every picture tells a story don't it - WHOO!

 

Recently the subject of "story" keeps returning to my mind.

Stories.

I noticed and considered the fact that some stories (or maybe most or all stories) are told over and over again, sometimes under the same title, sometimes re-named.

The 1995 film Clueless is based on the Jane Austen novel Emma (originally published in 1815).

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Each of these is the same story (with some variations) --

The Front Page - 1928, a Broadway comedy, playwrights:  Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur

1931 - The Front Page, a pre-Code comedy drama film, starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien

1940 - His Girl Friday (Rosalind Russell; Cary Grant)

1974 - The Front Page, starring The Odd Couple's Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, and directed by the venerable European immigrant Billy Wilder

1987 - Switching Channels

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And speaking of The Odd Couple --

first a Broadway play  (1965)

then a feature film, 1968

and then the 1970s television situation comedy series of the same name, starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman.

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In theater, Broadway to local community, there are always what they call "revivals" (not of the religious nature) but rather --

a revival of The Sound of Music

a revival of Cabaret

a revival of My Fair Lady

etc.

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My Fair Lady:

1913 - a stage play titled Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw

1956 - a stage musical, composers Lerner and Loewe, starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews

1964 - musical comedy-drama film starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn.

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Each of these was built from the one before...

1939 - Goodbye to Berlin, semi-autobiographical novel by Christopher Isherwood

1951 - I Am A Camera, play by John Van Druten

1966 - Cabaret, a musical stage play, Kander and Ebb

1972 - Cabaret, movie - Liza Minnelli.

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"I Am A Camera" -- we have got to love that title.

Today it would be "I Am A Smart Phone."

--------------------------- Rod Stewart's song, "Every Picture Tells a Story" is the third in a trilogy of Stewart songs we're featuring here, where the song has different tempos and styles in its various sections.  

Movements, like Beethoven.

Played back-to-back,

Maggie May,

Mandolin Wind, and

Every Picture Tells A Story

effectively represent a Rod Stewart musical style.

This style emerged in the 1970s, and can be listened to anytime.

You-Tube up

"Every Picture Tells a Story" (the song)

and play.

♪♪  ♪♪♪

-30-