Two Nights At The Opera

Well, actually, it was two nights at the theater, but the title above is a play on a great Marx Brothers movie, so how can you pass that up?

Yes, twice in a seven day span, we took in a live theatrical performance, both of them straight plays.

The first show was part of the Broadway Pittsburgh series, "To Kill A Mockingham", Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Harper Lee's landmark 1960 novel.  Just about everyone is familiar with the story of "To Kill A Mockingbird" either because it was assigned reading in high school or because of the 1962 movie that starred Gregory Peck as southern lawyer Atticus Finch.

Sorkin's play was highly acclaimed when it opened on Broadway a few years back, and this touring production was terrific as well.  The story and message of Lee's novel is timeless, and this adaptation is an excellent presentation of that story.  I imagine that it won't be long until high schools will be performing this play  as well.

One of the big hooks of this show was that Richard Thomas, young John-Boy Walton himself, starred as Atticus Finch.  Thomas is now 70 years old.  He looks at least 15 years younger, and was great in the role.  However, as I scanned the Playbill prior to the opening curtain, the name of one actor listed far down in the billing caught my eye: Mary Badham.  The name might be familiar to movie fans.  Badham, who will turn 70 later this year, was nine years old when she earned an Academy Award nomination for playing the role of Scout Finch in the "To Kill A Mockingbird" movie in 1962.  In this production, she played Mrs. Dubose, a crotchety old lady neighbor of the Finches.

Badham virtually retired from acting - IMDB shows only seven credits for her - after two single episode TV roles and two film roles after Mockingbird.  After 1966, she virtually disappeared from the profession when she then appeared in a 2005 and a 2019 featured film, both of which you never heard of.   What has she been doing all these years, what has prompted her to return to spotlight, and why wasn't her involvement in this production publicized in the press as the show came to town?

Four Stars from The Grandstander of this play.

The second show that we saw was an adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Murder On The Orient Express", presented at the O'Reilly Theater by the Pittsburgh Public Theater.  Just about everyone knows the story of MOTOE, if not from the book  then from two excellent movies that have been made of this great mystery.  The play has been pared down for the stage, out notably, eight suspects instead of twelve, but this mystery and the sheer fun of this classic whodunit remains the same.  

Martin Giles, a local Pittsburgh actor and director played the juicy role of Hercule Poirot with great gusto, but the two most interesting members of the cast were two venerable war horses (and I use that term with the utmost respect) of the Pittsburgh theatrical community, actresses Helena Ruoti and Lenora Nemetz.  Both of these women have national credits on their resumes, but they are Pittsburgh natives and based here, and if you have gone to PPT and Pittsburgh CLO productions, you have seen them many times.   Nemetz, who is now 72 years old, was the star of this show.  She played "Mrs Hubbard", the role that was played by Lauren Bacall and Michell Pfeiffer in the film versions, and she stole the show.

The Grandstander gave this one Three Stars.

Just as important as the show itself was being able to return to the Pittsburgh Public Theater and the O'Reilly.   I had not been there since pre-pandemic days when Marilyn and I saw "A Few Good Men" back in 2019.  The O'Reilly Theater remains one of the very best places anywhere to see a play.

As for the Broadway Pittsburgh series, here is how I rank the productions of this 2021-22 Season:

1. Hamilton
2. To Kill A Mockingbird
3. Summer, The Donna Summer Musical
4. Pretty Woman
5. Oklahoma
6. The Band's Visit

The season wraps up in two weeks with "Ain't Too Proud, The Life and Times of the Temptations."

Movie Review: "Muder On The Orient Express" (no spoilers)

One of the big movies of the season opening today is a new version of Agatha Christie's classic mystery thriller, "Murder On The Orient Express".  This version was was directed by and stars Kenneth Branagh as detective Hercule Poirot.

Before getting into the subject of remakes, let me concentrate on this movie.  As indicated in the title, there will be no spoilers.

The story, and there may be some of you out there who are not familiar is this:  Poirot finds himself boarding, at the last minute, the Istanbul-to-Calais Orient Express for a three day train ride across Europe.  Because of the last minute nature of his boarding, he is squeezed in among an assortment of passengers all brought together, seemingly at random, for this particular train ride.  During the second night of the trip two things occur.  An avalanche takes place and stalls the train in the somewhere middle of the Balkans, and one of the passengers is brutally murdered.  A railroad official implores Poirot to investigate and solve this mystery before the tracks are cleared so that the police officials can be presented both a victim and a perpetrator.  The killer had to be someone on the Calais Coach, but who  among them could have wanted this guy, Mr. Ratchett, dead? 

Such is the tale of one of Christie's most renowned novels, and Branagh tells the story in a stylish and very entertaining manner.  I'm not going to say any more about the mystery and its solution.  See the movie yourself and enjoy it.

Like the Sidney Lumet version of the story from 1974, this one has the requisite all-star cast that includes in addition to Branagh, Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz, Josh Gad, Leslie Odom, Jr., Willem Dafoe and others.  Going in, I wasn't sure that I was going to like Branagh as Poirot, but he was quite good as it turned out.  Also good in their roles were Depp (is he ever not good?) and Pfeiffer.  The movie is also beautifully filmed and  gorgeous to look at.  A very entertaining hour and fifty-four minutes, and it gets a solid Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Now, when I checked in on Facebook that I was seeing this movie today, I got a number of comments along the lines of "I saw the Albert Finney version in 1974, so I'm not going to bother with this one" or "Why bother remaking this one" or "Why should I see this one when I saw the other one. Isn't it the same story?"

The subject of remakes is one that I have written about before 

http://grandstander.blogspot.com/search?q=Magnificent+Seven

and there is no one-size-fits-all answer.  In the case of MOTOE, I had read that the Agatha Christie estate was in full support of the making of this movie because it might expose new generations of readers to Christie's works, generations of moviegoers and readers who would have no inclination to look up and watch a forty year old movie. Fair enough.

I grant you that a lot of remakes have been ill-advised and just plain bad (see what I had to say about that in the post linked above), but some of them can be quite good and can stand on their on merits alongside and even improve upon the originals.  As far as "Murder On The Orient Express" is concerned, I can say that I liked both this one and Lumet's 1974 version equally.  It's a good story, and the studios and the film makers did not skimp in making sure that they gave the public a quality production.  And isn't conversations of who was better, Albert Finney or Kenneth Branagh, Lauren Bacall or Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Widmark or Johnny Depp, Ingrid Bergman or Penelope Cruz (for the record, I'll vote for Branagh, Depp and Bergman and call it a draw between Bacall and Pfeiffer) all part of the fun, kind of like arguing about Willie, Mickey, and The Duke?

Movie goers can decide how they want to spend their money, of course, but I hope that you not rule this version of "Murder On The Orient Express" out simply because you saw the same story done forty-three years ago.  That was a good movie, but so is this one. 

Oh, true Christie-philes will have noted that the door was left open just a crack at the end of this one for additional Branagh-as-Poirot films.  Not sure if that is what Branagh wants, but the opportunity is certainly there.

Again, Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Revisiting A Classic

Any list of all-time great mystery novels will probably include Agatha Christie's 1933 novel,"Murder on the Orient Express".  The novel was written when Agatha Christie was at her prime and it featured her famous fictional detective, Hercule Poirot.

Most people, I would suppose, are more familiar with this story as a result of the 1974 movie version of this story.  This movie was directed by Sidney Lumet, and it starred Albert Finney as Poirot, a role for which he was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, and an all-star cast that included Ingrid Bergman, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in this movie.

In the story, Poirot finds himself a passenger on a filled to capacity passenger coach on the Istanbul-to-Calais Orient Express on a three day trip across Europe.  On the first might out, two significant events take place.  The train hits a snowdrift and and is stranded somewhere in the middle of the Balkans, and one of the passengers is brutally murdered in his compartment, which is right next to Poirot's compartment.

The murdered man's compartment is locked from the inside, the victim's watch is broken so the time of death can be firmly established, a pipe cleaner is found on the floor of the compartment, as is a conductor's uniform button, but no one on the Calais Coach had any motive or reason to murder the dead man.  Or did they?  A railroad official also traveling on the train asks Poirot to take on the case and determine a solution before the tracks are cleared and the local police can reach the train.

The solution to the mystery is what has made this one of Christie's most famous books and why it occupies so many "Best Mysteries" lists. However, this may be one case where the movie that was made from this novel actually outshines the book.  I have read this book several times over the years, but it has probably been at least thirty-five or so years since I last read it, and what I read this time did not hold up to my memory of my enjoyment of the book the first time that I read (which I did well before the movie was produced).  How Poirot reached his conclusions involved some seemingly incomprehensible leaps of reasoning at times.  I also thought that the phrasing sometimes seemed arcane, and Poirot's frequent use of French phrases was a bit annoying.

If you have neither read this book nor seen the movie, I would highly recommend that you do both, but read the book first.  For someone who knows only the 1974 film version of this story, the book might prove to be a disappointment.