Thursday, April 8, 2010

Major Breakthrough: or the new meaning of my life.


First of all, I am so sorry for not blogging for the past couple of weeks. I haven't even had the opportunity to tell you guys stories about my trip. I was planning on doing that today, until I came across this photograph:
You're thinking "wait a second, that's the I Used to Be Color Blind dress. Why is she standing next to giant mushrooms? What the hell is going on? This doesn't happen in Carefree!" Well, leave it to your super sleuth friend Maggie to explain everything.
Here is a scene written on the 24th of June, 1938:

Amanda is still asleep. Her bedroom has been turned in to a MACABRE FOREST, the flowers, mushrooms, etc. of which are gigantic.

The crying of a hoot-owl awakens her. As she gets to her feet and walks away wonderingly, we see the FULL SIZE FOREST. The thunderous breaking of a twig stops her. She looks off-to see Dr. Flagg, who comes toward her. He is a giant of a man, but normal in proportion to the rest of the Forest. He looks like a typical, crazy scientist; there is a mad light in his eyes. In one hand he carries a large magnifying glass. Around his neck is a stethoscope and, under his other arm, he carries a large velvet box.

His eyes open with interest, and he utters a menacing sound as he clumps his way toward Amanda.

Amanda, frightened, runs from him, until she is finally forced to stop by the edge of a black abyss.

Dr. Flagg grins horribly as he picks her up in his hand. He opens the velvet case, and we see a number of girls, pinned like butterflies, squirming in the box.

From his coat lapel he removes a large pin, and is about to make a specimen of Amanda when she leaps off the palm of his hand, swings from the stethoscope which hangs round his neck and, like a trapeze artiste, lands on his shoulder-to deliver a violent kick at Dr. Flagg’s chin.

When he turns to her, she kisses him on the lips; then jumps on to a giant mushroom, to laugh up at him.

A peculiar look comes into Dr. Flagg’s eyes: it’s love-in a gigantic way-and, as the result of the kiss-which makes all things equal-he becomes her size.

Now, hand in hand, they wander through the Forest until they come to the gorgeous romantic castle, surrounded by lily-pads the size of dance floors and, in the distance, a rainbow-

Whereupon Dr. Flagg sings “Color Blind”, at the conclusion of which they do their dance, utilizing slow motion, and the Dunning process. The dance concludes with Dr. Flagg kissing Amanda. The scene dissolves back into

Amanda’s Bedroom-as she embraces her pillow.


First of all: Yes, it's really weird. I literally laughed as I was looking at this in the reading room at UCLA. According to the budget and production notes, there were women hired for the dream sequence, and costumes were budgeted. I figured it had been scrapped before filming, because it would have been quite a technical feat, especially if they were still considering Technicolor for the dream sequence (unfortunately, I still don't know when that idea was abandoned).

This picture confirms that the set was constructed, and at least part of this scene must have been filmed. If a final shooting script existed (or survived-the last complete script at UCLA is from January of 38), then maybe I could figure out how much of it they shot based on Argyle Nelson's daily reports. Unfortunately, that part will remain a mystery, unless I can get my hands on that missing footage. This is what I'm going to focus on until I find it, or find documentation that it was destroyed. It's got to be somewhere. If anyone has any ideas of where to look, please share. I'm planning on contacting Ginger's assistant Roberta, perhaps Fred's daughter, and maybe even the Sandrich family. I have a feeling Turner will not be any help, even though it could very well be in his hands.

We'll see, and I will keep you updated!

11 comments:

  1. WOW! That is really interesting, thanks for posting that :D

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  2. how odd! put on your favorite thinking cap, ponder whilst you strum a violin, ask hercule poirot, hopefully one of the above contacts will be far more helpful then i'm being right now. haha. good luck!

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  3. How interesting, I hope this footage can be found. If you can find daily reports, then there must be some notes recorded about this missing scene. And more photos somewhere.

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  4. Tom: I've seen the daily reports, but since there was no shooting script on file (and I don't think a complete one ever existed), I have no way of knowing which scene numbers corresponded with the scenes.

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  5. ...remember in Wayne's World when Wayne and Garth met Aerosmith? "...WE'RE NOT WORTHY! WE'RE NOT WORTHY!..." yep, Miss Maggie has taken Gingerology to the next level...
    Thanks for all the incredible info, Maggie! It must have been SO cool to thumb thru all the scripts and other 'records' of the movie... that ANY of that material is still around is amazing in and of itself, but to be able to STUDY it, just boggles the mind!
    Thanks for the cool pic, too! ...would it be too much to request your 'final' report (for your class) of the entire proceedings?
    ANY info is great!!!
    Thanks again!
    (a star-struck) VKMfan
    ---

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  6. I may share the paper, but I'm going to try to get it published first. I'm still not happy with it anyway, and I haven't yet incorporated all of my research in a useful manner. I'll keep you posted.

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  7. I just read on Wikipedia that there are not one but two deleted scenes. Where one is, the other must be near, I'd think.

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  8. Yes, I know they shot the Grace Hayle scene, which didn't appear in any of the scripts I read. I'm not so sure about "Let's Make the Most of Our Dream". If they had shot it, there would have been music for the song on file. They did have music for "The Night is filled with Music", so that's probably the one they shot.

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  9. Okay Im sure you can guess what I said when I read that..."What the..." Its ALMOST as bad as "Jenny"...but that one made it to film!
    Ive seen that picture before - in fact it was my first attempt at "colorizing" It didnt turn out very well!

    Thanks for sharing!

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  10. wow!!! Neat! I can't wait to see the end of this mystery! :-D

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  11. Maggie, I've got a script of this that contains the Grace Hayle scene and an alternate dream sequence unrelated to either this one or the one in the movie. Let me know if you'd like me to transcribe those for you. You may even be able to get a used copy of this published script from Alibris or Abebooks.

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