One From the Heart: A Movie Made for Vinyl

[LeeVanCleef]

If you haven’t been following the action in the Petula Clark thread… well, that means you’re probably here to get some expert help on fixing your Space Invaders machine and don’t really get what the rest of us bozos are going on about. But for the other five of you, sleepy posted a Crystal Gayle video. I thought I’d comment on it, but realized that one of the greatest movie soundtracks ever made probably deserved its own thread.
The story of how Apocalypse Now became immortalized on celluloid is almost so familiar that it’s passing into myth; the movie whose creation was an apocryphal tale of ‘70s overindulgence and its disastrous consequences. Millions wasted, marriages ruined, health and sanity ravaged by good old fashioned egomania that, in Hollywood years, is as old as the fall of ancient Babylon… in DW Griffith’s silent film Intolerance. But one thing Francis Ford Coppola wasn’t lacking in was pallé (you bet I took the time to find out the Italian word for cojónes!). He bet it all on that sucker… the Godfather money, his own house… and he won, since the film wasn’t only an instant classic, it made bank at the box office.
And that’s a wrap! End scene, roll credits… great job, everybody! That’s the Hollywood ending. Too bad life isn’t like that. Coppola decided to double down, making what can best be described as a candy-coated romantic fever dream One From the Heart for $26 million. That would be a standard romantic comedy film today costing $150 million to make. And, since the producer was Coppola’s own Zoetrope Studios, he was on the hook when it laid an egg at the box office.
But there’s a happy ending! Coppola was smart enough to hire his pal Tom Waits to do the soundtrack for the film. And this wouldn’t be just any soundtrack. Some of the songs would be sung by the characters in the movie, some with Waits’ recordings of them played over scenes. It was like a bad case of dissociative disorder: a movie that wanted to be a musical, but didn’t want to be called a musical. But Waits wrote and constructed the album to follow the beats of the film and tell the story with the lyrics. Starting with the Opening Montage, that slowly builds into a finger-snapping casino blowout that makes sure you know this film’s taking place in Vegas, baby! There’s the playful bickering with the poisonous barbs that track the bloom coming off the marital rose in “Picking Up After Youâ€, a wistful daydream of relationships that used to be in “Old Boyfriends†the death of a romantic dream in “Broken Bicyclesâ€. And that’s only side one of the album!
Probably the most fortunate accident to happen to this vinyl movie was the loss of the leading lady. Bette Midler and Tom Waits had recorded a couple duets for each of their respective albums and Tom was looking to use her on this. I’m pretty sure that would have turned this soundtrack into the Looney Tunes cartoon that’s supposed to play before the movie. Luckily, Bette was busy and Tom chose Crystal Gayle, who shows that she just might be the most talented Coal Miner’s Daughter among her siblings. I don’t think anyone who heard “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?†(the video sleepy posted in the Petula Clark thread) would ever guess she would blow the roof off the joint given the chance to try out her jazz pipes.
Wikipedia doesn’t say how much it cost to make the soundtrack. I’m gonna guess less than $25 million and it’s the best romantic movie you’ll hear today. And if the guy looking for help on his Space Invaders machine is still reading this, godspeed to you, son. That’s a fine machine you’ve got there.

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[sleepy]

That is fantastic! I didn't know about any connections to Loretta Lynn, except for the Butter-Flavored Crisco!

 

[sleepy]

On a side note, this is the former site of Image Transform, on Lankershim Blvd. (the street where I encountered Mr. Spock). Image Transform has come and gone, but in the 1970's was respnsible for the chromakey FX for the NBC/David McCallum series, "The Invisible Man".

During my brief stint there, they were a mail room of cocaine and delusional drivers taking to the streets and freeways while high in order to deliver the prints to the company's clients (in the red brick annex to the left of the multi-story main structure) and in '77 were feverishly working and reworking to salvage the moddled purple and green results of the master negatives shot in the Phillipines. It wasn't looking good. I remember a specific segment, an opium-laced sequence in that hotel room with the ceiling fan with images of a Vietnamese prostitute. Basically a collage sequence with little movement.
EDIT: Why my folks wanted me to work there, I'll never know...

And if this links werks and you set your arrows to the right headed south on Lankershim, you should shortly encounter the (now) "Comcast NBC Universal" tall building. That name is a PoS, but in 1977 it was known as the "MCA Building" and coloquially as "The Black Tower".
The wider smoked glass building ahead of it was MCA Records. I don't know what it is now.

http://goo.gl/maps/hY3gb

 

[sleepy]

And Man, I've been sleeping. I just realized after all these years, that Coppola went ahead and edited/composited that collage sequence in spite of the damage to the negatives. I think I assumed it was "business as usual". What else could he do?

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Haven't had a chance to look at the whole thing yet... but that's one ugly building it starts out at! Nowhere near as pretty as your tour down Hollywood Blvd!

Just for you, nic... Can't let you miss out on this one!

 

[sleepy]

The main structure which housed the control rooms used to be dark smoked glass like the Universal buildings down the street.
But I posted that to demonstrate how often our illusions of cinema are perpetuated through common everyday storefronts. No great and powerful Oz.

The last tenants of that building did the post production for the first "Hunger Games" and one of the "SAW" movies. I see that the location is once again vacant.

EDIT: SIde note, up on the hill at Universal, they demolished The Gibson Amphetheater, the site of many a fine concert.
In it's place will be the Hollywood edition of the Harry Potter portion of the theme park.