Sunday, April 13, 2008

Ah Yes, I remember it well...

Oops, so it's been a while. I'm going to assume that nobody feels awkward about that but me since this is a fairly selfish blog to begin with. Now if you want an informative, mouth watering blog try http://godthatsgoodblog.blogspot.com/ because Lena is a genius and she puts pictures in her blog.

Anyway, I am hoping that writing slowly enters my life again as I am hoping to go back to school in the fall...to write about theatre. We'll see how that goes. While we wait for that though...show of hands for who loves Gigi? Every time I watch it I love it more. Maybe because it is so similar in form to My Fair Lady, or maybe because being raised to be a kept woman is just a really intriguing idea that is far to shunned upon now to catch anyones eye. I know there's a little part of me that wants to be Gigi, except when she sings "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight" which was originally written for Eliza to sing but aren't we glad it didn't end up there. I love that she sings the whole song to the cat but other than that...not a song with a lot going for it. While "The Night they Invented Champagne" has the most infectious melody and I cannot help polkaing up and down the stairs in my apartment. I think it might even be safe to say that it makes me downright giddy! As does Maurice Chevalier... who deserves a whole paragraph....

So here we are. I certainly thought I was content with Leslie Howard being my 30s heartthrob but ou la la! I netflixed Love Me Tonight. It's a 1934 movie musical with songs by Rodgers and Hart. I had read about a sequence in Rodgers' autobiography that he was quite proud of, that sounded very fun, where the melody to "Isn't it Romantic" is passed along starting with Maurice Chevalier, a humble tailor, and then from one character to another in Paris, all the way to the countryside where it reaches Jeanette McDonald as the Princess. Maurice Chevalier is nothing sort of charming. And although he looks like a player in his chic little suits he is perfectly adorable and sincere. The French accent doesn't hurt either. He sings a perfectly adorable number called "Mimi" which is now stuck in my head forever (props to RR) and the only problem is I keep singing the melody and inserting Gigi in for Mimi...coincidence...yeah I guess so but still kinda funny. While I had never really fully understood the stereotype around dashing Frenchmen it is clear that what I was missing was seeing young Chevalier. Mmmmmmmmm.

Et maintenant, bon soir and sweet dreams about charming Frenchmen...:)

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1 comment:

Lena said...

So does it go, Mimi....lalalaladododododlalalalaladododododlalalala?

thanks for the shout out!