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Mary Pat Campbell's avatar
Mary Pat Campbell
3d

Ok, for those who haven't seen the comparison, you need to see how Stoppard punched up Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade:

https://mffilm.wixsite.com/lastcrusade

There's a spreadsheet and everything (and I bet this crowd will love that). The visual comparison of how Stoppard sliced out the flab and extended acts for balance is useful.

All that said, I went into IMDB for my own substack post... and saw the stinkers that Stoppard was a script doctor on, and I actually love that he was a consummate professional. Evidently, he was a script doctor for Beethoven (the film about the big slobbery dog), and hey, they paid, I assume.

My personal fave was Arcadia bc of all the "literati", Stoppard actually understood math/science at a high level that he could include it in his work in a RELEVANT way. I appreciated that.

I didn't realize that he directed the movie version of R&G are Dead, but now that I know that, I appreciate it more, b/c he put stuff in there he couldn't have in a stage play (even tho Steve ragged on him for not having a good eye for a film director, which, fair).

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noochness's avatar
noochness
3dEdited

He looks like Tim Curry in that pic. "Paradise Garage"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgGS0HH8CpE

Well, I'm from Plainsboro, New Jersey / And I didn't bring a date / I guess I wasn't really sure / If you'd be boogeyin' this late / I can't think where I put my wallet / Naive suburban fool / You wouldn't think that I'd spent hours outside / French polishing my cool . . .

Wanted to throw this in: *All This and Bevin Too* by Quentin Crisp, a cycle of 44 limericks, was released in 1943, in a chapbook with illustrations by Mervyn Peake. It's very hard to find and copies are quite expensive, so here is the text of the book (followed by link where a PDF scan can be viewed and downloaded).

ALL THIS AND BEVIN TOO by Quentin Crisp

There's a place at the edge of the town / where a Kangaroo walks with a frown / in the loneliest street / on the wariest feet/ and, whenever he can, he looks down,

though they say that the street simply shone / with his smiles in the days that are gone. / He played hop-scotch, had fun / with the kids and would run / with one foot off the curb and one on.

But all that was before he had heeded / the wireless announcements that pleaded, / or read in the press / the distressed S.O.S. / saying, 'KANGAROOS URGENTLY NEEDED.'

For, as soon as the meaning was plain / (and it was when he'd read it again), / having hopped from his chair, / he had slid down the stair / and had boarded a Bakerloo train.

It was clear to him what he must do. / He must offer himself to the Zoo. / But the moment he tried / the committee replied, / 'We've already got plenty of you.

'If you like, you may leave us your name / so that we can go into your claim / and then, doubtless, you'll hear / in the course of a year / an evasive reply to the same.

'And, perhaps, in the interim, you / would take home these forms to read through, / paying special attention, / perhaps I should mention, / to paragraph four-seven-two.'

So our hero returned to his room. / (O Bloomsbury, where is thy bloom?) / and he lit in an attic / to make it dramatic / a candle to lighten the gloom.

And he sat there and tried not to snivel / while wading through pages of drivel / compiled in verbose / and ambiguous prose / by the servants that some have called civil,

for most of their questions were rude. / They asked what he weighed in the nude / and, as well as his size / and the shade of his eyes, / if he'd ever been formerly 'zooed.'

And the sky became black that was blue / before all of his reading was through / and he still couldn't see / what the meaning could be / of that paragraph four-seven-two.

It said, 'Kindly state how and when / in the future, the past or since then / either you or you mother / or father or brother / has ever? And will they again?'

So he called in the cat, who was good / at what cannot be quite understood, / and by dawn, weary-eyed, / they had somehow replied / to the questions as well as they could.

About paragraph four-seven two, / with the craftiest possible mew, / said the cat, looking wise / and half closing his eyes, / 'I should say, “Yes and No.” People do.'

But day after day after day / drifted by, either sunny or grey, / and, when finally came / a reply to his claim, / it was not what he'd hoped they would say.

Though they didn't say, 'No,' I confess, / yet they certainly didn't say, 'Yes.' / They said, 'Not in as much, / heretofore, such and such, / notwithstanding' and 'nevertheless.'

And affixed to this note with a pin, / which the Kangaroo saw with a grin / that was more a grimace / or a twitch of the face, / were a dozen or more forms to fill in.

They would know of his favourite books / and his friends—were they English or crooks? / And you may think it wrong / but they questioned him long / and unkindly concerning his looks.

But the cat only murmured, 'I knew / that your paragraph four-seven-two / though we all tried so long / not to answer it wrong, / was the first of not even a few.'

But, courageously setting aside / his impatience and animal pride, / with the help of his friends, / in a dozen week-ends / he could say he had duly replied.

And the Kangaroo thought that at least, / since his chances were greatly increased / of achieving his ends / by the help of his friends, / he must offer to make them a feast.

Now he hadn't the butter for toast / and not rations enough for a roast / but each guest brought some beer / and his egg for the year / and they drank to the health of their host.

They had bread, which they cut very thick, / and a cake that was hard as a brick. / It was mostly wood-pulp / but they all gave a gulp / and thirteen of them only were sick.

They had coffee but drank it, perforce, / with no milk and no sugar of course, / But the deadliest flop / was a tiny lamb chop / which they all of them knew to be horse.

But week after week after week / drifted by, either sunny or bleak, / before, less out of pity / than pique, the committee / could deign or be bothered to speak.

When it did, it was hardly to state / but more nearly to hint at a date / when an interview might, / if the weather was bright, / be arranged for deciding his fate.

And the skies on that day were as blue / as if nothing momentous were due, / and he stood until four / in a queue by a door / with 'ENQUIRIES' on it and 'ZOO.'

To create an effect he had sat / on the previous night with the cat / who had washed from his nose / to the claws on his toes, / and a monkey had lent him a hat.

But all that didn't get him much forwarder, / he stuck for an hour in an corridor, / then in a room / that was cold as a tomb / and, because of the people, was horrider.

They asked him his birth-place and who / were his parents and what did they do; / and they asked him what wage / and how tiny a cage / they could get him to take in the Zoo.

And they told him his chances were small, / if indeed they existed at all, / and they yawned and enquired, / looking angry and tired; / if he'd been to the local town hall.

After that he saw girls of fifteen / who were gushingly willing but green / and others of fifty / whose answers were shifty, / but no one an age in between.

And they said, without shame or remorse, / that they'd given his cage to a horse, / but that still, if he chose, / and could alter his nose, / he could put his name down for a course.

So they gave him a pen that was squiggly / and, feeling half sad and half giggly, / he managed to sign / on the dottiest line, / though his signature went a bit wiggly.

They would train hm, they said, in the art / that's performed by a horse with a cart, / and would teach him to neigh / in the very best way. / In September the classes would start.

And so, once having signed, willy-nilly, / he went, feeling wretchedly silly, / to school with a foal / being trained as mole / and a finch being trained as a filly.

And, after a term and a half, / with a jaguar and a giraffe, / he went in for a test / to see which was the best, / and they all of them tried not to laugh.

And the Kangaroo, out of the three, / was successful alone in that he / didn't swallow his bit, / and they had to admit / he was due for an equine degree.

But the final results of this test, / which were posted to them on request, / had got nothing to do / with a cage in the Zoo / as the cat, in his wisdom, had guessed,

for, suppressing a querulous mew, / he said, “All of our failure is due / to our answer, I fear, / Being rather too clear / about paragraph four-seven two,

because year after year after year / will go by, either cloudy or clear, / without ever a word / being spoken or heard / that concerns your intended career.'

What the Kangaroo wondered was, 'Why?' / but he feared that to speak was to cry, / so he lolloped away. / There was nothing to say / but to bid all the neighbours good-bye.

On the monkey who'd lent him a hat / he bestowed a benevolent pat / on the top of the head,

/ with no word being said. / Then he want for walk with the cat.

And to him, who was nearest his heart, / he announced he was willing to part / with his radio set, / with the bitter regret / that he'd listened to it at the start.

After which he turned homeward in tears / where he settled his rental arrears. / Then he packed both his bags / and took down all the rags / that he'd used as a black-out for years.

'Of all joy and all happiness robbed, / We live,' the poor Kangaroo sobbed, /'(and I hope there's no harm / in misquoting a psalm) / our life as a tale that is bobbed.'

He lives now on the edge of the town / where at dusk he will walk with a frown / in the loneliest street / on the weariest feet / and, whenever he can, he looks down.

And he said to me, 'Though I've succeeded / in finding out how we're impeded, / it *does* puzzle me / that the posters I see / still say, “KANGAROOS URGENTLY NEEDED.”'

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wfrw3zxut81z5eb6kxq8b/All-This-and-Bevin-Too-Crisp-Peake.pdf?e=1

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