Maxwell Smart R.I.P.

Among the things that this year will be remembered for in the annals of televison is the loss of sitcom legends. Earlier this month Bob Denver died. Now Don Adams, best known as Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, has passed on as well. Adams died Sunday of a lung infection at the age of 82. He had been in poor health since he had broken a hip about a year ago.

Don Adams was born in New York City in 1923. In high school he did impressions of celebrities (among which was William Powell of Thin Man fame). He dropped out of high school to join the Marines at the start of World War II. He served at Guadalcanal where he contracted malaria. He was later sent back to the States where he served as a drill instructor. Following World War II he took a job as a commercial artist. He also started doing stand up comedy at night clubs around New York. For his stage name he adopted his first wife Adelaide's maiden name--Adams. Inm 1958 he made his television debut on The Steve Allen Show. He went on to do several appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1962 he appeared on Broadway in the play Harold. In 1964 he provided the voice of Comet in the perennial Yuletide favourite Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Nineteen sixty three was a turning point in Adams' career. It was that year that he was cast on The Bill Dana Show, as hotel detective Byron Glick. For the character's voice he used his William Powell imitation, which he would later use as Maxwell Smart. It was also that year that he provided the voice for Tennessee Tuxedo on the cartoon Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales. The cartoon centred on a penguin and his walrus powel Chumley, always plotting to escape the zoo.

Adams' role as Byron Glick on The Bill Dana Show led to him being cast in Get Smart. The series was a parody of spy movies and TV series that overwhelmed the American media at the time. The show centred on Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 of Control. Smart's partner was Agent 99 (played by Barbara Feldon). Together the two of them faced the agents of the evil organisation known as KAOS. Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry and buoyed by the spy craze of the Sixties, Get Smart became a smash hit. Through Max the show introduced a number of catchphrases to the English language, inlcuding "Would you believe...," "Sorry, Chief,"and "Missed it by that much..." The show ranked in the Top Twenty Five highest rated series for its first two years. It also won two Emmys for Best Comedy Series and three for Best Actor in a Comedy for Don Adams. The show lasted five seasons--four of them on NBC and one of them on CBS. Don Adams would once more play Maxwell Smart in the 1980 feature film The Nude Bomb, in the 1989 reunion movie Get Smart Again!, and in the 1995 revival of the series.

Following Get Smart Don Adams found himself typecast. Parts were few and far between. He appeared in the TV series The Partners and Check It Out. In 1983 he would voice the third character (after Tennessee Tuxedo and Maxwell Smart) for which he was famous, providing the voice of Inspector Gadget on the cartoon of the same name.

Adams appeared in only a few movies over the years. Besides The Nude Bomb he appeared in Jimmy the Kid and Back to the Beach.

I am truly saddened to hear of Don Adams' passing. As a child I grew up watching both Tennessee Tuxedo and Get Smart. Indeed, as a child Get Smart numbered among my favourite shows. Maxwell Smart is one of those few television characters who is immediately recongisable to any American over thirty. Much of the reason that Smart became such an icon and that Get Smart became such a success was the talent of Don Adams. His clipped delivery was perfect for comedy and his timing was always precise. Adams had a gift for vocal comedy, including developing catchphrases. I rather suspect that in the history of television there are only a few comedy stars who could match him. At any rate, I seriously doubt we will see too many with his talent any time soon.

2005 Emmys

Historically, I have always thought of the Emmy Awards as a mixed bag. On the one hand, the Emmy is the one award where occasionally something new and different can get recognition. In 1966 both Batman and The Monkees were nominated for Best Comedy. The Monkees won the category. On the other hand, more often than not the Emmy Awards seem to prefer giving their prizes to the tried and true. A case in point is the rather typical police drama Cagney and Lacey, which garnered Emmy nominations and awards year after year. This year's Emmy Awards ceremony, held last Sunday, reflects the history of the Emmys quite well. Some new and different shows were recognised, as were some tried and true shows.

As for the new and different, I was very happy that Lost won the Emmy Award for Best Drama, as well as the awards for Directing for a Drama Series for its pilot episode. And while I am. And while I am not a big fan of nightime soap operas and I have never even watched the show, I must say that it was nice to see Felicity Huffman win the Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy Series for Desperate Housewives, as well as the award for Directing for a Comedy Series for the show's pilot. Like Lost, there has never been another show like it if the buzz surrounding Desperate Housewives is to be believed.

As to the tried and true, I was very disappointed to see Ian McShane of Deadwood lose to o James Spader of Boston Legal in the Best Actor in a Drama category. McShane plays one of the all time great villains on American television, while Spader plays simply another lawyer. I was also disappointed to see Terry O'Quinn, John Locke on Lost lose the Best Supporting Actor award to William Shatner of Boston Legal. As much as I love Shatner (I am, after all, a Star Trek fan), he is simply playing another lawyer on Boston Legal while O'Quinn is playing one of the most interesting characters on television at the moment. I must say that I am also unhappy with the award for Best Comedy. HBO's Entourage, easily the best comedy on television at the moment, was not even nominated for the Best Comedy award. Worse yet, Everybody Loves Raymond beat out Scrubs and Arrested Development for the award. Indeed, with the exception of Desperate Housewives, Everybody Loves Raymond won the lion's share of comedy awards.

As much as I grouse about tried and true shows like Boston Legal and Everybody Loves Raymond winning awards, I have to say I was happy with many of the other awards. It was good to see Tony Shaloub win Best Actor in a Comedy Series for Monk. I was also happy to see Geoffrey Rush recognised for his incredible performance in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (having watched many of Sellers' movies, I must say Rush was pretty convincing).

As I said earlier, this years Emmy ceremony reflects the awards' history quite well. This year some new and different shows were recognised as well as some tried and true shows. I suppose one can only hope that next year's awards more new and different shows are recognised and less of the tried and true.

Autumn

Yesterday was the autumn equinox. Today is the full day of fall. Alongside spring, fall was always one of my favourite seasons. In Missouri it is one of the few times of year when we have weather that is neither too hot (as in the summer) or too cold (as in the winter). In the season we can generally look forward to high temperatures in the seventies and lows in the fifites (using the Fahrenheit scale--I've little idea what that would be in Celsius).


Of course, fall is the one season for which the English speaking world can't seem to agree on a name. Here in the United States the season is most popularly known as "the fall," even though elsewhere in the English speaking world it is more commonly called "autumn." In Old English the season was known by yet another word, hærfest. For the most part these words for the season refer to the two events most commonly associated with it--the falling of the leaves and the gathering of the crops. Referring to autumn as "the fall" dates from about 1664 and is short for "the fall of the leaf," a phrase which itself dates from about 1545, both being references to the leaves changing colours and falling from the trees. In England and other English speaking countries, referring to autumn as "the fall" fell out of use over the centuries, although for some reason it has persisted here in the United States. As mentioned earlier, in Old English autumn was called hærfest, our modern word harvest. The word harvest seems to have originated in reference to autumn as the season when crops are gathered. The word harvest ultimately derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *kerp- "to gather, pluck, harvest. From the 14th century onward, the meaning of harvest gradually shifted from "the time when crops are gathered" to the "action of gathering crops" and eventually "crops which have been harvested." It is at this time when the season came to be known by the word "autumn," which itself derives from autumnus, the Latin word for the season.

The fall of the leaves is an event to which many, myself included, look forward. In many areas of the world, my home of Missouri included, the leaves will change colours from green to a dazzling array of yellows, reds, browns, oranges, and so on. In many places people will actually make tours to see the various colours of the leaves on the trees in the fall. Of course, the other event for which the season is known is also the harvesting of crops. Today the harvesting of grain is usually performed by a combine, but before the Industrial Age it had to all be done by hand. Harvesting the crops was strenuous work, requring many people to do it over a number of days. After the work was done, people were generally in a mood to celebrate, hence we have the many harvest festivals throughout the world. In the United States this usually takes the form of "fall fairs," such as the Randolph County Old Settlers Reunion and Fall Fair which takes place here in Randolph County (actually the second week of September, which is a bit before the fall, but we won't go into that...).

In some ways autumn is a time of endings. It is the time when the growing season ends, when the crops are gathered. It is also when the trees lose their leaves. Oddly enough, however, in the English speaking world, it is also a time of beginnings. In the United States it is traditionally when the new television season begins. I suppose the reason for this is that in the summer people usually have other things to do than watch television--vacations, picnics, trips to various lakes, et. al. By September people are apparently ready to settle down and watch TV again. In much of the English speaking world it is also the beginning of the school year. I suspect this is rooted in the agricultural calender. In the days when most farm work had to be done by hand, children would have been needed at home on the farm to help with the work. Once the crops were gathered, they could return to school. In the United States autumn has also been the time when new car models are released. I have no explanation for this, as it seems to me that this could take place any time of year. Maybe the automotive industry simply figured that after a summer's worth of wear and tear on the family car, people would be ready for a new car.

At any rate, I am certainly ready for the fall. This summer in Missouri was particularly hot and dry, hardly pleasant by any stretch of the imagination. Right now I am more than happy to have mild temperatures when I can wear a sweater or jacket if I so choose and when one can simply throw open the windows to cool the house down. It is a welcome change from the heat of summer.

Greta Garbo's 100th Birthday

Today would have been Greta Garbo's 100th birthday if she was still alive. She was born in Stockholm, Sweden as Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, the youngest of three children. Her father's death when she was 14 and a none too good relationship with her mother required her to find work at an early age. She was first a lather girl in a barbershop, then a department store clerk. It was her job at the department store that led to her career in movies. While there she appeared as a model in their newspaper ads and in a commercial short for the store. This led to appearances in a comedy short and the movie A Happy Knight.

By this time Garbo considered herself an actress. She studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm from 1922 to 1924. While there she met director Mauritz Stiller. Stiller gave her the stage name "Greta Garbo" and gave Garbo her first big break--a role in the film Gosta Berlings Saga. In 1925 Stiller signed a contract with MGM. Among his conditions was that Garbo also be signed to a contract. Unfortunately, Stiller's career in Hollywood was brief. He was eventuallyfired by MGM. This was quite a different matter for Garbo. She became one of Hollywood's biggest leading ladies.

Garbo's first American film was The Torrent in 1926. She went onto make some of the most successful films of the silent era, including Flesh and the Devil and The Temptress. Garbo was one of the actors to make the transition to film, despite the fact that she had a husky voice with a thick Swedish accent. If anything, she became an even bigger star with the advent of sound than she had been during the silent era. She starred in such movies asGrand Hotel, Quenn Christina, Anna Karenina, and Ninotchka.

Despite Garbo's success as an actress, she remained a very private person. She very rarely gave interviews and almost never attended premieres. She never signed autographs or answered fan mail. When shooting was taking place with Garbo, the sets were always closed to visitors. Her line from Grand Hotel, "I want to be let alone," abbreviated to "I want to be alone," became her catchphrase for more reasons than the fact that it was a good line.

Garbo's success was not simply starring in movies that did well at the box office, but in Oscar nominations as well. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actres for Anna Christie (1930), Romance (1930 movie) (1930)), Camille (movie) (1937) and Ninotchka (1939). Despite this success, it seems that Garbo's life as an actress was not a particularly happy one. Her well publicised romance with John Gilbert ultimately failed, as did his career. From 1932 to 1934 she had a contract dispute with MGM which kept her out of movies for two years. As time passed Garbo apparently became choosier about her roles, appearing in movies less and less frequently. She turned down the starring role in Dark Victory to do Anna Karenina instead.

In 1941, two years after she'd appeared in Ninotchka, Garbo appeared in her last film, Two Faced Woman. At that point Garbo more or less retired from film, taking no parts in any movies offered her. In 1949 she did a screen test, but nothing came of it. Thre were rumours that she would appear in an adaptation of Remembrance of Things Past, but nothing came of that either.

Garbo lived the rest of her life as a private citizen. At times she would socialise with other celebrities, although as time passed she ceased to do this as often. She lived her last several years as a recluse. She died in April 1990 at the age of 84.

Garbo starred in some of the most successful movies of all time. To this day such films as Grand Hotel, Queen Christina, and Camille are still shown on television and in art houses. And while Hollywood treated her as one of its most glamourous stars, she was a serious actress. When she played the role of Queen Christina of Sweden, she insisted on looking as much like the queen as possible, even though it meant that she would look less glamourous doing so. Unfortunately, it seems to me that Garbo's career was largely eclipsed by her mystique. As an actress who fiercely guarded her privacy during her career and entered private life at a relatively young age afterwards, Garbo became an icon known for her life of seclusion. Even into her eighties she was still a target for the papparazzi of New York City. While today Garbo may be best known for her life as a recluse, it seems to me that she should also be remembered for her film career as one of the best actresses of her era, having made a number of classic films.

40 Years of The Wild Wild West

Among my favourite series of all time I count The Wild Wild West. The series was a unique combination of Bondian spy drama, Jules Verne style science fiction, and Western action. It ran from 1965 to 1969 on CBS here in the United States and in syndication ever since. The show debuted forty years ago today.

The Wild Wild West was the brainchild of Michael Garrison. Garrison had started out as an actor, but eventually became an associate producer on such movies as An Affair to Remember, The Long Hot Summer, and Peyton Place. He graduated to being a producer, working on movies such as The Crowded Sky and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Like many in Hollywood in the early to mid-Sixties, Garrison observed the spy craze that had overwhelmed both movies and televisiion at the time. The Bond movies were doing big box office in theatres, while The Man From U.N.C.L.E. became one of the sleeper hits of the 1964-1965 season. At the same time television was in the midst of a new cycle towards Westerns, spurred by the success of Bonanza and The Virginian. It occurred to Garrison that crossing Bondian spy drama with the Western could make for a good TV series. He pitched the idea to CBS head of programming Hunt Stromberg Jr. Stromberg agreed that it was a good idea and assigned CBS associate director of programme development Ethel Winant to develop the series.

The concept which Winant eventually worked out centred on Secret Service agent James West, assigned to fight international spies and other villains in the West of the United States. Initially they came up with the idea that West would get his gadgets from a travelling peddler. The peddler chracter eventually developed into West's partner, Artemus Gordon. While West was the man of action in the partnership--the man who was always handy in a fight--Gordon was the master of disguise, con man, and inventor of gadgets. Gil Ralston, who had written for Ben Casey among other shows, was hired to write the pilot (the episode "Night of the Inferno").

With the script being written, casting for the roles of West and Gordon began. Initially they had wanted Western star Rory Calhoun for the role. After a screen test, however, CBS decided that Calhoun was not right for the part. Testing several actors, they finally cast Robert Conrad as James West. Conrad was already a veteran televison star, having starred in the series Hawaiian Eye. The casting for the part of Artemus Gordon went much more smoothly. Although many actors were tested for the part, only two were ever seriously considered. One was character actor Pat Hinkle (who would later play Comissioner Gordon in the 1989 Batman). The other was character actor Ross Martin, who had a gift for dialects.

Unfortunately, The Wild Wild West would have a rocky start. On the strength of the pilot, The Wild Wild West was placed on CBS's 1965 fall schedule. Unfortunately, in March 1965 CBS saw a change in the company's upper management. Both CBS's president, James Aubrey, and head of programming, Hunt Stromberg Jr., were fired. With the change in upper management also came changes in the network's fall schedule. Many series that were slated for the network's fall schedule were cancelled. Among those cancelled series was The Wild Wild West--cancelled before even one episode had ever aired! Fortunately, CBS soon had a change of heart and reinstated the series to its fall schedule.

This would not be the end of problems for the Wild Wild West, however, as the series would go through no less than seven producers in its first season. The show's original producer, Collier Young, was a veteran of The Adventures of Superman. Young's vision of The Wild Wild West departed considerably from the way Garrison saw the series, and Young was dismissed after producing only three episodes. It was then that Fred Frieberger, who had worked on Ben Casey and A Man Called Shenandoah (and would later go onto produce Star Trek) was brought on board the series. Frieberger was arguably the show's best producer. He established the format of the series, in which each week West and Gordon would face a criminal mastermind with some incredible plot (such as a former general seeking to establish his own kingdom in Mexico using an armour plated train, a crazed geologist who has figured out how to cause earthquakes, and a plot to rob a state of its treasury). Perhaps the most lasting legacy of Freiberger's tenure as producer on The Wild Wild West was the introduction of West and Gordon's archnemesis, Dr. Miguelito Loveless (more on him later).

While Freiberger set the course that The Wild Wild West would maintain for the rest of its run, he did not last as the show's producer. For reasons that are not precisely clear, CBS fired both Freiberger as producer and Michael Garrison as executive producer. As it would turn out, according to contract CBS could not fire Garrison as executive producer. Unfortunately, the same was not true of Fred Freiberger. . John Mantley, who had been the associate producer on Gunsmoke, was brought in as his replacement. John Mantley continued the series in the same vein as Fred Freiberger, with West and Gordon facing as a crazed puppeteer with steam powered "puppets" and an assassin with a body that has almost entirely been replaced by steel. Mantley's tenure as producer of The Wild Wild West once Garrison reclaimed his position as executive producer. Garrison wanted Freiberger back as the series' producer, but CBS refuesed to reinstate him. Gene Coon was then hired as the show's producer. Like Freiberger, Coon would also go onto produce Star Trek. Coon continued the series in the same vein as Freiberger and Mantley. Indeed, he produced what may be the best Wild Wild West episode of all time, "The Night of the Murderous Spring," in which Dr. Loveless plotted to poison the whole country with a hallucinogenic drug. Gene Coon would quit the series after several episodes to accept an offer from Warner Brothers to write the screenplay for Tell It to the Marines. Garrison produced the rest of the season's episodes himself, as well as the first few episodes of the second season, until Bruce Landsbury was hired as the series' final producer.


The format of The Wild Wild West was different from any other series on the air at the time. West and Gordon were Secret Service agents assigned to fight threats to the United States in the West. To accomplish this they were equipped with a marvelous train called the Wanderer. The Wanderer was equipped with an arsenal of guns and knives hidden behind a panel, as well as a billiard table with cues that could be used as rifles and billiard balls that could be used as bombs. West and Gordon had an array of gadgets at their command. Among the most used was the derringer which West kept hidden in a sleeve, which could be brought swiftly to his hand through a spring loaded device. Gordon was a master of disguise whose makeup kit was never far from his person. In many episodes West would be captured by the villain of the moment, only to be rescued by Gordon in some disguise. As might be expected, there were plenty of fight scenes on The Wild Wild West. The fights were meticulously choreographed. What is more, The Wild Wild West not only utilised such traditional fighting techniques as boxing, but Asian martial arts as well. In fact, The Wild Wild West may well have been the first American series to feature kung fu.

Of coruse, The Wild Wild West was also set apart from other shows of the time by its villains. The villains on the series were truly larger than life. Their plots often involved the conquest of a territory of the Old West or even the entire United States (or Mexico, for that matter). Often they used technology that was decidedly advanced for the 19th century. Indeed, The Wild Wild West can be considered a forerunner of the genre called steampunk, in which advanced technology is combined with Victorian settings.

Of course, the villain West and Gordon faced the most was Dr. Miguelito Loveless. Dr. Loveless was the creation of producer Fred Freiberger and writer John Kneubuhl. The two of them seized upon the idea that actor and singer Michael Dunn would make a great villain for the series. They hired Dunn and Kneubuhl set about writing the first episode to feature the doctor, "The Night the Wizard Shook the Earth." Michael Dunn was a veteran actor, who was both diminutive in height and enormous in talent. Among his works could be counted his role in the movie Ship of Fools. The role of Loveless created for him was that of a mad genius with a gift for science, bent on world conquest. The back story Kneubuhl created for Loveless was that he was probably part Mexican and part Anglo. His mother was a landed descendent of Spanish dons. His father was an American who robbed Miguelito of his inheritance. Because of this and his small stature, Loveless is essentially angry with the whole world. Dr. Loveless appeared in all four seasons of The Wild Wild West and the episodes featuring him are among the show's best. Among Loveless's plots were one in which he sought to regain the land his ancestors owned in California with the world's most powerful explosive, a plot to destroy all life in the West with a special chemical, and a plot to assassinate the leaders of the world powers by using paintings through which living beings can e moved in and out.

The Wild Wild West proved to be a fairly popular series. It ranked in the Top 25 shows for the 1965-1966 season. It also received its share of attention from the Emmy awards. Ted Voigtlander, the show's Director of Photography, received a nomination for his wor on the episoden "The Night of the Howling Light." Agnes Moorehead would receive a Best Supporting Actress award for her role in the episode "The Night of the Vicious Valentine." Ross Martin would be nominated for best supporting actor during the show's fourth season.

Although The Wild Wild West would not see the kind of upheaval it had in its first season, the following seasons would see more changes and problems for the series. In its second season the show made the shift from black and white to colour. It was also in the second season that the show lost its executive producer. Michael Garrison fell to his death on the stairs of his Bel Air Home in late 1966. Without The Wild Wild West was then deprived of its creator's guidance. Bruce Lansbury would continue as the series' producer for the remainder of its run..In its fourth season The Wild Wild West faced yet another crisis. It was during this season that Ross Martin suffered a heart attack. As a result, Artemus Gordon was absent from the series for several episodes.

A big change for hte series came at the start of its fourth season because of renewed outcry over television violence in the wake of the the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. For the 1968-1969 season, the networks introduced new restrictions on acts of violence on television. CBS restricted the producers of their series on the use of firearms, fighting in close quarters, and even such stunts as falling off a horse. For a series such as The Wild Wild West, which had always depended on a lot of action in its episodes, this made things very difficult.

Unfortunately, the new restrictions that the networks had put on shows did not silence the outcry over television violence. It was in March 1969 thta CBS cancelled The Wild Wild West due to exceesive violence. The cancellation was unexpected for the show's cast and crew, as the series was still doing fairly well in the ratings and they felt that the show was not overly violent--they viewed it as a comic book on film. It seems likely that The Wild Wild West was simply being used as a scapegoat in the controversy over television violence. Curiously, the much more violent (and higher rated) series Mannix remained on the air.

The cancellation of The Wild Wild West was not the end of the series. During the summer of 1970, CBS reran specially selected episodes of The Wild Wild West, with some of the more "violent" scenes cut out. The show then went into syndication where it has been ever since. At various points it has been regularly shown on both TBS and TNT. In the late seventies there would be two reunion movies featuring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin as West and Gordon. The Wild Wild West Revisited aired in 1979, pitting the two agents against Dr.Loveless's son. More Wild Wild West aired in 1980, with West and Gordon facing a villain who has planted bombs in every captial of every world power at the time. Sadly, Ross Martin died in 1981, thus ending any possibilty of further reunion movies.

In my humble opinion The Wild Wild West was one of the most imaginative series of the Sixties. It deftly blended Bondian spy drama, Western action, and science fiction in a way that did not seem silly or strained. It is no surprise to me that it remains a series with a cult following to this very day.

Robert Wise 1914-2005

Director Robert Wise died of a heart attack Wednesday at the age of 91. Wise directed 39 films, the two best known of which are probably West Side Story and The Sound of Music. He had started as an editor, his best know work in editing being the movie Citizen Kane.

Robert Wise was born in Winchester, Indiana in 1914. He dropped out of college to take a job at RKO, where his brother was an accountant. He served as a sound effects editor on such films as ThThe Gay Divorcee and Top Hat. The first film he edited was Bachelor Mother in 1939. AT RKO he would edit such classic films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Citizen Kane, and The Magnificent Ambersons. It was when he was working with producer Val Lewton that he got his first directing credits. For Lewton he directed Curse of the Cat People and The Body Snatcher. Wise would go on to direct the classic science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still, Run Silent Run Deep, West Side Story,. The Sound of Music, The Sand Pebbles, and The Andomeda Strain.

Robert Wise was nominated for Oscars seven times. Among those nominations was his work as editor on Citizen Kane. He won the Academy Award for best director for both West Side Story and The Sound of Music. He also served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Directors Guild of America.

While Robert Wise was best known as a director, I always thought that he was at his best as an editor. His work on such films as Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Devil and Daniel Webster was impeccable. Arugably, I think he was one of the greatest editors Hollywood ever produced. As director Wise directed some of my favourite films. While I am not a big fan of West Side Story or The Sound of Music, I have always loved The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Andromeda Strain, and The Body Snatcher. At any rate, it is a sure thing that Wise will be remembered for his work on Citizen Kane, The Sound of Music, and West Side Story.

Rubber Soul

This weekend I replaced my copy of The Beatles album Rubber Soul. The album was released in 1965 when The Beatles were at the height of both their creativity and their popularity. It features some of their best known songs, including "Drive My Car," "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," and "You Won't See Me." It also includes some of my favourite Beatles songs. I have always loved "Nowhere Man," and I honestly think "In My Life" is one of the most beautiful love songs ever written (provided I ever marry, I want it played at my wedding). I also love the song "Michelle," for no particular reason. Sadly, not many of the songs from Rubber Soul are to be found on the Web. Otherwise I would give you a taste of some of the album. I already used "Nowhere Man" in an entry quite a while back, so I'll go ahead and let you listen to the other song from Rubber Soul that I have found online. So here is "Michelle," by The Beatles.

"Michelle"--The Beatles