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Witty song from "Fiorello" the Broadway musical.

By: Czjewel
4 May 2024 at 05:42
The great Howard DaSilva performs the showstopping number "Little Tin Box" Fiorello! is a musical about New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia, a reform Republican, which debuted on Broadway in 1959, and tells the story of how La Guardia took on the Tammany Hall political machine. The book is by Jerome Weidman and George Abbott, drawn substantially from the 1955 volume Life with Fiorello by Ernest Cuneo, with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock.

It won the three major theatre awards - Tony Award (shared with The Sound of Music), the New York Drama Critics Circle award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It is one of only ten musicals to win the latter award. As a side note Mr. DaSilva was blacklisted for many years by Hollywood In 1947, his career was threatened when the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began its investigation into alleged Communist influence of Hollywood. Actor Robert Taylor, called as a "friendly witness", accused many of his fellow actors and writers of either being communists or having communist sympathies. When questioned about da Silva, Taylor said, "I can name a few who seem to sort of disrupt things once in a while. Whether or not they are communists I don't know. One chap we have currently, I think is Howard da Silva. He always seems to have something to say at the wrong time."

"That Summer" Official trailer

By: Czjewel
3 May 2024 at 06:32
"That Summer" Peter Beard (and his then girlfriend Lee Radziwill) was the impetus for the June 1972 meeting of the Beales and the Maysles - culminating in Grey Gardens the documentary the impetus for the June 1972 meeting of the Beales and the Maysles - culminating in Grey Gardens the documentary (and later the musical and film). In 2007, a film lab accidentally returned a rough cut of 1972 Maysles footage of The Beales to Peter using an old label on a film cannister. It was part of the Maysles Films archives digitization project and was supposed to be returned to Maysles directly, but had been paid for by Peter and Lee in 1972 and had Peter's still-current address on it.

Maysles Films had insisted the film had all been returned or destroyed when Lee cancelled the project. The lie exposed, the film (now presumed very valuable) became the subject of a custody battle. The footage became the basis of the 2018 documentary That Summer, due to Peter's heroic efforts to get around litigious Maysles and Radziwill attorneys by adding new footage.
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