Stephen Sondheim - Evening Primrose (1966) ABC Stage 67
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- Опубліковано 27 лис 2021
- Evening Primrose is a made for TV musical film with a book by James Goldman and lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim, written for the television anthology series ABC Stage 67. It aired on November 16, 1966.
It is based on a John Collier short story published in the 1951 collection Fancies and Goodnights.
Synopsis:
Poet Charles Snell takes refuge from the world by hiding out in a department store after closing ("If You Can Find Me, I'm Here"). Once there he finds a secret group who have lived in the store for years. The leader of the group, Mrs. Monday, permits Charles to stay after he convinces her that he is a poet.
Charles meets and is smitten with a beautiful young girl, Ella Harkins, Mrs. Monday's maid. Ella, who is now 19, has lived in the store since she was separated from her mother at age six, falling asleep in the women's hat department. Ella is unhappy and wants to leave, but is afraid of the "Dark Men." Should someone try to return to the outside world and risk revealing the group's existence, the Dark Men take them away and another mannequin appears in the clothing department.
Charles realizes Ella has not seen the sun for thirteen years, but she replies that she remembers ("I Remember"). Charles has fallen in love with Ella; as he plays cards with members of the group, he has a quiet duet with Ella ("When"). Ella finally decides to leave with Charles ("Take Me To The World"). Charles is initially reluctant to leave his now-comfortable life, but then understands that he loves Ella more than poetry. Mrs. Monday and the others hear their plans, and they call the Dark Men, as Ella and Charles try to escape.
The store opens the next morning with a couple on the sidewalk who resemble Ella and Charles from behind, but turn out to be strangers when the camera pans to their faces. They're looking at a window display in which Ella and Charles are now mannequins dressed as a bride and groom, with the night watchman acting as their minister.
I came across this through The Sound of Music and Charmian Carr. It's wonderful, and very underrated.
It's as if Rod Serling asked Sondheim if he'd be interested in coming up with a musical for the "Twilight Zone" - and got it. 😳
Yes...a musicalized version of the episode "The After Hours"
I saw this as a teenager and was mesmerized by it. At that time I had no idea who Stephen Sondheim was or that I would end up playing seven of his characters. How lucky have I been.
You’re so lucky to have been in so many Sondheim productions!!! May I ask which ones and which roles?
Same here!
Lucky you and I would say you have a great voice. What is you favourite musical?
Show off!
Sounds like it influenced you positively if you’re an actor.
This is a masterpiece: dark, romantic, sad, funny, odd and genuinely hair-raising. Beautiful songs by Sondheim and a brilliant script from James Goldman. How can it possibly have less than 500 likes? 😔
Charmaine Carr was so beautiful. I met her at a screening of _The Sound of Music._ She was much older then, but still lovely. Also, very friendly and charming.
im going to stay back in a shop after dark just to sing this
edit: i wrote this at the start. oh my god, what a twist. its devastating, this is criminally underrated.
I was really rooting for them to escape and I thought they had until I saw the mannequins omg 😭😭😭
@@Nazza_Bazza I know!! It was honestly shocking. It’s also strange because it’s not one of those just ‘sad’ moments, it’s more horrifying and heart wrenching. Like, you don’t get any time to even feel sad. It just leaves you with that terror… I love it so much.
Absolutely magical! I miss Sondheim!
This is delightful! I've never seen Tony Perkins more charming and relaxed, as if he's having a good time, and I love his singing - it's very natural.. Not "actor-ish". A gem.
Everyone is talking about individual aspects of this film, such as the singing, songwriting and acting, etc, which is all absolutely brilliant, but i think that this masterpiece must be remembered for the masterful writing. not to spoil to those who havent yet seen the end, but its brilliant and horrifying. there is also such a devastating sadness in their eyes. i dont even know how that was managed. this is brilliant.
If TWILIGHT ZONE were a musical.....
Have wanted to see this for decades. Thanks for posting, Dwight. You are, indeed, great.
I’m so blessed to have seen this on tv. As a child, it was compelling and frightening and sad. I never stopped being blown away by Stephen Sondheim.
Sondheim was just the best! The word genius is thrown around like nobody's business these days, but I think it only really applies to Stephen Sondheim.
What an extraordinary gift to see this online. Thank you so much.
it's rather interesting how much older Charmian looks here than when she was playing Liesl...and the two things were just two years apart.
I totally agree about how much older she looks. I suppose that for The Sound of Music, she was portraying a 16 year old, and here a 19 year old.
The most sexiest actress in this teleplay, is the late Charmian Carr.
She was 23 at the time of recording, and played Ella Harkins.
We all remember her as the eldest of the seven kids in "Sound of Music", Liesl von Trapp. Her radiant beauty, blue eyes & brunette hair, is what I can describe about her.
Carr passed away in September 2.016, at 73. May she RIP.
Disagree. Dorothy Stickney was by far the "most sexiest" actress in this teleplay. Her soothing voice and rapport with the "dark men" is the stuff that dreams are made of.
I met James Goldman in the '80s and he expressed the desire to write a full-length version of this as a theatrical film. Alas, never happened...
Anything and everything Sondheim. Can't measure how much he inspired and expanded my musical theater understanding and experience over the years. So glad I got to be part of the Sondheim generation..
Stern Brothers department store was in New York on 42nd Street across from Bryant Park. The building has been demolished.
I have seen this story in countless horror anthologies over the years. The story's ending is essentially the same and the story tone is ominous from the start, but this adaption, even with the Sondheim music, is even more sad. Though in the end, Charles and Ella do "see the world", just not the way they wanted to...
Interesting survival and the main song its built round is haunting. Amusing to think Sondheim already had his lyrics to West Side Story under his belt and Perkins had done his immortal thing in Psycho by this time. Lost world.
I saw Perkins in the musical “Greenwillow” and knew he could sing. I think it was 1959. Loved him then. It might have been before Psycho, a film that destroyed his career as a stage actor..
@@sheilabloom6735 I envy you that you were allowed to see him live in the musical when he was young at the end of the 50s. What I would have given for it.
By 1966, Sondheim also had the lyrics to Gypsy (music: Jule Styne) and Do I Hear a Waltz? (Richard Rodgers) "under his belt" and more to the point had written both music and lyrics for two produced Broadway shows, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962; movie released in 1966) and Anyone Can Whistle (1964). A Funny Thing... was a hit; Anyone Can Whistle was not, but the score showed Sondheim's ability to make something memorable out of highly unconventional material.
Leaving the matrix is prohibited...
The show must go on.
Thank you so much for posting. The ending was horrifying
The most fascinating (and bittersweet) aspect of this is that there was once a time when television took pride in presenting programs that were both intelligent and entertaining, employing the finest talents of the time. Now we live in reality TV hell.
it just hit me...Andrew Garfield and Anthony Perkins look so much alike.
I need an Anthony Perkins biopic starring Andrew Garfield like I need air to breathe. I've been running on AG content since I watched Tick Tick Boom so I know he could pull it off, particularly if there's singing involved.
They are both handsome.
I immediately thought so too.
I found a clip of Anthony singing and tried to find it on different sites, only to stumble across it
strangest musical ever,,,,but good
So glad I found this little gem. Thank you. Never knew it was created as a film for TV. Dark and strange and melancholic, Peter Hutley, Newcastle, Australia. (Long time Sondheim fan)
Wow Tony Perkins can really sing....they are great together
Thank you so much. I've always wanted to see this!
I'm so excited to watch this. Has anyone else heard of the Terry Pratchett children's trilogy, the bromeliad trilogy, or 'Nomes'. In which a tiny intergalactic spaceship crashed on Earth , and the survivors have lived in a small regional department store for many generations, but the bankrupted store is about to be demolished, and the youth must convince the aristocratic old guard of the appending apocalypse?
I just watched this after learning about in the New York Times article "How Stephen Sondheim’s Work Did (and Didn’t) Translate to the Screen" (2022-04-01). Hauntingly beautiful.
6:00 we get the final bit of follies' i'm still here lol
heard that aswell and felt warm inside
I wish, I wish that I could have experienced NYC in the 1950’s & ‘60’s.
Just the sheer amount of foot traffic on the streets. Today pales in comparison.
But there was also very casual racism and sexism and more crime than today. And if you weren't a Yankees fan it got pretty grim - although 1955 and 1969 were very very sweet indeed!
honestly i love anthony perkins, he is really, genuinely amazing
35:21-35:39 i cant 😭🥰
@@teampancakesD OML you are right. I can’t get that out of my mind now, ahhh!!❤😭
AMAZING!!!
Beautiful lyrics and music composition.
This is like a mashup of “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens and the “Twilight Zone” episode, “The After Hours.”
It kind of reminded me of the french film, 'Delicatessen' and also 'Cinderella' a bit. I was wondering if potentially Ella's character was alluding to 'Cinderella'.
Only heard about this from an interview with Sondheim. Not Stephen's best work but definitely his. Absurdist theatre and reminiscent of the Twilight Zone. Thanks.
"I remember snow..."
An uncredited David Selby ("Dark Shadows") as the young man looking in the window at the end.
I loved it sm💀
Its intriguing to try to discern the reasoning behind the credit 'Introducing Charmian Carr' since she was already known by countless millions (I assume) for playing Liesl two year before in TSOM; it's almost as if, "Well, you know, she was only a girl then in a supporting role' - THIS is her true entry into entertainment society."
Perkins &Sondheim collaborated on the last of Sheila. A great mystery
The video for the Alan Parsons Project song 'Prime Time' is the sequel to Evening Primrose. Seek it out.
31:29 I looked up Prelude in C# minor by Sergei Rachmaninoff, and of course it's one of the scariest most haunting pieces of piano music I've ever heard. I love how in this film almost all of the music is dissonant and unsettling. Even the scene with the dance at the end the flautists are playing a waltz but make it sound super strange and dissonant and everyone acts as if it were something pleasant you would play at a normal dance. This film is brilliant horror musical done right.
The brilliance of Sondheim, yes. One can also occasionally hear bits of musical phrases/favorite intervals/motifs/accompaniments that were in his subsequent works; I love that!
happy halloween!
Mannequin: the Musical
This was such an odd choice of a story to adapt into a musical but the strangest ideas can sometimes be the best musicals
It seems quaint now but early TV could be quite avant-garde.
Science fiction and musical theater, why not?
Rosco was like “You strike me as a complete anti-social jackass; you’ll fit in well here.”
22:18 ☀️
Philamell?
Eat? Sleep? Un-eat?
22:05 34:35
dang,,,,norman could sing really good,,,sondheim should have cast him as tony in wss instead of nonsinging beymer
No offense intended, but since Sondheim was "only" the lyricist, casting decisions were completely out of his hands.
Also, the film was released in 1961 while the "Primrose" broadcast was five years later - a bit late to use it as an audition piece for Perkins.
Best wishes from Vermont 🍁
He tried
I think tony p did some pop records in the 50s???
Perkins starred in the 1960 Frank Loesser musical GREENWILLOW. Around that time he was also filming PSYCHO. @@TheStockwell
He was considered for the role of Tony is West Side Story ❤
Sondheim is up there with Cardi B and Taylor Swift.