The Classic/Retro Pop Culture Thread

[TREK_GOD_1]

50th Anniversary Cinematic Special

Night of Dark Shadows
Directed by Dan Curtis
Starring David Selby, Grayson Hall, Lara Parker, John Karlen, Nancy Barrett, and Kate Jackson
Premiered August 3, 1971

Arguably a legitimate sequel with most "individual" voice from its predecessor ever filmed.

The one thing that I knew about Quentin Collins going in is that he was the werewolf character, so it's interesting that they made him the main character of the film but lycanthropy wasn't a factor.

Possibly because Quentin was originally introduced as a manipulative, child-possessing ghost in the long sealed off wing of the Collins estate, and in the flashback to his life in the 19th century, he had another character progression before the werewolf business was introduced.

This movie is based on part of the series that I haven't seen yet, so I went in with less preconceptions, but a lot less familiarity.

Actually, NOTDS--unlike House of Dark Shadows--was not directly based on one of the TV plots, with a number of characters who were new to the franchise.

Mrs. Stoddard is said to have died; I recall there were a lot of deaths in the last film, but I don't recall her getting an on-camera one

She didn't; Elizabeth was one of the only survivors of the Collins family (along with David). She is supposed to have died in the years after HODS' events, but that would have made David the legal heir to the Collins' estate instead of Quentin, but he's not mentioned at all. Why is a question that's never been answered.

Carlotta's immediate story flashback involves how Reverend Strack (Thayer David)

Another indicator that NOTDS was not based so closely on the TV series, as "Strack" was merely a sound-alike name to Jerry Lacy's memorable witch-hunting zealot Trask on the soap opera.

That was a pretty sour twist to what was looking like a happy ending. Dramatically it kind of makes sense, though, as the climactic sequences were pretty underwhelming fare for a supernatural/horror flick.

The ending was sad for all involved, but stylistically, it was right in line with endings of SO many early 1970s horror films, where the heroes did not always come out smelling like roses. Some--like the protagonists of both Count Yorga movies--ended up dead or vampirized.

Of course, this film is notorious for MGM demanding that more than 30 minutes from the original cut, which drastically altered some scenes. Although much of this footage had been discovered, it lacked sound, and despite some of the then-surviving actors considered lending their much older voices to a restoration project, Night of Dark Shadows only exists in the theatrical form. I would love to see that footage just for history's sake.

 

[gblews]

Huh?

“Huh,” indeed.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Monica Sims, the director of children's television programming on BBC, told reporters "Educationalists in America have questioned the value of 2-, 3- and 4-year olds' acquiring knowledge in a passive, uninvolved fashion, and have criticised the program's essentially middle-class attitudes, its lack of reality and its attempt to prepare children for school but not for life. I share some of these doubts and am particularly worried about the program's authoritarian aims."

Poor lady was ahead of her time. She was born for the Internet.

What would become known as U.S. President Nixon's "Enemies List", prepared by White House Public Liaison Charles Colson

There's a guy who knows his job.

The TASS news agency conceded the failure, commenting that "the moon landing in these difficult topographical conditions was unlucky."

"On Moon, mountains come to you."

"Can You Get to That," Funkadelic

I don't think I've heard it before, but it's kinda cool. "Maggot Brain" sounds familiar, but probably for different reasons.

"Get It While You Can," Janis Joplin

Sounds like Janis.

"One Fine Morning," Lighthouse

I do remember this from Oldies Radio. It's okay.

"Birds of a Feather," The Raiders

I might be familiar with this from Lost 45s.

"Yo-Yo," The Osmonds

And there's the Osmonds.

We might have still been starting school after Labor Day when I was in my single digits, but by the time I was a teenager, it had migrated into the last couple weeks of August.

Wow, that's awful. We never started before Labor Day. Unless maybe I was showing up late-- which would explain the dreams.

I'm familiar with The New Adventures of Superman and Space Ghost from '70s syndication.

I don't think I remember that version of Superman, but I definitely watched the others.

Overall yes, but this one isn't a favorite. It's alright. Guess I like him when he's being crazier.

Just the 55th timeline, but I may keep doing the weekly posts for another year or so. Album business and some off-season TV business should continue a bit past that. I'll be keeping my 55th anniversary master shuffle going until sometime in 1970, as that's when I started adding album tracks. As for 50th anniversary business, that's not going anywhere anytime soon.

Whew. My morning routine is safe.

The Bohannon/Grant connection was especially interesting, because Bohannon was a proud former Confederate who found himself with an unlikely ally. In their drinking scene, he mentioned what he wouldn't have given to have gotten that close to Grant during the war.

Heh. That would be something that Grant understood.

Huh?

His name is remembered, but his spirit is forgotten. There's not a lot of love coming from the Left these days.

Of course, this film is notorious for MGM demanding that more than 30 minutes from the original cut, which drastically altered some scenes. Although much of this footage had been discovered, it lacked sound, and despite some of the then-surviving actors considered lending their much older voices to a restoration project, Night of Dark Shadows only exists in the theatrical form. I would love to see that footage just for history's sake.

Ditto. Someday soon, if not already, it will be possible to recreate their voices with an AI voice modifier, but I doubt if anyone would go through the trouble for such an obscure movie.

 

[The Old Mixer]

55th Anniversary Album Spotlight

Revolver
The Beatles
Released August 5, 1966 (UK); August 8, 1966 (US)
Chart debut: September 3, 1966
Chart peak: #1 (September 10 through October 15, 1966)
#3 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2003)

Revolver is the seventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on 5 August 1966, accompanied by the double A-side single "Eleanor Rigby" / "Yellow Submarine". The album was the Beatles' final recording project before their retirement as live performers and marked the group's most overt use of studio technology to date, building on the advances of their late 1965 release Rubber Soul. It has since become regarded as one of the greatest and most innovative albums in the history of popular music, with recognition centred on its range of musical styles, diverse sounds, and lyrical content.

The Beatles recorded Revolver after taking a three-month break at the start of 1966, and during a period when London was feted as the era's cultural capital. Regarded by some commentators as the start of the group's psychedelic period, the songs reflect their interest in the drug LSD, Eastern philosophy and the avant-garde while addressing themes such as death and transcendence from material concerns. With no plans to reproduce their new material in concert, the band made liberal use of automatic double tracking, varispeed, reversed tapes, close audio miking, and instruments outside of their standard live set-up. Among its tracks are "Tomorrow Never Knows", incorporating heavy Indian drone and a collage of tape loops; "Eleanor Rigby", a song about loneliness featuring a string octet as its only musical backing; and "Love You To", a foray into Hindustani classical music. The sessions also produced a non-album single, "Paperback Writer" backed with "Rain".

In North America, Revolver was reduced to 11 songs by Capitol Records, with the omitted three appearing on the June 1966 LP Yesterday and Today. The release there coincided with the Beatles' final concert tour and the controversy surrounding John Lennon's remark that the band had become "more popular than Jesus". The album topped the Record Retailer chart in the UK for seven weeks and the US Billboard Top LPs list for six weeks. Critical reaction was highly favourable in the UK but less so in the US amid the press's unease at the band's outspokenness on contemporary issues.

And it seems that Beatles producer George Martin had a hand in weakening the American version of the album...he selected the three songs to give to Capitol for Yesterday and Today, reportedly feeling that they represented the best of the finished tracks then available. If he'd thought it through, he should have given Capitol the weakest tracks available, or a more varied selection than three John songs, in order to not unduly imbalance/weaken the Capitol version of Revolver.

That said, Revolver will be the last British Beatles album to be altered in the US, thanks to stipulations made by the Beatles when they renewed their contract with EMI in early 1967; and however badly the exclusion of three of John's five tracks imbalanced the American album, it was nevertheless the least altered of the Capitol versions of the British albums, containing the same track sequence, including side openers and closers, as the UK version, sans those three tracks.

Thus the American album also opens with the count-in to George rocker "Taxman" (#55 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs), which gets into contemporary British politics with a Batmania-inspired flare.

In addition to playing a glissandi-inflected bass part reminiscent of Motown's James Jamerson, McCartney performed the song's Indian-style guitar solo. The latter section was also edited onto the end of the original recording, ensuring that the track closed with the solo reprised over a fadeout....Completed with input from Lennon, the lyrics refer by name to [Harold] Wilson, who had just been re-elected as prime minister in the 1966 general election, and Edward Heath, the Conservative Leader of the Opposition.

Next is half of the album's contemporaneous single, Paul's striking, poignant "Eleanor Rigby" (US B-side of "Yellow Submarine"; charted Aug. 27, 1966; #11 US; #1 UK as double A-side w/ "Yellow Submarine"; #137 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; #22 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs):

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Its lyrics were the product of a group effort, with Harrison, Starr, Lennon and the latter's friend Pete Shotton all contributing. While Lennon and Harrison supplied harmonies beside McCartney's lead vocal, no Beatle played on the recording; instead, Martin arranged the track for a string octet, drawing inspiration from Bernard Herrmann's 1960 film score for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

Harrison came up with the "Ah, look at all the lonely people" hook. Starr contributed the line "writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear" and suggested making "Father McCartney" darn his socks, which McCartney liked. It was then that Shotton suggested that McCartney change the name of the priest, in case listeners mistook the fictional character in the song for McCartney's own father.

McCartney could not decide how to end the song, and Shotton finally suggested that the two lonely people come together too late as Father McKenzie conducts Eleanor Rigby's funeral. At the time, Lennon rejected the idea out of hand, but McCartney said nothing and used the idea to finish off the song, later acknowledging Shotton's help.

Lennon was quoted in 1971 as having said that he "wrote a good half of the lyrics or more" and in 1980 claimed that he wrote all but the first verse, but Shotton remembered Lennon's contribution as being "absolutely nil". McCartney said that "John helped me on a few words but I'd put it down 80–20 to me, something like that." Historiographer Erin Torkelson Weber has studied all available historical treatments of the issue and has concluded that McCartney was the principal author of the song.

"Eleanor Rigby" was nominated for three Grammy Awards and won the 1966 Grammy for Best Contemporary (R&R) Vocal Performance, Male or Female for McCartney.

I think it would have been the 1967 Grammy.

In a 1967 interview, Pete Townshend of the Who commented: "I think 'Eleanor Rigby' was a very important musical move forward. It certainly inspired me to write and listen to things in that vein."

On the full version of the album, this is where John's trippy, atmospheric "I'm Only Sleeping" with its backwards guitar solo would come in. Instead we skip to another George song, his first proper foray into Eastern music, and my favorite of his efforts in that vein, "Love You To".

He recorded the track with only minimal contributions from Starr and McCartney, and no input from Lennon; Indian musicians from the Asian Music Circle provided instrumentation such as tabla, tambura and sitar....Aside from playing sitar on the track, Harrison's contributions included fuzztone-effected electric guitar.

The song was partly inspired by Harrison's experimentation with the hallucinogenic drug LSD, which he credited as a catalyst for increased awareness and his interest in Eastern philosophical concepts.

"Love You To" has been hailed by musicologists and critics as groundbreaking in its presentation of a non-Western musical form to rock audiences, particularly with regard to authenticity and avoidance of parody.

It was shortly after finishing this recording that George met Ravi Shankar and began studying sitar under him.

Ex-Mrs. Mixer walked down the aisle to Paul's gorgeous "Here, There and Everywhere" (#25 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs).

The Beatles recorded "Here, There and Everywhere" in June 1966, towards the end of the sessions for Revolver. Having recently attended a listening party for the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, McCartney drew inspiration from Brian Wilson's song "God Only Knows".

In his authorised biography, Many Years from Now, McCartney names "Here, There and Everywhere" as one of his personal favourites. Beatles producer George Martin also highlighted it among his favourite McCartney songs. Lennon reportedly told McCartney that "Here, There and Everywhere" was "the best tune" on Revolver. In a 1980 interview for Playboy magazine, Lennon described it as "one of my favourite songs of the Beatles"....Art Garfunkel has cited this as his all-time favourite pop song.

Ringo gets his most effective spotlight yet with "Yellow Submarine" (charted Aug. 20, 1966; #2 US; #1 UK as double A-side w/ "Eleanor Rigby"; #74 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs), a children's song that amply demonstrates the band's peaking versatility and creativity:

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The Beatles dedicated their 1 June session to adding the song's sound effects. For this, Martin drew on his experience as a producer of comedy records for Beyond the Fringe and members of the Goons. The band invited guests to participate, including Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Harrison's wife Pattie Boyd, Marianne Faithfull, Beatles road managers Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall, and Alf Bicknell, the band's driver. The studio store cupboard was sourced for items such as chains, bells, whistles, hooters, a tin bath and a cash till....

The sound of ocean waves enters at the start of the second verse and continues through the first chorus. Harrison created this effect by swirling water around a bathtub. On the third verse, a party atmosphere was evoked through a combination of Jones clinking glasses together and blowing an ocarina, snatches of excited chatter, Boyd's high-pitched shrieks, Bicknell rattling chains, and tumbling coins. To fill the two-bar gap following the line "And the band begins to play", Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick used a recording of a brass band from EMI's tape library. They disguised the piece by splicing up the taped copy and rearranging the melody.

The recording includes a sound-effects solo over the non-singing verse, designed to convey the submarine's operation. Lennon blew through a straw into a pan of water to create a bubbling effect. Other sounds imitate the whirring of machinery, a ship's bell, hatches being slammed, chains hitting metal, and finally the submarine submerging. Lennon used the studio's echo chamber to shout out commands and responses such as "Full speed ahead, Mr Boatswain." From a hallway just outside the studio, Starr yelled: "Cut the cable!"...

In the final verse, Lennon echoes Starr's lead vocal....Keen to sound as if he were singing underwater, Lennon tried recording the part with a microphone encased in a condom and, at Emerick's suggestion, submerged inside a bottle filled with water. This proved ineffective, and Lennon instead sang with the microphone plugged into a Vox guitar amplifier.

All the participants and available studio staff sang the closing choruses, augmenting the vocals recorded by the Beatles on 26 May. Evans also played a marching bass drum over this section. When the overdubs were finished, Evans led everybody in a line around the studio doing the conga dance while banging on the drum strapped to his chest. Martin later told Alan Smith of the NME that the band "loved every minute" of the session and that it was "more like the things I've done with the Goons and Peter Sellers" than a typical Beatles recording.

The pairing of a novelty song and a ballad devoid of any instrumentation played by a Beatle marked a considerable departure from the content of the band's previous singles.

Despite the double A-side status [in the UK], "Yellow Submarine" was the song recognised with the Ivor Novello Award for highest certified sales of any A-side in 1966.

The song went on to be the subject of a psychedelically animated Beatles film in 1968, and has been enjoyed by generations of children of all ages.

Rolling Stone's editors describe it as "the gateway drug that turns little children into Beatle fans".

As it happens, John's two surviving songs on the American LP are both side closers. Scorching rocker "She Said She Said" (#37 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs) has an interesting story behind it...

In late August 1965, Brian Epstein had rented a house at 2850 Benedict Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills, California for the Beatles' six-day respite from their US tour....The Beatles found it impossible to leave and instead invited guests, including actor Eleanor Bron (their co-star in the film Help!) and folk singer Joan Baez. On 24 August, they hosted Roger McGuinn and David Crosby of the Byrds and actor Peter Fonda.

Having first taken LSD (or "acid") in March that year, John Lennon and George Harrison were determined that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr should join them on their next experience of the drug....While Starr agreed to try the drug, McCartney refused to partake....

As the group passed time in the large sunken tub in the bathroom, Fonda brought up his nearly fatal self-inflicted childhood gunshot accident, writing later that he was trying to comfort Harrison, who was overcome by fear that he might be dying. Fonda said that he knew what it was like to be dead, since he had technically died in the operating theatre. Lennon urged him to drop the subject, saying "Who put all that shit in your head?" and "You're making me feel like I've never been born." Harrison recalls in The Beatles Anthology: "[Fonda] was showing us his bullet wound. He was very uncool."...Lennon eventually asked Fonda to leave the party.

The track incorporates a change of metre, following Harrison's introduction of such a musical device into the Beatles' work with his Indian-styled composition "Love You To". "She Said She Said" uses both 3/4 and 4/4 time, shifting to 3/4 on the line "No, no, no, you're wrong" and back again on "I said..."

Though studio logs indicate otherwise, George is believed to have played bass on this song, as Paul walked out during the session, which was the last for the album.

Side two opens with a well-known classic that could easily have been a hit single, Paul's jaunty, season-evocative "Good Day Sunshine" (#89 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs):

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McCartney intended it as a song in the style of the Lovin' Spoonful's contemporaneous hit single "Daydream". The recording includes multiple pianos played in the barrelhouse style and evokes a vaudevillian mood.

George Martin contributed the piano solo, played in the barrelhouse style and recorded with the tape speed reduced.

Writing in Crawdaddy!, Paul Williams commented, "The impact of the Lovin' Spoonful on British groups is excellent evidence of how alive rock 'n' roll is today; everyone learns from everyone else and the music just keeps getting better."

The song was much admired by American composer and orchestral conductor Leonard Bernstein. When presenting the CBS News documentary Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution in April 1967, Bernstein praised "Good Day Sunshine" for its rhythmic surprises and key changes, citing these as examples of why the Beatles' music was superior to most of their contemporaries' work.

The American LP skips already-released John rocker "And Your Bird Can Sing" to go straight into another, contrasting McCartney track, the poignant "For No One" (#40 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs), which I've always heard as a sort of opposite companion to "Here, There and Everywhere" on side one...the songs could be the beginning and end of the same relationship.

McCartney sang and played clavichord..., piano and bass guitar, while Ringo Starr played drums, tambourine and maracas. Neither John Lennon nor George Harrison contributed to the recording.

The French horn solo was by Alan Civil, a British horn player described by recording engineer Geoff Emerick as the "best horn player in London". During the session, McCartney pushed Civil to play a note that was beyond the usual range of the instrument. According to Emerick, the result was the "performance of his life".

If the British version of Revolver has a weak spot, it's the middle of side two, which features perhaps its two most underwhelming, disposable tracks back-to-back. With John's "Doctor Robert" absent from the American LP, more attention is drawn to George's awkward, charmingly homely "I Want to Tell You". Apparently it wasn't recorded early enough to have been considered for Yesterday and Today, but it's a crime that this made it onto the American Revolver instead of "I'm Only Sleeping" or "And Your Bird Can Sing".

The album's penultimate track, "Got to Get You into My Life" (#50 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs), is a McCartney classic that was belatedly released as a single in 1976 to promote an American compilation album, and impressively for the time made it into the Top 10 of both of the Hot 100 and Easy Listening charts:

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"It's...an ode to pot," McCartney explained, "like someone else might write an ode to chocolate or a good claret."

The song seems to have been hard to arrange until the soul-style horns, strongly reminiscent of the Stax' Memphis soul and Motown sound, were introduced.

When asked about the song in his 1980 Playboy interview, Lennon said, "Paul's again. I think that was one of his best songs, too."

The album closes with its most experimental, avant-garde track by far, John's psychedelic tour de force "Tomorrow Never Knows" (#18 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs), which, like "A Hard Day's Night," is titled for one of Ringo's malapropisms:

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When writing the song, Lennon drew inspiration from his experiences with the hallucinogenic drug LSD and from the book The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzner.

It was the first song recorded for the LP. The song marked a radical departure for the Beatles, as the band fully embraced the potential of the recording studio without consideration for reproducing the results in concert.

Further to their approach when recording Rubber Soul late the previous year, the Beatles and Martin embraced the idea of the recording studio as an instrument on Revolver, particularly "Tomorrow Never Knows".

Commenting here for emphasis...they were now using the recording studio itself as an instrument!

The song's harmonic structure is derived from Indian music and is based on a high-volume C drone played by Harrison on a tambura. Over the foundation of tambura, bass and drums, the five tape loops comprise various manipulated sounds: two separate sitar passages, played backwards and sped up; an orchestra sounding a B♭ chord; McCartney's laughter, sped up to resemble a seagull's cry; and a Mellotron played on either its flute, string or brass setting. The Leslie speaker treatment applied to Lennon's vocal originated from his request that Martin make him sound like he was the Dalai Lama singing from the top of a high mountain.

Much of the backing track for the song consists of a series of prepared tape loops, an idea that originated from McCartney, who, influenced by the work of avant-garde artists such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, regularly experimented with magnetic tape and musique concrète techniques. The Beatles each prepared loops at home, and a selection of these sounds were then added to the musical backing of "Tomorrow Never Knows". The process was carried out live, with multiple tape recorders running simultaneously, and some of the longer loops extending out of the control room and down the corridor.

The sheer creativity and craftsmanship that went into this, in an age when they had four-track machines to work with and you couldn't do it all digitally...!

The loops were played on BTR3 tape machines located in various studios of the Abbey Road building and controlled by EMI technicians in Studio Three. Each machine was monitored by one technician, who had to hold a pencil within each loop to maintain tension. The four Beatles controlled the faders of the mixing console while Martin varied the stereo panning and Emerick watched the meters. Eight of the tapes were used at one time, changed halfway through the song. The tapes were made (like most of the other loops) by superimposition and acceleration. According to Martin, the finished mix of the tape loops could not be repeated because of the complex and random way in which they were laid over the music.

Rather than revert to standard practice by having a guitar solo in the middle of the song, the track includes what McCartney described as a "tape solo". This section nevertheless includes a lead guitar part played by Harrison and recorded with the tape running backwards, to complement the sounds.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" was an early and highly influential recording in the psychedelic and electronic music genres, particularly for its pioneering use of sampling, tape manipulation and other production techniques. It also introduced lyrical themes that espoused mind expansion, anti-materialism and Eastern spirituality into popular music. On release, the song was the source of confusion and ridicule by many fans and journalists.

Revolver expanded the boundaries of pop music, revolutionised standard practices in studio recording, advanced principles espoused by the 1960s counterculture, and inspired the development of psychedelic rock, electronica, progressive rock and world music. The album cover, designed by Klaus Voormann, combined Aubrey Beardsley-inspired line drawing with photo collage and won the 1967 Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts. Aided by the 1987 international CD release, which standardised its content to the original Parlophone version, Revolver has surpassed Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in many critics' estimation as the Beatles' best album. It was ranked first in the 1998 and 2000 editions of Colin Larkin's book All Time Top 1000 Albums and third in the 2003 and 2012 editions of Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". It has been certified double platinum by the BPI and 5× platinum by the RIAA.

The movement to elevate Revolver above Sgt. Pepper is one that I can't agree with. There was a point, early in my exploration of the Beatles, that I considered Revolver to be my favorite album on some weeks. It is arguably a stronger collection of individual songs...but if you're judging Sgt. Pepper as a collection of individual songs, you're missing the whole point. Revolver is very much the middle chapter of the trilogy, the stepping stone between Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper. And Pepper, not Revolver, is the album that made the industry sit up and take notice, that elevated the album as an artform and changed how albums were made going forward.

 

[The Old Mixer]

55 Years Ago This Week Addendum

September 5 – John Lennon flies to Celle, West Germany, for the shooting of the film How I Won the War.

September 6 – In Celle, John has his hair cut short, army style, for How I Won the War, and is given a pair of 'granny glasses' to wear.

_______

Arguably a legitimate sequel with most "individual" voice from its predecessor ever filmed.

It feels more like a chapter in an anthology series than a sequel to the previous film, with which it only has the setting in common.

Possibly because Quentin was originally introduced as a manipulative, child-possessing ghost in the long sealed off wing of the Collins estate, and in the flashback to his life in the 19th century, he had another character progression before the werewolf business was introduced.

But in adapting long-serialized properties like comics or soap operas into movies, you have to get to the core of what worked in the series.

I don't think I've heard it before, but it's kinda cool. "Maggot Brain" sounds familiar, but probably for different reasons.

Yet another album in the 1971 pileup...which sounds kinda interesting from the representative tracks in my shuffle. And boy, these barely-charting singles from acclaimed 1971 albums sure love to hit #93, don't they?

Sounds like Janis.

Sounds like somebody milked this album for one single too many. Time to let her rest.

I do remember this from Oldies Radio. It's okay.

As we get further into the '70s, I've been making a point of getting less stuff that charted below 20, but this one, which I think I heard on oldies radio in the day, sounds pretty groovy...if a bit Chicago-derivative.

I might be familiar with this from Lost 45s.

Completely unfamiliar to me. The Raiders get grandfathered in for the below 20 thing.

And there's the Osmonds.

Too little bit rock 'n' roll too late.

Wow, that's awful. We never started before Labor Day. Unless maybe I was showing up late-- which would explain the dreams.

Through a lot of my public school years they kept telling us that summer vacation would eventually be abolished entirely...that shit never happened.

I don't think I remember that version of Superman, but I definitely watched the others.

Checking the schedule for that season, it looks like Space Ghost was running against The Beatles! And from what I saw in the intro to Frankenstein Jr. (which is also vaguely familiar), there would be no Impossibles if not for the Beatles!

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Heh. That would be something that Grant understood.

Indeed. I was just rewatching that scene, and Grant favored Cullen to run the construction of the transcontinental railroad because he felt that a soldier was needed, not "that shifty sack of shit Durant" (Colm Meaney, playing a fictionalized version of a historical railroad baron).

ETA: Interesting bit of retro TV business--Decades is doing a Binge of The Prisoner on September 18-19...which must mean that Weigel now has the show.

 

[Nerys Myk]

His name is remembered, but his spirit is forgotten. There's not a lot of love coming from the Left these days.

Again I'll say, huh?

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

It feels more like a chapter in an anthology series than a sequel to the previous film, with which it only has the setting in common.

Yeah, and it would have played the same with no reference to Elizabeth or Quentin being an heir.

But in adapting long-serialized properties like comics or soap operas into movies, you have to get to the core of what worked in the series.

Curtis did not want to adapt the werewolf part of Quentin's TV version, probably, because the sultry witch / possession / revenge-minded ghost story was a more interesting concept for an early 70s feature film. As far as I'm concerned, you can count great werewolf films on one hand--probably half of a hand, as the sub-genre rarely had the kind of interest and to-the-gut feeling as other horror subjects.

 

[Commander Troi]

Hello thread! Nostalgia ho!

55th Anniversary Album Spotlight

Revolver
The Beatles
Released August 5, 1966 (UK); August 8, 1966 (US)
Chart debut: September 3, 1966
Chart peak: #1 (September 10 through October 15, 1966)
#3 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2003)


And it seems that Beatles producer George Martin had a hand in weakening the American version of the album...he selected the three songs to give to Capitol for Yesterday and Today, reportedly feeling that they represented the best of the finished tracks then available. If he'd thought it through, he should have given Capitol the weakest tracks available, or a more varied selection than three John songs, in order to not unduly imbalance/weaken the Capitol version of Revolver.

That said, Revolver will be the last British Beatles album to be altered in the US, thanks to stipulations made by the Beatles when they renewed their contract with EMI in early 1967; and however badly the exclusion of three of John's five tracks imbalanced the American album, it was nevertheless the least altered of the Capitol versions of the British albums, containing the same track sequence, including side openers and closers, as the UK version, sans those three tracks.

Thus the American album also opens with the count-in to George rocker "Taxman" (#55 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs), which gets into contemporary British politics with a Batmania-inspired flare.



Next is half of the album's contemporaneous single, Paul's striking, poignant "Eleanor Rigby" (US B-side of "Yellow Submarine"; charted Aug. 27, 1966; #11 US; #1 UK as double A-side w/ "Yellow Submarine"; #137 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; #22 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs):

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I think it would have been the 1967 Grammy.



On the full version of the album, this is where John's trippy, atmospheric "I'm Only Sleeping" with its backwards guitar solo would come in. Instead we skip to another George song, his first proper foray into Eastern music, and my favorite of his efforts in that vein, "Love You To".



It was shortly after finishing this recording that George met Ravi Shankar and began studying sitar under him.

Ex-Mrs. Mixer walked down the aisle to Paul's gorgeous "Here, There and Everywhere" (#25 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs).




Ringo gets his most effective spotlight yet with "Yellow Submarine" (charted Aug. 20, 1966; #2 US; #1 UK as double A-side w/ "Eleanor Rigby"; #74 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs), a children's song that amply demonstrates the band's peaking versatility and creativity:

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The song went on to be the subject of a psychedelically animated Beatles film in 1968, and has been enjoyed by generations of children of all ages.



As it happens, John's two surviving songs on the American LP are both side closers. Scorching rocker "She Said She Said" (#37 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs) has an interesting story behind it...


Though studio logs indicate otherwise, George is believed to have played bass on this song, as Paul walked out during the session, which was the last for the album.

Side two opens with a well-known classic that could easily have been a hit single, Paul's jaunty, season-evocative "Good Day Sunshine" (#89 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs):

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The American LP skips already-released John rocker "And Your Bird Can Sing" to go straight into another, contrasting McCartney track, the poignant "For No One" (#40 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs), which I've always heard as a sort of opposite companion to "Here, There and Everywhere" on side one...the songs could be the beginning and end of the same relationship.



If the British version of Revolver has a weak spot, it's the middle of side two, which features perhaps its two most underwhelming, disposable tracks back-to-back. With John's "Doctor Robert" absent from the American LP, more attention is drawn to George's awkward, charmingly homely "I Want to Tell You". Apparently it wasn't recorded early enough to have been considered for Yesterday and Today, but it's a crime that this made it onto the American Revolver instead of "I'm Only Sleeping" or "And Your Bird Can Sing".

The album's penultimate track, "Got to Get You into My Life" (#50 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs), is a McCartney classic that was belatedly released as a single in 1976 to promote an American compilation album, and impressively for the time made it into the Top 10 of both of the Hot 100 and Easy Listening charts:

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The album closes with its most experimental, avant-garde track by far, John's psychedelic tour de force "Tomorrow Never Knows" (#18 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs), which, like "A Hard Day's Night," is titled for one of Ringo's malapropisms:

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Commenting here for emphasis...they were now using the recording studio itself as an instrument!


The sheer creativity and craftsmanship that went into this, in an age when they had four-track machines to work with and you couldn't do it all digitally...!






The movement to elevate Revolver above Sgt. Pepper is one that I can't agree with. There was a point, early in my exploration of the Beatles, that I considered Revolver to be my favorite album on some weeks. It is arguably a stronger collection of individual songs...but if you're judging Sgt. Pepper as a collection of individual songs, you're missing the whole point. Revolver is very much the middle chapter of the trilogy, the stepping stone between Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper. And Pepper, not Revolver, is the album that made the industry sit up and take notice, that elevated the album as an artform and changed how albums were made going forward.

This is some interesting stuff! A few quick comments:

• A few years back, I asked for The Beatles' boxed set and was thrilled that they are all original UK releases.
• "For No One" makes me cry every time I hear it.
• "Eleanor Rigby" is one of my All Time Favorite songs. When I was about 10 or so, our local indie TV station showed The Beatles cartoon show, and the episode with this song made me an actual Beatles FAN. Many years later, my friend Adam and I spontaneously came up with a cool arrangement at his apartment. I wish we'd recorded it somehow! We could never quite recapture it.
• I like how you see this album as the middle of a trilogy. I've always seen it as a "duology" with Rubber Soul.

 

[The Old Mixer]

A few years back, I asked for The Beatles' boxed set and was thrilled that they are all original UK releases.

Those have been the international standard since the first CD releases in 1987, and were my original listening experience. For immersive retro purposes, I'm engaging in the original American experience.

I like how you see this album as the middle of a trilogy. I've always seen it as a "duology" with Rubber Soul.

In my early online experience on a Beatles subforum, there was a noted appreciation among later-generation fans for the "middle trilogy" of RS through Pepper.

There's another, overlapping trilogy that I wanted to bring up in relation to Revolver's standing...the trilogy of influence between the Beatles and Beach Boys in crafting some of the greatest albums of all time. Rubber Soul inspired Pet Sounds, and Pet Sounds inspired Pepper. Revolver was the odd (even?) man out in that chain of influence, as its production overlapped too much with that of Pet Sounds.

I've also seen Revolver described as the "dress rehearsal" for Sgt. Pepper. That might have been Nicholas Schaffner.

 

[RJDiogenes]

If he'd thought it through, he should have given Capitol the weakest tracks available, or a more varied selection than three John songs, in order to not unduly imbalance/weaken the Capitol version of Revolver.

I wonder if he himself ever commented on that. It seems like everybody commented on everything.

Next is half of the album's contemporaneous single, Paul's striking, poignant "Eleanor Rigby"

Another example of pure poetry.

Ex-Mrs. Mixer walked down the aisle to Paul's gorgeous "Here, There and Everywhere"

Awww.

Ringo gets his most effective spotlight yet with "Yellow Submarine"

Oh, man, I just loved that long detailed account of creating "Yellow Submarine." It was like reading about The Manhattan Project or something.

Side two opens with a well-known classic that could easily have been a hit single, Paul's jaunty, season-evocative "Good Day Sunshine"

I would have assumed that it was.

Commenting here for emphasis...they were now using the recording studio itself as an instrument!

I've been thinking that. Without that concern of performing live, music becomes as intricate an art form as writing or art.

The sheer creativity and craftsmanship that went into this, in an age when they had four-track machines to work with and you couldn't do it all digitally...!

Imagine what they could do today. Or was it the challenge itself that inspired them?

It is arguably a stronger collection of individual songs...but if you're judging Sgt. Pepper as a collection of individual songs, you're missing the whole point.

Sort of like comparing an anthology to a novel, it seems.

And boy, these barely-charting singles from acclaimed 1971 albums sure love to hit #93, don't they?

Hmm. Perhaps a number of some cryptic significance, like 42 or 47.

Sounds like somebody milked this album for one single too many. Time to let her rest.

Yeah. Kind of bittersweet to hear.

As we get further into the '70s, I've been making a point of getting less stuff that charted below 20, but this one, which I think I heard on oldies radio in the day, sounds pretty groovy...if a bit Chicago-derivative.

Actually, you may find a treasure trove of interesting stuff in the lower numbers, the 70s being what they were.

Through a lot of my public school years they kept telling us that summer vacation would eventually be abolished entirely...that shit never happened.

It would have been funny if it happened to my siblings, but otherwise I'm against it.

Checking the schedule for that season, it looks like Space Ghost was running against The Beatles! And from what I saw in the intro to Frankenstein Jr. (which is also vaguely familiar), there would be no Impossibles if not for the Beatles!

True, but I wonder what happened to the fourth Impossible. Perhaps he walked out due to creative differences. And I do remember that Superman cartoon now that I see the opening theme.

Indeed. I was just rewatching that scene, and Grant favored Cullen to run the construction of the transcontinental railroad because he felt that a soldier was needed, not "that shifty sack of shit Durant" (Colm Meaney, playing a fictionalized version of a historical railroad baron).

Not surprising. He also thought that the military should run the South, on which point I have no doubt he was correct.

ETA: Interesting bit of retro TV business--Decades is doing a Binge of The Prisoner on September 18-19...which must mean that Weigel now has the show.

And we still don't have Decades back. Sigh.

Again I'll say, huh?

I don't really know what else I can tell you. Feel free to PM me with specific questions, but this thread probably isn't the place for it.

As far as I'm concerned, you can count great werewolf films on one hand--probably half of a hand, as the sub-genre rarely had the kind of interest and to-the-gut feeling as other horror subjects.

Unfortunately true. I love Werewolf stories and good ones are hard to come by (on a side note, I just recently got to watch the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode that got me hooked on the concept.

Hello thread! Nostalgia ho!

Well met.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Unfortunately true. I love Werewolf stories and good ones are hard to come by (on a side note, I just recently got to watch the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode that got me hooked on the concept.

Aside from the classic of them all--The Wolf Man, and B-level entries such as The Werewolf of London and Curse of the Werewolf, there's so much to avoid. 1980s films such as The Howling and An American Werewolf in London aged rapidly--not for the efx, but that wannabe genre-subverting, very 80s screenplay and performances that created the kind of films not worth revisiting.

 

[The Old Mixer]

_______

55.5th-ish Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)

_______

Batman
"Batman Is Riled"
Originally aired January 27, 1966

The Caped Crusader slips a flare out of his utility belt that causes the sprinkler system to go off, and the Joker flees up into the catwalks in the confusion. Batman pursues, but the Joker traps him in hurled confetti streamers. We still don't actually see the belt that his gimmicks are coming from, but that doesn't stop if from becoming a topic on the news. Just as Fred the newscaster (Jerry Dunphy) is laying things on thick with an account of his son's bedtime prayer, Joker and his posse take over the studio, taunting Batman on live TV with cryptic clues in a game show format...which the Dynamic Duo and Alfred decipher as leading to a warehouse storing a collection of African art objects. A Bat-climb reveals a burglary in progress, and a Batfight ensues sans onscreen sound effects or the theme. When Batman tries to use a gadget from his belt, it turns out that the Joker switched one of his own belts onto Batman during the fight, and the ensuing unlikely deluge of streamers and taunting flags dropping from the ceiling aid the Joker in getting away again.

The Dynamic Duo take a beating in the headlines, but Batman examines the duplicate belt in the Batcave, and plans to christen the SS Gotham as scheduled; but at the ceremony, the Joker has Queenie hand the Caped Crusader a sabotaged champagne bottle. Batman clearly smells the trap, though, taking a pill and insisting that Robin does as well. After the gas inside is released, the Dynamic Duo are carried to the Joker's hideout, where they stop playing possum and start a Batfight...but a bit awkwardly with Batman delivering voiced over exposition while throwing punches about how examination of the Joker's belt tipped them off to the gas. Queenie briefly tries feminine wiles to avoid being hauled in, but Batman ain't buying it. (Maybe she should have worn a Robin costume...)

The coda has Bruce and Dick watching a follow-up news broadcast with more bedtime prayer commentary, and Aunt Harriet hauling Dick back to the piano...

Dick: Golly G minor, Bruce, do I have to!?!​

_______

Gilligan's Island
"Seer Gilligan"
Originally aired January 27, 1966

Gilligan has found a bush that provides seeds that enable anyone who eats the seeds to read people's minds. Everyone wants in on the action. But everyone begins to fight and argue when they start reading each others minds. Gilligan burns the bush with the seeds so they can all be friends again.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this would be the most supernatural premise they've done on the show to date, wouldn't it? Gilligan is already reading the Skipper's mind--answering questions before he asks them--at the beginning of the episode, and the Skipper tries to test him to see if it's a trick. Once the Skipper is convinced, he tells the others and the Professor is the natural skeptic...but he's quickly convinced when Gilligan reads scientific info that he's thinking about. Mr. Howell takes a particular interest for obvious reasons and comes up with the theory that it was something that Gilligan ate, trying to eat everything that he eats. Ginger takes a psychological approach, but while he's on the figurative couch, she eats one of the seeds and starts reading his mind, after which everyone wants to exclusively know the location of the bush, while Gilligan just wants to sleep. Gilligan ends up bringing back seeds for everyone, and they can't wait to start eating them. Fighting ensues between pairs of castaways, then spreads. Gilligan ends up setting the bush on fire...and following the initial shock, the others find themselves approving.

The Professor: Gilligan, for a guy who's always doing dumb things, when you do something smart, it's beautiful.​

I think this episode would put a kink in any fan theories about one of the castaways having plotted the shipwreck.

_______

The Wild Wild West
"The Night of the Grand Emir"
Originally aired January 28, 1966

West is assigned to protect a visiting despot from Ecstasy La Joie, an assassin armed with a deadly ring and an explosive garter.

Jim and Artie are assigned to mind Emir El Emid (Robert Middleton) of the Ottoman Empire. At a swank dinner reception, they run into T. Wiggett Jones (Don Francks), a society feature writer with whom the agents are previously acquainted in a less-than-friendly fashion. A masked showgirl (future dominoed daredoll Yvonne Craig) tosses her garter at the emir, which West catches in a case and gets away from the emir before it explodes. Despite being stunned by the blast, Jim hops on the back of the showgirl's escape coach.

At this point, there was an interruption of several minutes in my recording. I picked up with Craig's character, Ecstasy La Joie, being coached in use of deadly weapons by Christopher Cable (Richard Jaeckel), a member of the Society of Assassins...who demonstrates a tambourine with a cutting edge by killing an ostensible ally, Dr. Mohammed Bey (James Lanphier), who'd been on the coach with Ecstasy. Jim escapes from being hung upside down from a cell ceiling in chains. Ecstasy subsequently dances for the Emir unmasked with her tambourine at dinner, and Jim pops in to stop her, demonstrating the tambourine on a bust...but the Emir is fascinated with Ecstasy and wants her to stay. While Jim is changing, everyone succumbs to drugged drinks except Artie, who covertly tossed his, and stops Ecstasy from making her next move, but several men in hats and cloaks arrive to take Ecstasy and the Emir. Artie suspects Jones and puts some tape on his coach wheel that leaves a trail that can be seen with special glasses.

The agents follow him to an estate where the Society, led by Jones, is holding a party. Jim gets into the mansion only to find himself surrounded by several members. He puts up a rolling foyer fight but is eventually outflanked, and then treated to social courtesies by Jones, which includes Yvonne showing off her dance versatility with some flamenco. Jones reveals that his Assassin's Club killed fourteen people that night--including Bey--who were conspiring to lead a revolt against the Emir, from whom they plan to acquire land needed for the Suez Canal. Jones offers Jim membership, but he immediately refuses, and is gassed trying to exit the room. Jim is put in a glass booth rigged with containers that Jones threatens will dispense components of a deadly gas if disturbed.

Ecstasy knocks out Cable and frees Jim, explaining that her loyalty was to Bey. Jim gives her a nerve pinch while they kiss, then knocks Christopher back out. Artie shows up posing as the Emir's grand vizier, but the Emir doesn't want to leave. Jones recognizes Artie and takes him to the room where Jim was being held while Jim watches from concealment. Jones puts Ecstasy in the booth, but Jim comes in to save her. West is persuaded to toss his gun, but ends up in hand-to-hand with Jones, whose level of skill in martial arts surprises Jim. Nevertheless, Jim ends up knocking Jones in the booth, and the gas dispenses, but has no effect.

In the coda, Jim dances with Ecstasy while she insists that she still plans to kill the Emir, but the agents get her to admit that she's never actually succeeded in killing anybody.

_______

Hogan's Heroes
"It Takes a Thief...Sometimes"
Originally aired January 28, 1966

When Hogan’s new underground contacts turn out to be Gestapo agents, it will take some misdirection and quick thinking to save the team from their new friends.

The episode opens with the prisoners fleecing Schultz at cards; when he's out of money and has a full house, they get him to pony up with intel about a bridge having been blown up nearby by underground operatives...and Hogan pulls a four of a kind anyway. Hogan and LeBeau commando in on the band of four operatives at their hideout and isn't impressed with their operation, but spends some intimate time with Michelle (Claudine Longet) while they shelter from a bombing raid. Later the prisoners listen in as Captain Heinrich (Michael Constantine), who was posing as one of the operatives, explains to Klink his plan to trap Hogan's group (not knowing Hogan by name) in what he assumes will be their next operation against a railroad tunnel...so at their next meeting, Hogan's suggested target is Stalag 13 instead. Hogan gives the cold shoulder to Michelle, and she tries to convince him to run off with her.

Heinrich in disguise is supposed to supply the explosives, so he has Klink's prisoners load what's supposed to be fake dynamite on his truck, while Hogan avoids being seen by him. When Hogan and Heinrich rendezvous, Hogan changes the plan to hitting the railroad tunnel after all. Heinrich tries to radio Klink to bring the guards that were going to ready at the Stalag to the tunnel, but Klink's radio has been disabled and Kinch, doing his Klink impersonation, is taking the calls. When she thinks the trap is about to be sprung, Michelle warns Hogan that Heinrich is a Gestapo agent, following which Heinrich attempts to demonstrate that the dynamite is fake by pushing down the plunger, and the tunnel goes up. Realizing that Klink's men aren't coming, he drives to the Stalag and is shot up by them while approaching the gate. Hogan makes up with Michelle, who explains that she has family in France being held over her by the Gestapo, and he promises to arrange to get her to England.

_______

Get Smart
"Back to the Old Drawing Board"
Originally aired January 29, 1966

KAOS is interested in capturing Dr. Shotwire [Patrick O'Moore], a brilliant scientist whose work has been set back six months thanks to his bodyguard's helping hands (none other than those of Agent 86 (Max)). The KAOS agent in charge of the kidnapping, Natz [Ted de Corsia], also has a vendetta with Max, who sent him to prison in the past. This is the first episode with Hymie (played by Dick Gautier), a KAOS-designed robot whom Max convinces to join CONTROL. This episode is notable for an extended physical comedy routine involving Max and Hymie.

Natz enlists the aid of accomplished evil genius Dr. Ratton (Jim Boles) in getting past Smart to Shotwire. To that end Ratton demonstrates Hymie's capabilities, which include easily beating what I assume is Janos Prohaska in the usual costume. Hymie disposes of Agent 91 (Bruce Gibson) and makes a rendezvous with Max and 99 in his place. At the party where the CONTROL agents are minding Shotwire, Max also makes contact with recurring Agent 44 (Victor French), who's hiding in a grandfather clock. When the Chief tries to warn Max that 91 was replaced via his watch phone, Hymie destroys it, which Max assumes is an accident, and then takes out 44. I assume that the above-mentioned notable routine is when Max tells Hymie to do as he does and Hymie matches Max's every action while sitting next to him on a couch. But Hymie taking a drink at Max's insistence causes a short circuit, resulting in Shotwire losing remote control of him. Hymie actually demonstrates symptoms of being drunk in his stiff, mechanical way. He reveals that he's a robot just before taking Max, 99, and Shotwire captive, and takes them to Ratton's lair. Ratton orders Hymie to shoot Max, but Max says complimentary things to Hymie, who, moved to tears, shoots Ratton instead, then frees the agents. Hymie explains that Max was the first one who treated him like a real person. In the coda, Hymie turns down an offer to join CONTROL, expressing an interest in working for IBM, where he can meet some nice machines.

_______

I wonder if he himself ever commented on that. It seems like everybody commented on everything.

Well, the Beatles are a subject of serious scholarship...

Oh, man, I just loved that long detailed account of creating "Yellow Submarine." It was like reading about The Manhattan Project or something.

Those were my carefully selected excerpts!

I've been thinking that. Without that concern of performing live, music becomes as intricate an art form as writing or art.

I'd be curious to know what you think of "Tomorrow Never Knows" specifically, and if you were previously familiar with it.

Imagine what they could do today. Or was it the challenge itself that inspired them?

Adversity can inspire art. What they accomplished then wouldn't have been nearly as meaningful or groundbreaking if they'd had today's tools to do it...or even the tools of thirty years ago.

And we still don't have Decades back. Sigh.

I should also note that I just found out yesterday that the Dark Shadows series has migrated, in the few weeks since I discovered it had been on Tubi, to Pluto TV, another free service. Pluto doesn't have the pre-Barnabas episodes, however.

On the subject of Decades Binges, this weekend they replaced the scheduled Dean Martin Celebrity Roast with an MTM binge in honor of Ed Asner. MeTV also ran a smaller block of MTM episodes yesterday afternoon.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I don't really know what else I can tell you. Feel free to PM me with specific questions, but this thread probably isn't the place for it.

Eh, I live in the modern world and regularly interact with human beings. So I actually see Dr. King's legacy in words and action. So I'll pass.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

And it seems that Beatles producer George Martin had a hand in weakening the American version of the album...he selected the three songs to give to Capitol for Yesterday and Today, reportedly feeling that they represented the best of the finished tracks then available. If he'd thought it through, he should have given Capitol the weakest tracks available, or a more varied selection than three John songs, in order to not unduly imbalance/weaken the Capitol version of Revolver.

Looking through my 'Beatles Recording Sessions' by Mark Lewisohn - the sessions for 'Revolver' began on 6-April-1966, and the request was made by Capitol Records for three songs on 12-May-1966.

The songs recorded up to that point were 'Tomorrow Never Knows', 'Got To Get You Into My Life', 'Love You To', 'Paperback Writer', 'Rain', 'Doctor Robert', 'And Your Bird Can Sing', 'Taxman', 'Eleanor Rigby', 'I'm Only Sleeping', and 'For No One'.

Of the songs listed, 'Paperback Writer' and 'Rain' were already earmarked for the upcoming single and the others, 'Tomorrow Never Knows', 'Got To Get You Into My Life', 'Love You To', 'Taxman', 'Eleanor Rigby', and 'For No One' were in various stages of completion (too numerous to list) as heard on 'Anthology 2' or subject to a remake (i.e. 'Tomorrow Never Knows' and 'Got To Get You Into My Life').

That leaves the three John compositions as being done enough for a quick mix by George Martin for inclusion on 'Yesterday And Today'; and even then they were further mixed by George on 21-June-1966 once it came time for final editing and sequencing for 'Revolver'.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I've read that six were considered ready at this stage, and George chose those three.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I've read that six were considered ready at this stage, and George chose those three.

While it's possible that some new information has come to light since the book was published, I'll take Mark Lewisohn's book over a Wiki entry.
For example(s) - Taxman was missing the count-in, 'Mr. Wilson, Mr. Heath', and Paul's guitar overdub.
For No One was missing Paul's lead vocal and the French Horn solo which were both added on May 19, a week after the three songs were mixed for Capitol records.
Eleanor Rigby was considered 'complete'; however Paul thought otherwise and added a new vocal on June 6.
Got To Get You Into My Life was in the process of being remade and was missing the horn overdubs.
Tomorrow Never Knows was missing various overdubs.
That leaves the three John songs.

 

[The Old Mixer]

The passage in the Wiki article cites the following source, which I'm not familiar with:

Rodriguez, Robert (2012). Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock 'n' Roll. Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-1-61713-009-0.​

 

[gblews]

His name is remembered, but his spirit is forgotten. There's not a lot of love coming from the Left these days.

Not like the right though, who are offering attempts by their candidates to overturn an election, based on lies, storming the capitol in order to overturn an election, refusing to exercise simple precautions thereby making the pandemic worse,. Yeah, a lot of love there.

The album closes with its most experimental, avant-garde track by far, John's psychedelic tour de force "Tomorrow Never Knows" (#18 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs),

TNN made a memorable appearance in an episode of Mad Men which illustrated the generation gap between main character, middle aged Don Draper, and his 20 something year old young wife.

Eleanor Rigby" was nominated for three Grammy Awards and won the 1966 Grammy for Best Contemporary (R&R) Vocal Performance, Male or Female for McCartney.

Says everything about theGrammys that Rigby didn’t sweep the top individual song categories.

With regard to the composing questions surrounding Eleanor Rigby, from what I’v seen and heard about contemporary songwriting, if Rigby had been written in 2021, there is no way all 4 Beatles, plus Shotten, would not have gotten a writing credit. From what I gather, “everyone in the room” gets credit these days. Don’t know how the money works, but the credit gets spread a lot further than it used to.

I don’t blame John for trying to grab some credit for Rigby. It’s one of the greatest songs of the rock era.

BTW, I can’t even picture Gworge playing bass, so I’d love to see it.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Aside from the classic of them all--The Wolf Man, and B-level entries such as The Werewolf of London and Curse of the Werewolf, there's so much to avoid. 1980s films such as The Howling and An American Werewolf in London aged rapidly--not for the efx, but that wannabe genre-subverting, very 80s screenplay and performances that created the kind of films not worth revisiting.

I agree with all that, especially Wolf Man, although I do maintain a soft spot for American Werewolf.

We still don't actually see the belt that his gimmicks are coming from, but that doesn't stop if from becoming a topic on the news.

That's strange. Even if they didn't have enough props to go around, they could have swapped them around if they weren't in the same shot (or used Robin's).

a Batfight ensues sans onscreen sound effects or the theme.

Still working things out this early on, I guess.

The Dynamic Duo take a beating in the headlines

Any sound effects there?

Batman examines the duplicate belt in the Batcave

Hopefully there's nothing in the real utility belt that the Joker can likewise use to locate the Batcave.

they stop playing possum and start a Batfight...but a bit awkwardly with Batman delivering voiced over exposition while throwing punches

That's very comic booky, though.

Dick: Golly G minor, Bruce, do I have to!?!

"Aunt Harriet will give you a treat afterwards. Every good boy deserves fudge."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this would be the most supernatural premise they've done on the show to date, wouldn't it?

Probably. I don't think they delved into anything really weird too often, outside of dreamland. The giant spider and the mind-control guy spring to mind.

Gilligan ends up bringing back seeds for everyone, and they can't wait to start eating them. Fighting ensues between pairs of castaways, then spreads.

Interesting how Gilligan has been reading minds for a while and yet has not had a negative reaction to anyone's thoughts.

The Professor: Gilligan, for a guy who's always doing dumb things, when you do something smart, it's beautiful.

That's my show.

I think this episode would put a kink in any fan theories about one of the castaways having plotted the shipwreck.

Or the Professor plotting to keep them there. I don't think anyone takes that stuff seriously outside of satire.

dominoed daredoll

I like it.

(Richard Jaeckel), a member of the Society of Assassins...

Also a member of the Society of Character Actors Who Excel at Evil.

Jones reveals that his Assassin's Club killed fourteen people that night

Probably one of those Assassin's Clubs where you have to return the card or your assassin ships automatically.

Jones puts Ecstasy in the booth, but Jim comes in to save her. West is persuaded to toss his gun, but ends up in hand-to-hand with Jones, whose level of skill in martial arts surprises Jim. Nevertheless, Jim ends up knocking Jones in the booth, and the gas dispenses, but has no effect.

These episodes are just jam-packed with people doing stuff!

In the coda, Jim dances with Ecstasy while she insists that she still plans to kill the Emir, but the agents get her to admit that she's never actually succeeded in killing anybody.

Not counting a few heart attacks.

(Claudine Longet)

I think we're back to our cloning theory.

(Michael Constantine)

The principal on Room 222. Can't think of his name.

Realizing that Klink's men aren't coming, he drives to the Stalag and is shot up by them while approaching the gate.

Ouch. That seems pretty grisly for this show.

Hymie disposes of Agent 91

Dick Gautier will eventually play Robin Hood in Mel Brooks' sadly short-lived and overlooked When Things Were Rotten.

I assume that the above-mentioned notable routine is when Max tells Hymie to do as he does and Hymie matches Max's every action while sitting next to him on a couch.

Don Adams and Dick Gautier are funny enough alone, but they work great together.

In the coda, Hymie turns down an offer to join CONTROL, expressing an interest in working for IBM, where he can meet some nice machines.

"But... I'll be back."

Well, the Beatles are a subject of serious scholarship...

As they should be!

Those were my carefully selected excerpts!

There's more?

I'd be curious to know what you think of "Tomorrow Never Knows" specifically, and if you were previously familiar with it.

I thought it was a James Bond movie. Just kidding. I was slightly familiar with it, and I love that exotic psychedelic sound (and trippy lyrics).

Adversity can inspire art. What they accomplished then wouldn't have been nearly as meaningful or groundbreaking if they'd had today's tools to do it...or even the tools of thirty years ago.

That's what I was thinking. And their work inspired the development of those tools.

On the subject of Decades Binges, this weekend they replaced the scheduled Dean Martin Celebrity Roast with an MTM binge in honor of Ed Asner. MeTV also ran a smaller block of MTM episodes yesterday afternoon.

It would be nice if they added Lou Grant to the schedule. That was a pretty amazing show with a great cast.

Not like the right though, who are offering attempts by their candidates to overturn an election, based on lies, storming the capitol in order to overturn an election, refusing to exercise simple precautions thereby making the pandemic worse,. Yeah, a lot of love there.

What exactly did you hear me say? This is why I love the Internet. Don't answer that, by the way, I don't want this bullshit in Mixer's thread.

 

[The Old Mixer]

55 Years Ago This Week Overflow Special

Also recent and new on the chart the week of September 10, 1966:

"Flamingo," Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

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(Sept. 3; #28 US; #5 AC; #53 UK)

"Knock on Wood," Eddie Floyd

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(#28 US; #1 R&B; #19 UK)

"Girl on a Swing," Gerry & The Pacemakers

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(#28 US)

"All Strung Out," Nino Tempo & April Stevens

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(#26 US)

"Love Is a Hurtin' Thing," Lou Rawls

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(#13 US; #1 R&B)

_______

That's strange. Even if they didn't have enough props to go around, they could have swapped them around if they weren't in the same shot (or used Robin's).

Now it hadn't occurred to me that it was just a redress of Batman's belt. I thought it was just that he wasn't wearing the belt over the opera outfit. But it was strange that such a fuss was being made about gadgets used by the Joker being from a belt that nobody actually saw...doubly so in that it was the Joker's first appearance, so we didn't have a usual M.O. to contrast it with.

Any sound effects there?

Dozier reading the onscreen headlines as I recall. I don't remember if they spun.

Hopefully there's nothing in the real utility belt that the Joker can likewise use to locate the Batcave.

Another loose end. And plot-wise, it might have made more sense if Joker had gotten ahold of one of Batman's belts before devising his own / repurposing the one he stole.

I like it.

I believe that was the comics nickname for Batgirl, which they might have used on the show on occasion.

These episodes are just jam-packed with people doing stuff!

I have to say, though I like this show, it takes a bit more effort in the viewing/note-taking and write-up. Thus I'm relieved that there won't be new episodes for the next couple of 55.5th-ish anniversary weeks.

Not counting a few heart attacks.

I seem to have missed at least one important character beat in the recording interruption, but she seemed to be out to prove herself to the society, and was perhaps not a full-fledged member yet.

I think we're back to our cloning theory.

Drop-dead gorgeous and drop-deadly...any number of diabolical organizations would want more of her.

Ouch. That seems pretty grisly for this show.

Kinda...it was, of course, not depicted graphically. We just saw them opening fire on him, and Schultz went out and came back to identify who was in the car.

Dick Gautier will eventually play Robin Hood in Mel Brooks' sadly short-lived and overlooked When Things Were Rotten.

Huh...don't think I'd ever heard of that.

Don Adams and Dick Gautier are funny enough alone, but they work great together.

It was pretty good...and drew a lot of attention to them in-story.

I was slightly familiar with it, and I love that exotic psychedelic sound (and trippy lyrics).

The lyrics were pretty much straight out of the Tibetian Book of the Dead...it was about the arrangement.

It would be nice if they added Lou Grant to the schedule. That was a pretty amazing show with a great cast.

It'd be a good show for their line-up if they had it...all these years following the various retro channels that I have and I can't recall that it's ever come up.