Lost & Found
I’m taking a break from Corona today — at least as much as possible.
When the Lost Honeymooners episodes finally aired in 1985, a lot of fans were disappointed. I’ve been watching them on Decades, Monday-Friday at eleven PM on channel 5–5 on over the air antennas in NYC, and I believe I’d judged too harshly. Many are good, although the yelling is even more intense than in what we thought of as the original series. 26 sketches were known to have aired in the 1951–52 season on DuMont’s Cavalcade of Stars and two on The Ed Sullivan Show. 104 ran on CBS on The Jackie Gleason Show ‘52-’57. The Lost Episodes were culled from them. Some have not been found, some are challenging visually, many are in amazing shape. A remarkable bit of trivia is that the Classic 39 were also shot during this period, ‘55-’56. On February 2nd, 1957, an episode like no other I’d seen aired. In Away We Go, the couples win a free trip to Europe through a breakfast cereal contest. It contains incredible production numbers featuring many singers and dancers ala a Broadway show. Seven more sketches take place in Europe. All four principals sang well. These were all broadcast live — are you kidding me? Unfortunately, I was unable to find an image of that production number. Here’s an old standby publicity shot:
Steve Buscemi and his bug eyes have entertained big and small screen fans since 1985. He has the x-factor to which the public connects, and a lot of talent to go with it. Last night I watched Interview (2007), courtesy of Netflix. It is the story of a once respected journalist relegated to doing fluff pieces. He is assigned to do an article on an actress who has done only commercial fare, played by Sienna Miller in a stunning performance that rivals the work of great actresses. Essentially a two-character play, the leads are contemptuous of one another. After storming away from him in a restaurant, she takes him to her loft after he suffers a bump to the head in a cab accident. Things heat up in a cat and mouse game that opens them up to each other, despite lies mixed with truth. The dialogue crackles. Buscemi directed and co-wrote the screenplay with David Schecter, adapting it from a 2003 Dutch movie of the same name. It runs only 84 minutes and features profanity, chain-smoking, heavy drinking and cocaine use. There are interesting twists along the way. Buscemi has 17 titles under his name at IMDb as Director, most of them in TV. I’m not familiar with Miller’s other work except for American Sniper (2014), which did not challenge her as Interview did, so I’m not sure if she’s had the chance to express her enormous talent, although she did get to play Maggie in a 2018 release of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Since the writing was so lively in Interview, I was interested in Schecter. His film career was brief, six credits acting and writing, none since 2007. He has concentrated on theater. His website bio credits him with a hand in more than 150 productions. 13,000 users at IMDb have rated Interview, forging to a consensus of 6.8 on a scale of ten, a little low in my opinion. I’m a better judge of story than acting, but I was so impressed with Miller’s turn. She and Buscemi had great rapport. Those offended by unpleasantness should pass. Its widest appeal is probably to budding actors and writers. Here are the leads:
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