As a perfect follow-up to my post today about Claudine Longet killing her boyfriend, here's a song by the Rolling Stones about the incident. Thanks to reader LouOCNY for the heads-up.
1) SNL promised never to show their Claudine Longet Invitational skit again (where every contestant is shot and killed by Claudine Longet) but there is a transcript
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75rski.phtml
Jessica Antlerdance: That looked almost like skeet shooting!
[ Tom and Jessica laugh playfully ]
Tom Tryman: You must mean ski shooting!
[ Tom and Jessica laugh more sardonically ]
2) McHale's Navy may be the only sitcom to release a movie version during its' network run. And somehow real life gives a weird subtext to Claudine Longet's performance as Tim Conway's love interest in a faint South Pacific style subplot.
3) Andy William's loyal support of his ex-wife through the trials may have proved that no matter how rich or how famous you are, life is not perfect nor entirely under your control. Even if you celebrate Christmas in living color.
As the co-author of "Hollywood Hi-Fi," I'll note that when we finally get around to publishing Vol. 2, we plan to include Claudine Longet. She had a surprisingly prolific recording career, despite the fact that she barely had any voice at all. I guess people bought them for the album covers, another plus for the days of the 12-inch album. She and Taylor Swift are living proof that if a girl is pretty and skinny enough, someone will sign her to a record contract, no matter how painful the results. For example: http://youtu.be/g1rDCNR5oG0
Also, to Phillip B, off-hand I thought of "Munster, Go Home" as a movie released at the same time as its TV series, but IMDB says it came out a month after the last episode aired. Now, you're going to have me up all night, thinking of bad TV spin-off movies. Another I recall is "House of Dark Shadows," which in its first 15 minutes managed to cover every last bit of plot that it had taken the daily soap opera version about two years to cover.
I'm not sure if the 1960's "Batman" is considered a sitcom, but it is an example of a show that released a movie while the show was still on the air. A more recent example is "The Simpsons".
During its' run on NBC, The Man From UNCLE released two theatrical films which were, or became, recut versions of two part episodes. Pure exploitation.
To Michael, I simply forgot the Simpsons movie. And that the Simpsons is a sitcom.
BTW, let us recall that Claudine Longet has been married to her defense attorney since 1985. So there are happy endings after all....
In my boomer youth there seemed to be a lot of TV-based movies at our small town theater, mainly from Universal. Even the ones that weren't based on specific TV shows had TV-familiar stars and supporting players, sets and sitcomish music.
"McHale's Navy" got TWO movies. "Tammy and the Millionaire" was a pasteup of a short-lived sitcom with an epilogue attached. I suspect there were a lot more like it that went straight to local television stations; I caught a bit of a western that turned out to be the remnants of "Pistols and Petticoats", another sitcom that folded quickly.
As late as "Are You Being Served" the British were treated to throwaway feature versions of TV shows. And you have oddities like the Dalak movies with a Doctor Who unrelated to the series character.
There were actually EIGHT "Man From Uncle" movies spliced from the TV show for European release (Warner Archive has them as a set). I think the deal was that since the show wasn't broadcast there, these qualified as fresh product.
Disney turned numerous episodes from the Sunday night show into features and featurettes for Europe. The fad-spawning "Davy Crockett" famously cleaned up domestically as a movie, in part because it was shot in color but had only been seen in black and white. They actually did it again with a sequel, running it in two parts on TV and later sending it out as a color movie. They turned out two movies culled from "Zorro", but it's hard to make a decent movie out of b&w half hours. "Scarecrow of Romney Marsh" made it to American screens in the 70s, packaged with a re-release of "Treasure Island." "Johnny Tremain" was intended for TV, but it was released as a movie and got to TV a few years later.
Before Claudine was paired with Tim Conway in the "McHale's Navy" movie, they used her with Conway two years earlier in a couple of Season 1 episodes. She actually had some decent comedy chops in the role of the French plantation owner's daughter (though IIRC, she did handle a gun in one of the episodes, which makes you fear for Tim more than it does for the Japanese soldiers).
NOTE: Even though leaving a comment anonymously is an option here, we really discourage that. Please use a name using the Name/URL option. Invent one if you must. Be creative. Anonymous comments are subject to deletion. Thanks.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Three pop culture memories of Claudine Longet -
ReplyDelete1) SNL promised never to show their Claudine Longet Invitational skit again (where every contestant is shot and killed by Claudine Longet) but there is a transcript
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75rski.phtml
Jessica Antlerdance: That looked almost like skeet shooting!
[ Tom and Jessica laugh playfully ]
Tom Tryman: You must mean ski shooting!
[ Tom and Jessica laugh more sardonically ]
2) McHale's Navy may be the only sitcom to release a movie version during its' network run. And somehow real life gives a weird subtext to Claudine Longet's performance as Tim Conway's love interest in a faint South Pacific style subplot.
3) Andy William's loyal support of his ex-wife through the trials may have proved that no matter how rich or how famous you are, life is not perfect nor entirely under your control. Even if you celebrate Christmas in living color.
As the co-author of "Hollywood Hi-Fi," I'll note that when we finally get around to publishing Vol. 2, we plan to include Claudine Longet. She had a surprisingly prolific recording career, despite the fact that she barely had any voice at all. I guess people bought them for the album covers, another plus for the days of the 12-inch album. She and Taylor Swift are living proof that if a girl is pretty and skinny enough, someone will sign her to a record contract, no matter how painful the results. For example: http://youtu.be/g1rDCNR5oG0
ReplyDeleteAlso, to Phillip B, off-hand I thought of "Munster, Go Home" as a movie released at the same time as its TV series, but IMDB says it came out a month after the last episode aired. Now, you're going to have me up all night, thinking of bad TV spin-off movies. Another I recall is "House of Dark Shadows," which in its first 15 minutes managed to cover every last bit of plot that it had taken the daily soap opera version about two years to cover.
I'm not sure if the 1960's "Batman" is considered a sitcom, but it is an example of a show that released a movie while the show was still on the air. A more recent example is "The Simpsons".
ReplyDeleteDuring its' run on NBC, The Man From UNCLE released two theatrical films which were, or became, recut versions of two part episodes. Pure exploitation.
ReplyDeleteTo Michael, I simply forgot the Simpsons movie. And that the Simpsons is a sitcom.
BTW, let us recall that Claudine Longet has been married to her defense attorney since 1985. So there are happy endings after all....
Of course, Ms Longet covered a Stones song once: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcgEbk1TeHs
ReplyDelete//and hell, if MY defense attorney got me off a murder rap, I'd marry him too!
In my boomer youth there seemed to be a lot of TV-based movies at our small town theater, mainly from Universal. Even the ones that weren't based on specific TV shows had TV-familiar stars and supporting players, sets and sitcomish music.
ReplyDelete"McHale's Navy" got TWO movies. "Tammy and the Millionaire" was a pasteup of a short-lived sitcom with an epilogue attached. I suspect there were a lot more like it that went straight to local television stations; I caught a bit of a western that turned out to be the remnants of "Pistols and Petticoats", another sitcom that folded quickly.
As late as "Are You Being Served" the British were treated to throwaway feature versions of TV shows. And you have oddities like the Dalak movies with a Doctor Who unrelated to the series character.
There were actually EIGHT "Man From Uncle" movies spliced from the TV show for European release (Warner Archive has them as a set). I think the deal was that since the show wasn't broadcast there, these qualified as fresh product.
Disney turned numerous episodes from the Sunday night show into features and featurettes for Europe. The fad-spawning "Davy Crockett" famously cleaned up domestically as a movie, in part because it was shot in color but had only been seen in black and white. They actually did it again with a sequel, running it in two parts on TV and later sending it out as a color movie. They turned out two movies culled from "Zorro", but it's hard to make a decent movie out of b&w half hours. "Scarecrow of Romney Marsh" made it to American screens in the 70s, packaged with a re-release of "Treasure Island." "Johnny Tremain" was intended for TV, but it was released as a movie and got to TV a few years later.
Thank you DBenson!
ReplyDeleteThought I had seen every boomer era sitcom, but cannot recall "Pistols and Petticoats"
Before Claudine was paired with Tim Conway in the "McHale's Navy" movie, they used her with Conway two years earlier in a couple of Season 1 episodes. She actually had some decent comedy chops in the role of the French plantation owner's daughter (though IIRC, she did handle a gun in one of the episodes, which makes you fear for Tim more than it does for the Japanese soldiers).
ReplyDelete