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production Julie’s husband, Blake
Edwards, had got special permission to direct. The show started
with a funny montage version of “Favourite Things”, one of which was Julie
eating a peanut butter sandwich whilst still singing. This she was unable to do
and cracked up laughing. Blake kept this in the final cut.
With guest stars Peter Sellers and
an early appearance of Jim Henson’s
Muppets, this was a very polished and entertaining programme (despite the
bizarre occurrences after the initial shoot and subsequent additional shoot).
Overall, it had a filmic look and this had to be due to Blake’s interpretation. The ‘special’
guest star was The Pink Panther! Or,
to be more precise, the four Pink Panthers performing a clever dance
routine with Julie to the Pink Panther theme.
The show started
with a tribute to Duke Ellington
with Julie fronting the Jack Parnell
Orchestra. Then, a dance sequence with the Jim Henson (rarely seen) full-sized Muppets. A musical item
with Kermit was followed by a Peter
Sellers comedy sketch. Mr Sellers performed the sketch as a crazy German
psychiatrist with a fixation on a Paddington Bear doll. Because of copyright
problems, he was requested not to actually say the words Paddington Bear. This
was a red rag to a bull! The hilarious sketch, a third of which was ad
libbed, resulted in Paddington Bear being heavily featured and mentioned. Weeks later, the
entire sketch had to be re-shot in Hollywood, where
the copyright problem did not exist.
A highlight of
the show was the ‘Flying Down To Brighton’ sequence with some of the most
ambitious choreography and set designs from Lewis Logan ever seen at the Elstree studios. The set piece was
introduced by a comedic impression of ‘Binkley Berkeley’ from Peter Sellers
intimating that ‘Anything Hollywood can do, we can do better’. The old Hollywood blockbuster “Flying
Down To Rio” is changed by Binkley to ‘Flying Down To Brighton’ It starts with
Julie and the dancers on a mock up aeroplane wing before landing on Brighton Beach. The whole sequence culminates with Julie
dressed in a terrific all-white naval outfit dancing a nautical compilation on
board a battleship with Paddy Stone’s
twenty four dancers. The multi-dancing precision is something not seen too
often these days. This is a Julie Andrews classic. Another Blake Edwards filmic
conception. The show ends
(rather tamely) with Julie singing ‘Melancholy baby’ to camera in close-up. A wrap was
announced and the studio was cleared. But Blake was not happy.
Apparently, some
days before, he and Julie had gone out to the wilds of Essex to view the fabulous
stone artistry of Sir Henry Moore.
They were very taken with the gigantic statues to be found in the capacious
grounds of the museum-like home of Henry Moore.
Now, sitting in
the control room as the studio was clearing, Blake suggested that he wanted to
take the crew out to Sir Henry Moore’s residence and shoot a number with Julie.
The studio chief was not best pleased. The show was completed, and on time, and
further work could not be countenanced. Blake, unperturbed at this rebuttal,
picked up a telephone and rang Sir Lew
Grade. Lew gave Blake permission to do practically anything he wanted and
the necessary arrangements were put in place. Ian Fraser, the musical
director, hastily got together a trio to accompany his piano and within the
hour Julie was laying down a guide track to ‘Out Of This World’ The contention
being that she would wander around the modernistic statues intimating that they
were literally out of this world.
Next morning, a
Saturday, the crew started to arrive at 0630. A huge filmic camera crane had
already been delivered and eventually Bill
Brown, the senior cameraman, sat atop this giant with Blake Edwards alongside.
They were looking for shots. We played bits of the track on loudspeakers while
Julie traversed the huge statues singing first one line, then stop, then move
the camera and equipment to another location, another statue, then another line
of song, then stop again while another shot was searched for. The haste with
which the shoot had been put together had not allowed for a cohesive camera
plan. This went on until well after lunchtime. Apart from the usual bacon
sandwich breakfast, a catering truck had prepared lunch for something like
sixty people.
At half past three in the afternoon, Julie was looking fragile. After trekking yet
another two hundred yards to a possible site, then that site being rejected,
she turned to Blake and said ‘Blake, I’m bushed’. Blake turned to floor manager
Richard Holloway and said ‘Call a
wrap, Richard’
We wrapped with
half the sequence unfinished. Arrangements were made to have a couple of the
statues low-loaded to Elstree the following Monday where it was discovered the
studio floor was unable to take the weight. The statues were placed on the lawn
outside the office block, and that afternoon Julie finished the sequence. Bizarrely, the
item was never used. The show finished (rather tamely) with ‘Melancholy Baby’.
None the less, probably one of the best light entertainment shows to emit from
the Elstree Studios in the nineteen seventies.
EARLY ATV MEMORIES>
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