Nitratevile Stupidity Department: Fred Astaire's Wailing

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Richard M Roberts
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Nitratevile Stupidity Department: Fred Astaire's Wailing

Postby Richard M Roberts » Sat Dec 28, 2013 5:14 pm

Hey, now here we go. Ed Lorusso continues to be Ed LaAsshole as he now has declared Fred Astaire's pipes to be painful to his ears (Gene Kelly's as well):

"As much as I love the Rogers & Astaire musicals, I never thought Astaire was believable for a moment as the apple of Ginger's eye. He was 12 years older and looked even older than that. The toupe didn't help. A superb dancing talent and a decent actor, his singing is (to me) as annoying as Gene Kelly's. Neither one could sing. But once Astaire hits the dance floor, he's in a class by himself."


Hmmm, well, apparently a lot of very famous songwriters thought Fred's golden tones suited their music so well that he introduced more famous hit songs than nearly any other vocalist (except perhaps that sad old Bing Crosby that Lorusso also can't listen to after 1950) so I'd say that neither Ed nor that pretentious gasbag with the French moniker aren't the ones to go to for music theory, even if they set the standards for quality of knowledge and opinion on Nitratevile.

And since Fred also ended up with a thirty-year old lovely bride for his last marriage in his dotage, I guess that age or baldness thing wasn't an issue for ol Fred either, kinda like that sad ol Crosby fellow.


RICHARD M ROBERTS (Gene Kelly was a damn fine singer too)

Gary Johnson
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Re: Nitratevile Stupidity Department: Fred Astaire's Wailing

Postby Gary Johnson » Sun Dec 29, 2013 1:12 pm

I've been mulling this over since last night. How does one respond to someone who shows such ignorance over a talent like Astaire?
Well, since this me, my first impulse is to hit below the belt with some scatological reference directed toward the said ignoramus.
But I must rein in those vulgar urges of mine. I need to show more class.....like what Mr. Astaire exhibited his entire life. After all,
young children stop by this site from time to time and we don't want to offend such naive and developing minds (Yes, I'm referring
to you Mr. Farr....).

Richard laid out a fine defense in the case for Astaire, but I don't believe he needs any defending. He was a product of the American
Vaudeville and Broadway stages. His talent was far beyond being a pair of dancing shoes. He was a consummate singer, songwriter,
musician, choreographer, actor, performer, personality and top flight gentleman in real life (That last adjective is hard to come by
in today's world). And he also happens to be one of the most imaginative and creative dancers ever. I was drawn to him early in life
because I recognized the wit and humor he exhibited in all of his musical numbers. And if lunkheads like Mr. Ed over at N-Ville doesn't
have the horse sense to notice the obvious because he is too busy shooing flies away from his rear end with his tail, then he needs to
just sit down in the barn and stew in his own pile of manure.

Say!!! This got scatological after all. Fred Astaire would had been proud of me.

Richard M Roberts
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Re: Nitratevile Stupidity Department: Fred Astaire's Wailing

Postby Richard M Roberts » Mon Dec 30, 2013 9:13 am

Part of what is so annoying about Lorusso’s pronouncements (and Bob Fells as well, whom I must correct myself in stating that it was he, not Lorusso, who thought Bing Crosby “sad” after 1950, oh well, there is plenty of stupidity to go around over at Nitratevile, who can keep track of it all?) is the arrogance of their stupidity. Instead of just saying “I don’t like Fred Astaire’s singing”, which would be a perfectly valid personal comment, (hey, I’m no fan of Frank Sinatra, as singer or person, but there seem to be a number of folk who like him, so he must have something.), they announce an opinion as if it were fact, and that they are qualified to pass such judgement. These pronouncements just say to me that Ed Lorusso has no taste, and, as usual, just like his judgement call on Thelma Todd’s career as unsatisfactory, he doesn’t have the experience or knowledge to back up such an opinion, despite his giving himself the title of “writer/historian”, appellations of no particular value or meaning unless they have the word “Professional” in front of them (and then only about half the time there).

And he has continued to parade his lack of actual knowledge proclaiming:

“It's awfully hard to believe Astaire sang on Broadway with that thin little voice.......”

Which someone immediately disproved by posting several of Astaires acoustic recordings. Astaire did not have a “thin” voice, there was never any problem with the projection of his voice, which, considering that he and his sister Adele were stage legends for years before he ever made it to the screen was a fact logic would seem to make obvious. What seems to throw off Lorusso and the pretentious French-monikered idiot is that Astaire’s singing is unaffected, high head tones with no operatic warbling or vocal athletics of the MacDonald/Eddy type of nonsense they seem to prefer. This is exactly why Astaire’s singing is so listenable, and has aged so particularly well, and also why he was Irving Berlin’s favorite vocalist. Astaire was indeed a brilliant stylist, he sang the songs unpretentiously and straightforward, with a lot of feeling, and I never heard him hit any fowl notes that hurt my ear. Fred’s 1930’s Brunswick recordings get regular rotation in my music playlists.

While we’re making note of Lorusso’s shortcomings in the knowledge and taste department, I’ll also add this lovely bit of his “criticism” that I came across on the imdb (I’ve been collecting the best examples I’ve come across of late of that website’s ever-growing inaccuracies and bizarrely stupid opinions for a future SiCom Mafia piece). This is Lorusso’s take on the Roscoe Arbuckle/ Buster Keaton short CONEY ISLAND:


‘Drednm review of CONEY ISLAND:

Coney Island is an OK 2 reeler, filmed at Coney Island in 1917. That's the major point of interest: Coney Island. Blah story that makes little sense is a series of badly done pratfalls on dry land and in the sea. Arbuckle dresses up as a fat lady but this gag goes nowhere. Buster Keaton is his rival for the interest of Alice Mann. Keaton (very early in his film career) is OK; Mann has weird hair. Worst of all is the grotesque Al St. John, as a bow-legged and toothless goon. He overacts and is repulsive. Agnes Neilson plays the wife (so why is Fatty chasing Mann?) and looks like a youngish Maude Eburne. Along with the plot less story, what's missing here (compared to Chaplin's and Lloyd's films of the same era) is precision. Arbuckle's many pratfalls are obviously staged and even when he's supposed to be getting hit, it never really looks like it--he just reacts. Keaton fares better here but has little to do. Also, while Chaplin, Lloyd, and Keaton all developed personae that fit their styles of comedy, Arbuckle has little to offer other than being fat.”


Okay, so perhaps CONEY ISLAND is not the absolute best of the Arbuckle Comique Comedies, but now that Lorusso considers himself an “expert” on Silent Comedy Slapstick, I challenge him to take his best shot at recreating one of those “badly done pratfalls” executed in the short. From the amazing 108 Keaton performs from a standing position, to any of Arbuckle’s “obviously staged” (as compared to ----what? Lorusso seems to be under some impression that Keaton and St. John’s falls were just done extemporaneously and the camera happened to be running at the time?), I’d wager that on the best day of Lorusso’s life, he couldn’t do any of the amazing work any of the comics do in that short and not end up in the hospital. And if Roscoe Arbuckle has little to offer apart from “being fat”, Lorusso has nothing more to offer than being clueless.

I have spent enough time dealing with this idiot. He is a know-nothing nobody who thinks he is qualified to criticize immortals who are already remembered and lionized long after his meaningless writings are so easily forgotten. He belongs with the other NNN’s. Finis.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

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Re: Nitratevile Stupidity Department: Fred Astaire's Wailing

Postby Gary Johnson » Mon Dec 30, 2013 9:21 pm

Perfect description of Astaire's singing style, Richard.
And that's probably why when I had a rather large record collection of Crosby, Sinatra and Garland, so too sat Astaire albums right along side of them.


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