Vet kumen di nakht un vet zingen lyu-lyu

[sovay]

I just found out Theodore Bikel has died.

I am going to listen to a lot of Yiddish folksongs and then set about finding a copy of The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966) stat.

Comments

[gwynnega]

He was in my dad's movie I Bury the Living. I'm happy to see that Spotify has a lot of his music.

[sovay]

He was in my dad's movie I Bury the Living.

I can't believe I haven't seen a movie with that title starring Theodore Bikel. Another one on the list.

I'm happy to see that Spotify has a lot of his music.

Good!

[gwynnega]

It's an excellent movie with a terrible ending. (Stephen King wrote about how bad the ending was, and he's not wrong.) Unfortunately I never got a chance to ask my dad whether the ending was his idea or if someone made him change it...

[sovay]

Unfortunately I never got a chance to ask my dad whether the ending was his idea or if someone made him change it...

Does anyone else know? Would you be able to find reference to it elsewhere?

(What goes wrong with the ending? Over-the-top or stupidly mundane?)

[gwynnega]

Maybe if I do some digging there might be an interview with the director (Albert Band) that sheds some light on it.

The ending is stupidly mundane (after a wildly over-the-top bit that I love), which is what leads me to believe it might have been a rewrite.

[sovay]

The ending is stupidly mundane (after a wildly over-the-top bit that I love), which is what leads me to believe it might have been a rewrite.

You should write it a better ending. No joke. Poem or story. (Unless you have already, and I haven't seen it.)

[edit] TCM says Albert Band had your father rewrite it. And the author of the article has access to the original script?

[gwynnega]

Somewhere I have a first draft of a poem about the film and its ending. I need to dig that out, but also I need to do some research and try to find out why that ending happened!

[edit] Hey, you found it! Somehow I knew my dad didn't write that clunker of an ending! Yay.

[sovay]

Somehow I knew my dad didn't write that clunker of an ending! Yay.

David Kalat at TCM is critical of the original ending and believes the film is stronger for the rewrite, but . . . I'd have to see it to be sure, but all signs point to him being wrong. Especially if the climax was conceived as supernatural from the beginning: you can't just yank that sort of thing out at the last minute and expect the picture not to suffer.

[gwynnega]

The ending felt obviously tacked on when I saw it. But up to that point, it's a pretty terrific film.