Posted 10:03 PM by Gene

You're a SONDHEIMANIAC. You're in the know; you believe The Paper of Re-CORD is God's word and Frank Rich is Moses. Being in the know you think HERR DOKTOR's shows are immortal. You immersed yourself in A Little Night Music despite its stunt casting and cheap sets and shriveled arrangements to revel in the total sound world of a GENIUS. He is so much better than his competition -- he's said so himself -- he could never be linked to an everyday, ordinary, plebeian talent like, say, Elvis Presley. Could he?

Alas, he could be -- and very strongly so.

Here's a name for you -- Gene Nelson. The SONDHEIMANIACS worship him as one of the stars of the original production of Follies, a show so God-enriched it has not been revived in Branson East since its opening rapture (though it has received about a thousand concert renditions, meaning it MUST be opera). Unfortunately for them Nelson directed two of Elvis's grungiest programmers -- Kissin' Cousins and Harum Scarum. (As you can see from above he also co-wrote the former.) And these men liked and respected each other. In his very factual and very dull biography of Presley Peter Guralnick relates that as a truck driver in Memphis Elvis went to the movies and saw Nelson do a strenuously acrobatic routine on gymnastics equipment in a rather lame Warners spectacular She's Working Her Way Through College, and was quite impressed. (That film, a musical adaptation of the hoary James Thurber - Elliott Nugent academic sitcom The Male Animal, starred Ronald Reagan and has possibly the first of those memorable caricatures of him with the pointy hair -- on a blackboard.) Elvis told Nelson and they struck it off. Indeed we'd wager Nelson has a stronger connection to Elvis than to HERR DOKTOR.

Say what you will of Elvis's programmers, and we've said it, people will still listen to the "immortal nuances" of Ben Weisman long after Anyone Can Whistle trundles off permanently to the theater graveyard.

Oh -- and we haven't mentioned Angela Lansbury. Have we?

Or that the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization bought a big chunk of Elvis's catalog?

And here's the poster art for one of HERR DOKTOR's masterworks. Strange, is it not?

P. S. on 11/13/2010 at 8:52 p. m. I'm afraid I've found another connection between Elvis and HERR DOKTOR: John Carradine, co-star of the inaptly titled The Trouble with Girls (and How to Get Into It), played the "procurer" Marcus Lycus for fifteen months in the original Broadway production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. So there, SONDHEIMANIACS!

P. P. S. We were rather hoping for a connection with the ethereal Juliet Prowse, who did star in the original London production of Sweet Charity (co-written by Cy Coleman, who wrote "Witchcraft", which -- never mind), but alas, no dice.

P. P. P. S. on 11/14/2010 at 6:10 p. m. WRONG!!!!! She starred in A 1990 PRODUCTION OF FOLLIES IN LOS ANGELES!!!!!!!!!!

P. P. P. P. S. at 6:52 p. m. DEAN JONES STARRED IN COMPANY!!!!! (One suspects the SONDHEIMANIACS have never forgiven him because he quit after a month, and also because he was in a weird phase then, as witness his later appearances on THE PTL CLUB -- but this counts.)