One of my directing mentors, Edward Dmytryk (“Caine Mutiny”, “Murder My Sweet”) once told me that he always picked simple things to do on the first day of a movie since he it always took him a day to brush the cobwebs out of his eyes, get his footing and
At the end of last year I was doing a little public relations work in New York to promote my documentary “Tis Autumn: The Search For Jackie Paris”. Accompanying me on my round of interviews was a very nice young lady, an assistant who worked at the firm handling the
For the handful of faithful readers of my weblog, I hearby apologize for switching gears from old movie and music epheremra to my other–you might say primary–obsession; the making of my own films, a maddening and utterly addictive puruit which I’ve been doggedly…um, pursuing since I was a kid (GAF
I wish I could say that my story of meeting Rudy Vallee ended with him giving me his megaphone. It didn’t. But still it ended in a pleasant enough way to warrant this final Rudy posting. I did as Tommy, his friend/helper, suggested (see 1/11 post) and sent Rudy a
So there I am, standing in my parents house with a letter addressed to me from Rudy Vallee. I recall my mother coming in the room and saying–as if nothing before in her life had ever been quite so strange–“Raymond…did you get a letter from Rudy Vallee?” I opened it,
Does anyone remember the huge fuss made in newspapers around the world in the early 1970’s when the scandal broke that a faded star of yesteryear– singer Rudy Vallee–desired to change the name of the street he lived on (Pyramid Place in the Hollywood Hills) to Rue De Vallee? A Congressman
No, I didn’t in fact get that review, but I have reason to be modestly proud of the reception of my three and half years in the making documentary “Tis Autumn: The Search For Jackie Paris”, which opened last Friday in New York City to all around (mostly) excellent reviews.
And now, after a decade of keeping it locked in a dark vault as if it were the mutant child of a royal family, Showtime is bringing back my first feature, “Cafe Society”. It will air this Sunday evening at ten pm. Is that time Eastern or Pacific? I don’t
Sunday. Spent much of today in jazz-geek heaven, listening to transcriptions of old WRVR broadcasts of “Just Jazz with Ed Beech”. Beech was a New York based d.j. who made discography sound suave. Using a Shakespearean-trained actors voice (at least according to his publicity) he filled New York radio with
My producer, and dear friend, David Zellerford, has grown to hate me and this film like a disease that wont go into remission but also wont get worse. Every moment of this last few months of finishing is torture for him and me. But especially for him. Largely this has