001 in Los Angeles. The show moved the next year to Broadway, where it was nominated for several Tony Awards and ran for 169 performances.

Hwang was also central to the 2002 reissue of Lee’s novel by Penguin Books.

In a foreword, Hwang said his introduction to the book was like “discovering a long-lost ancestor, a forgotten branch of my family tree, a missing piece of literary history for which I felt particular affinity”.

Chin Yang Lee was born on 23rd December 1915, in Hunan province, the youngest of 11 children of a rice farmer.

He moved with his family to Beijing at 10. Amid the Japanese occupation, he left school to flee for safety on China’s southern border with Burma.

He spent a year and a half working as a secretary for a municipal chief – a self-proclaimed maharajah – in the Burmese border city of Mangshi. His job was to write English-language letters and entertain his bored wife.

“The maharajah needed somebody to play badminton with her every day,” Lee told the Chronicle. (The experience inspired his book The Sawbwa and His Secretary: My Burmese Reminiscences, published in 1959).

After Lee graduated from a university in Kunming, China, he said his oldest brother – the de facto head of the siblings – ordered him to flee the war-torn country for his own good.

“When my eldest brother told me: ‘Get out!’ I said, ‘Where to?’ ” he recalled to the Chronicle. “America,’ he said. I was surprised.”

He hocked all his possessions to pay for his passage to New York in 1943, and he never saw his parents again.

He briefly enrolled at Columbia University to study comparative literature, but his ambitions were to study playwriting at Yale’s graduate programme with a professor who had once mentored Eugene O’Neill, whom Lee idolised.

He received a master of fine arts degree in 1947 and was the only Asian in the drama school at the time, he said.

He won a short-story contest sponsored by Writer’s Digest magazine in 1949, applied for permanent residence in the United States and later gained citizenship. His wife of 34 years, Joyce Lackey, died in 1997. In addition to his daughter, survivors include a son, Jay Lee; both of them live in Los Angeles.

After 'The Flower Drum Song', Lee published 10 other novels and a collection of short stories, many of which were translated into Chinese from English.

They include 'Lover’s Point' (1958), about a Japanese-American woman’s love affairs in San Francisco, and 'China Saga' (1987), a multigenerational family drama.

'China Saga', critic Carolyn See wrote in The Washington Post, left readers “happily overdosed on rapes, double murders, banners, kites, concubines, daring rescues and – at one notable banquet – a fish made out of wood.” She also praised Lee’s “clean and literate” prose style.

In Hwang’s foreword to the 2002 reissue of 'The Flower Drum Song', he called the novel an “Asian-American classic”.

But Lee said in his interview with Shin, the literary scholar, “I never thought of it that way. I was just delighted if I could sell anything.”

1 9 6 3 (2nd) - 'Wuthering Heights' - '40 pounds of trouble' / Marilyn / 'Limelight' / 'Counterfeit traitor'

24 March 1963 - this is how I was introduced to 1939's 'Wuthering Heights' - 'Morro dos ventos uivantes' in Portuguese - that turned out to be one of my favourite movier I have ever seen.

'Wuthering Heights' OESP review.

7 April 1963 - George Seaton's 'The counterfeit traitor' (O falso traidor) opens in Rio de Janeiro on 11 April 1963, four months before it reached São Paulo (11 August 1963). I had just turned 14 when I saw it. I was really impressed by Lilli Palmer's role as Frau Marianne Möllendorf who passes information to William Holden's character who works for the Allies. 'The counterfeit traitor' opened in the USA on 17 April 1962. It took a full year to open in Rio which was considered 'normal' then. 

Eric 'Red' Erickson (Holden) is an American-born Swedish oil man who is pressured by Allied intelligence agents, led by a British agent (Griffith), to spy for the Allies. Erickson begins his job reluctantly, as it causes marital discord and forces him to pose as a Nazi. He agrees because otherwise his business would be destroyed by the Allies, but over time, realizes it is the right thing to do.

He is influenced in making this moral decision by one of his contacts in Germany, a religious woman (Lilli Palmer) who gives him guidance on the meaning of life and right and wrong. Erickson has a number of close calls, but eventually escapes to Sweden in a harrowing sea voyage.

Eric Erickson (Holden) and Marianne Möllendorf (Palmer).

Klauss Kinski plays a Jewish man who flees to Sweden on a boat and chokes to death with a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth trying not to cough and be discovered by the Gestapo. 

a Gestapo agent enters the confessionary while Palmer waits for a priest.

the hightlight of the movie is this scene in which the character played by Lilli Palmer confesses her sin  - of aiding an American spy - to Unger, a Gestapo agent (Peter Capell) who took the place of a Catholic priest in the confessionary.

'The counterfeit traitor' opened in New York City on 17 April 1962. 

1st April 1962 - Susan Hayward & John Gavin in 'Esquina do pecado', based on 'Back Street' a novel written by Fannie Hurst in 1931 and a remake of  John M. Stahl's 1932 flick of same name starring Irene Dunn as the kept woman and John Boles the business man. 

7 April 1963 - After watching 'Wuthering Heights' at Cine Marco Polo I fell in love with old American films and this Harold Lloyd's 'World of comedy' - a compilation of parts of his best movies was perhaps the first I saw. I came out of Cine Bandeirantes in a state of grace. I loved Charles Chaplin but Lloyd was different; he was modern even though all films had been shot in the 10s and 20s. 

7 April 1963 - It's funny I did not mange to see either of these 3 flicks. I don't know what my reaction would be to Edward Blake's 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' if I had seen it then instead of watching it on TV in Sydney in the 1990s. Knowing my romantic pench I don't think I would have liked it even though Audrey Hepburn was such a beautiful sight to see and to listen to Henry Mancini's 'Moon River' and all that wonderful sound-track was heaven.

'Filmelândia' with an abstract of 'Bonequinha de luxo' (Breakfast at Tiffany's). It was released in the USA on 5 October 1961. It took 18 months to be released in Brazil on 10 April 1963. 

I also missed 'Candelabro Italiano' (Rome Adventure) too. I don't think I knew Suzanne Pleshette as yet otherwise I wouldn't have missed it. 

As to 'Se o marido atender... desligue' (If a man answers... don't hang up) with Sandra Dee - whom I really liked - and Bobby Darin - I have no explanation except that I must not have seen the ads or passed by the huge lobby of Cine Ipiranga around that time.

7 July 1963 - ‘Forty pounds of trouble’ (20 quilos de confusão) was Hollywood at its fluffiest. Actually it should be called Hollywood visits Disneyland. Suzanne Pleshette was at the peak of her career and Tony Curtis just stumbled from sugary roles in light-weight movies. My young sister Sandra weighed exactly 20 kilos and after proving it by climbing up on a scale at the lobby of Cine Olido was allowed to get in without paying.

7 July 1963 - ‘Diabruras de Marisol’ ('Tombola' or 'Los enredos de Marisol') was the Spanish child star’s  3rd film, made in 1962 when she was still pre-teen; most of epic movies were made in Italy or Spain now: 'Giuseppe venduto dai fratelli' (José vendido no Egito) was an Italian-Yugoslavian production; 'O gigante de Metropolis' (Il gigante di Metropolis) had an American muscle-man and Moira Orfei in the cast. These movies were highly camp with a gay-induced sexuality that was consumed by heterosexuals alike; at Cine Windsor, 'Electra' (A Vingadora).

You never knew if Bella Cortez was going to kill the muscle-man or perform a blow job on the spot.

Marisol's last film as a child; muscle & bust were the staple of homo-erotic-trashy Italian epics. 

7 July 1963 - Steve Reeves was the dream of every gay boy in the world. He was an American body builder who after winning Mr. Universe title made Italy his home and starred in dozens of sand-and-sandal movies that were consummed world wide. In 1961's 'Romolo e Remo' aka 'Duel of titans' Reeves is joined by another muscle-man, Gordon Scott who had been Tarazan in a few MGM ficks in the 1950s; at Cine Metro, Steve Reeves is the 'Son of Spartacus'; at Cine Boulevard was 1962's 'Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy' an antology of comedy sequences edited by Lloyd himself, mostly from 'Safety last', 'The freshman', 'Hot water', 'Why worry?', 'Girl shy', 'Professor Beware', 'Movie crazy' and 'Feet first'; at Cine Bijou was 1956's 'Kanal' (Sewer) directed by Adrzej Wajda about the Warsaw Uprising and fighters escaping the Nazi onslaught through the city's sewers; at Cine Majestic was 1939's 'Gunga Din' with Cary Grant.

This was the closest one got to a blow job at the muscle man.

Steve Reeves just being gorgeous earlier in his life as Mr. Universe; former Tarzan Gordon Scott & Reeves doing the best grimaces they could muster in 'Romolo e Remo'.

7 July 1963 - Taling about Cary Grant, he was having something of a revival in 1963 with the re-relase of 'Gunga Din' and 'The talk of the town' (...E a vida continua) with lovely Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman; at Marrocos was Robert Youngson's '30 years of fun' (30 anos de alegria) with Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Billy Bevan, Harry Landgon etc. that along with 'Harold Lloyd, o Rei do Riso' and 'Festival de Carlitos' showed to new generations what comedy was like in the 1910s and 1920s.

7 July 1963 - Even though I have never seen 'Joseph and his bretheren' (José vendido no Egito) I can never forget it. My dear aunt Dulce, who' is a Virgo, went to see it and told me every little detail possible about the flick so that it feels like I had seen it myself.

7  July 1963 - Mr Universe meets Tarzan; Steve Reeves plays Romulo and former Tarzan Gordon Scott plays Remo; this was a partnership made in heaven for youngsters who followed Reeves & Scott. I remember the day I went to see 'Romulo & Remo' as if it were today.

14 July 1963 - trying to cash in on Spanish child-singer Joselito's popularity, director Jose Mojica Marins aka Zé do Caixão devises 'Meu destino em suas mãos' (My destiny in your hands) as a vehicle for Franquito, a Paraguyan-Brazilian teen-ager who had already recorded a few albums for Copacabana Records. The ad says Franquito himself would be at the lobby of Cine Europa, on Praça da Republica to sign autographs to his fans. 

21st July 1963 - After falling in love with old American movies after seeing 'Wuthering Heights' I used to keep my eyes open whenever I saw movie-ads to see if I spotted them. 'The talk of the town' (... E a vida continua) was my next task. Needless to say I fell in love with Jean Arthur who was already an old lady in 1963. I would only see other Jean Arthur films in the late 80s and 90s but I never forgot her face... and her voice too.

10 July 1963 - Atlantida presents comedians Oscarito, Vagareza & Nair Bello in 'Os apavorados'. This sort of comedy had died circa 1961 of natural causes. Oscarito's use-by-date was long overdue; Vagareza tried hard to become a main-stream comedian with no success; Nair Bello played Dona Santinha successfully on TV sketches but as far as I know never made in the big screen. Brazilian popular cinema had already died - in 1961 - and it would never resurrect... 

25 August 1963 - finally, after so much rubbish about the going-ons of drunken stars Liz Taylor and Richard Burton that took almost 2 years here it was: 'Cleopatra' opening at Cine Windsor on 30 August 1963. By that time I had lost interest in the movie and its stars and never watched it either on the big screen or on TV. 

11 August 1963 - George Seaton's 'Counterfeit traitor' (O falso traidor) was unforgettable to me mainly because of one particular scene. Lilli Palmer is German woman who helps William Holden who plays a Swedish spy for the Allies. She, a Catholic devout feels the need to confess, enters a church and goes to the confessional but instead of a priest there to hear her sins is Gestapo man; Alfred Hitchcock's 'The birds' (Os passaros) was at its 5th week at Cine Paisandu with Rod Taylor, Suzanne Pleshette & Tippi Hedren.

29 September 1963 - Time was running fast against this kind of Brazilian comedy... Ronaldo Lupo had been a producer, director & actor with many hits on his hands; 'Quero essa mulher assim mesmo' must have been his last try; This is late 1963 and Cinema Novo had been around for a couple of years already... TV was making heavy steps into people's viewing habits... crowds were deserting movie houses by the thousands... Why should one go out and pay money to see something they could easily see by simply switching a button at home? It is emblematic that this flick has got so many of the best of Brazilian 1950s comedies like Violeta Ferraz, Grande Otelo, Renata Fronzi, Hamilton Ferreira who played only bad-men... Times were really a-changing...

Ronaldo Lupo was already 50 years old when he made this comedy... and he was still playing the handsome lead-man... of sorts...

Violeta Ferraz was still making faces at 60 years old; actually Ferraz could do whatever she wanted... she was too good; see Herval Rossano & Anilza Leoni in the background.

29 September 1963 - a vehicle for Germany's sweetheart Sabine Sinjen (born on 18 August 1942) 'Corações que sonham' (Sabine un die 100 Männer) originally released 1960, featured internationally acclaimed violinist Yehudi Menuhin as himself.

Sabine Sinjen & Yehudi Menuhin in 1960; Menuhim in 1937.

3rd October 1963 - Marilyn Monroe died on 5 August 1962. She was 36 years old and knew her time in Hollywood was through. Her last hit had been Billy Wilder's 'Some like it hot' in 1959 - three long years before which in Hollywood was an eternity. Marilyn had been dumped by 20th Century-Fox when she started arriving late for 'Something's got to give'. Suddenly she had a lot of time with nothing to do so she took a few extra sleeping pills and never woke up. Marilyn may have been a 'has been' with a 'use-by-date' overdue but after her death her image suddenly acquired new life and Fox knew it had a treasure on its film archives, so they told Rock Hudson to be an MC and present a documentary to be released before the 1st anniversary of MM's death on 18 April 1963.

Marilyn & Rock Hudson at the Golden Globe Awards ceremony on 5 March 1962.

27 October 1963 - Ten years after being shown in Brazil 'Limelight' (Luzes da ribalta) is re-released at Cine Rivoli. I had the supreme luck to have seen it and fell in love with it for the rest of my life; at Cine Astor: 'My geisha' (Minha doce gueixa), an obvious vehicle for Shirley McLaine's vanity. She had to have Yves Montand too (Marilyn Monroe had had him in 'Let's make love' in 1960).

3rd November 1963 - Chaplin's masterpiece 'Limelight' (Luzes da ribalta) first shown in São Paulo in July 1953, at Cine Art Palacio and Cine Opera returns now at Cine Rivoli. 

10 November 1963 - At Cine Europa Toshio Masuda’s 1962’s ‘Ueo muite aruko’ (Olhando para o céu) based on Kyu Sakamoto’s song of same name which went to #1 in the USA with the quaint title of ‘Sukiyaky’. Mitsuo Hamada plays the romantic part to Kyu Sakamoto; following the torrent of biblical epics, 'Sodom and Gomorrah' is only another piece or trash with a grey wooden Stewart Granger, a tormented Pier Angeli and an out-of-place Anouk Aimée; at Cine Marrocos 'The best of enemies' (O melhor dos inimigos) with Italian comedian Alberto Sordi playing opposite British David Niven.

10 November 1963 - Charles Chaplin piece-de-resistence 'Limelight' was re-released for the benefit of those too young to have seen it the first time around some 11 years before, 1952. For those who loved Chaplin, like myself, it was such a treat I can't even describe it; comedian Alberto Sordi had been popular all through the 1950s and still commanded a huge following in 1960's 'Tutti a casa' (Regresso ao lar) at Cine Coral; next attraction would be Jacques Demy's 1961's 'Lola' with Anouk Aimée. The names of the film and title characters were inspired by Josef von Sternberg's 1930 film 'Der bluae Engel', in which Marlene Dietrich played a burlesque performer named Lola Lola; next attraction at Cine Rivoli would be Stanley Kramer's 'Pressure point' (Tormento d'alma) with Sidney Poitier, Bobby Darin & Peter Falk. Kramer had done 'The defiant ones' (Acorrentados) in 1958 with Poitier & Tony Curtis.

Sidney Poitier & Bobby Darin in 'Pressure point'; future detective Columbo, Peter Falk & Poitier.

12 November 1963 - Sarita Montiel sang at Teatro Record and 'Sublime melodia' aka 'Pecado de amor' was shown at Cine Rio, Cine Atlas and Cine Pigalle; 'Lawrence of Arabia' won 7 Academy Awards and was at its 2nd week at Cine Rio Branco; Ronald Golias & Grande Otelo starred in 'O homem que roubou a Copa do Mundo' at Cine Art Palacio & Circuito Serrador; Cine Olido showed Franz Kafka's 'The trial' (O processo) with Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider & Orson Welles; Shirley McLaine could be seen in MGM's 'The sheepman' and at Cine Astor & Cine Ipiranga in 'My geisha' (Minha doce geisha) with Yves Montand.

24 November 1963 - a brand-new trash-cinema opens on Avenida Rio Branco, 49 - Cine Arizona was opened to the public on Thursday, 28 November 1963, with 'Jim das Selvas' (Jungle Jim) a movie released 15 years earlier - in 1948. Cine Arizona had a long career until it changed its name to Cine America... only the flies were new for the same old shit. As the 1970s progressed the the city of São Paulo entered a decadence that until today (2017) has not find a way to reverse its rot. Now the whole area stinks of shit, urine, body odor and all...

22 December 1963 - I don't really remember how popular British comedian Norman Wisdom's films were in Brazil. As one can see 1955's 'Norman, um sujeito de sorte' (One good turn) shot in in England 8 years before had a major release in Brazil in 1963. When I pointed out about Norman's popularity in Brazil to my friend John Napper, he wrote at Facebook: 

I was not aware that Norman Wisdom's films were known in Brazil. However, his slapstick style was reminiscent of silent films so the visual side would work in any language and he always played the little man fighting against the big organizations which would go down well I think. 

He was incredibly popular in Albania because his films were just abouth the only films from the West that were allowed to be shown. He was considered to be innocuous and the Communist authorities liked the way he fought the big Capitalists such as in 'The early bird' where he plays a milkman working for a small dairy that a huge national company was trying to put out of business. 

A few years ago, the England football team played a World Cup qualifier in Albania and Norman made a personal appearance on the touch line before the match. The crowd went wild and the England players couldn't understand what was going on! 

One more thing that I admire about Norman Wisdom. In his later years he moved to the Isle of Man which many successful people do to avoid income tax. Norman was very adamant that he lived there because it was like England in the 1950s and he liked that. However, he insisted that all his income was declared in the UK and he paid full income tax on it because he still received more than enough to live on comfortably and felt he should pay his fair share. He came from a very poor background and never forgot that. He didn't think it right that he should avoit paying tax just because he had worked hard and become wealthy as a result. I admire that. John Napper, Rio de Janeiro, 22 January 2017. 

30 December 1963 - Brazilian actress Norma Benguel 'made it' in Italy being the female-lead in 'Mafioso' directed by Alberto Lattuada with Alberto Sordi.