Before the movies, there was the classic Chipmunks Christmas album that featured “The Chipmunk Song.” Although the version below with puppets does not have the technology of the movies, I still like it best. Perhaps my fondness for the original results from the fact that my family played this song (and the album) every year when I was growing up.
Alvin and the Chipmunks were created by Ross Bagdasarian Sr., who went by the name David Seville as the human foil to the rascally Alvin. Bagdasarian as Seville had a 1958 hit with a novelty song, “Witch Doctor.” That song and his follow-up featured some use of his speeded-up voice.
But in late fall of 1958, he made more use of the speed technique when he released the first Chipmunks song. Bagdasarian reportedly got the idea for chipmunk characters when one of the animals had dashed in front of his car while he was driving in Sequoia National Park. The result, “The Chipmunks Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late),” became a massive hit.
The popularity of the Christmas song led to other Chipmunk songs. The original song first appeared on the album Let’s All Sing with the Chipmunks (1959). It appeared again on the 1962 holiday album, Christmas with the Chipmunks, which is the album we had in our house.
Bagdasarian also wrote the Rosemary Clooney hit “Come on-a My House.” And he appeared in some small movie roles before he created The Chipmunks.
In Rear Window (1954), Bagdasarian portrays a piano-player songwriter who writes the song “Lisa.” In this clip, he plays a piano in a scene that also features director Alfred Hitchcock’s signature cameo.
I cannot remember whether I got a hula-hoop before or after I heard “The Chipmunks Song” the first time. But I suppose kids today might question how the hottest toy at the time was a hoop you threw around your waist. Oh well.
In the video below, Bagdasarian, i.e. David Seville, appears with the Chipmunks on The Ed Sullivan Show. Merry Christmas.
What is your favorite childhood Christmas album? Leave your two cents in the comments.
In this video essay, Kogonada explores the way that director Alfred Hitchock used the eyes of his subjects to create a sense of terror. The video, which was created for the Criterion Collection, uses only images (and some music) to illustrate how one technique can convey a specific emotion well. Check it out.
Vashi Nedomansky has put together a video examining Alfred Hitchock’s movie Rope (1948), which starred Jimmy Stewart. Chimesfreedom earlier explored the real-life crime that inspired the film, but Nedomansky focuses on an interesting technical aspect of the movie. While watching the movie, one senses there are no edits or cuts. But Nedomansky illustrates how there are actually ten cuts, some less obvious than others.
If you have never seen the film, note that the following video contains spoilers. If you have seen Rope, or do not mind the spoilers, check out How Alfred Hitchcock hid 10 Edits in Rope.
American author Ambrose Bierce originally published the short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” in 1890 in The San Francisco Examiner. Today the story remains in the national consciousness more than one hundred years later, largely due to the story’s appearance in film and TV.
Director Robert Enrico made the story into a 1962 French short film La Rivière du Hibou (“The Owl River”). The film won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Awards.
But you may have seen the French film without knowing it was a French film. Rod Serling broadcast it with the short story’s title during the 1964 season of The Twilight Zone.
The Story of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Civil War soldiers prepare to hang a man named Peyton Farquhar at Owl Creek Bridge. When the man drops, the rope breaks, dropping him into the river below. Farquhar escapes and tries to return to his family and loved ones.
In the film, the escaped prisoner, played effectively by Roger Jacquet, conveys his desperation to get back home. If you have never seen the film or read the story, I will not ruin the ending.
The French Film Version
The original French short film won the Golden Palm for Best Short Subject at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. It also won the Best Live Action Short at the 1963 Academy Awards.
Unlike the short story, the film begins with the execution, omitting the back story but thrusting the viewer right into the action. [October 2015 Update: Unfortunately, the entire French film is no longer available on YouTube, but below is reportedly an excerpt from the original French film with the song “Livin’ Man.”]
The Twilight Zone Broadcast
The French film attained a larger audience when Rod Serling incorporated the film into a Twilight Zone episode. In a series of original productions, Serling’s use of the film in this way was unique.
Different sources give different stories about how the film came to be a Twilight Zone episode. One source claims that Rod Serling attended a film festival and saw the short. Then, he bought the rights for broadcasting on his series.
However, most other sources report that Twilight Zone producer William Froug first had the idea when he showed the movie to a film class. At the beginning of this video, Froug, who passed away in September 2013, explains how the idea arose.
Below is the “special and unique” 1964 Twilight Zone episode that incorporated the French short film and added a Rod Serling introduction. The original French film achieved its tension with very little dialogue and used English for what little dialogue there was. So, the French film easily translated to American TV.
The Twilight Zone episode includes some music around the 15:20 mark that does not appear in the French video above (although one source says the song “Livin’ Man” appears in the French version too).
Reportedly, the Twilight Zone episode of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” was the last one produced for the series. But it was not the final episode that was broadcast.
For a long time after the broadcast and one repeat showing, viewers could not watch the episode. Twilight Zone did not have the syndication rights for the film. So after its initial broadcast and a repeat, for years the “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” episode did not rerun on TV in syndication with the other episodes. Eventually, though, the episode was reunited with the other series episodes on DVD.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
The Twilight Zone episode, however, was not the first to tell Ambrose Bierce’s story on television. Several years earlier in 1959, Alfred Hitchock Presents aired its own version of the story.
The Hitchock version, like the original short story, provided more back story on how the man came to be sentenced to death. [September 2016 Update: Unfortunately, a decent quality of the video is currently not available on YouTube.]
A Song, “Owl Creek Bridge”
Finally, more recently, Montreal-born singer-songwriter David Rubin wrote and recorded a song inspired by “An Occurrence at Owl Street Bridge.” The song, “Owl Creek Bridge,” appeared on his album Secret Agent in 2006.
One can speculate that Ambrose Bierce could never have imagined how his story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” would reach so many people. It continues to grip us even today because the tale of one man’s desire to get home reflects the tragedy of both death and war.
Which is your favorite version of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Filmmaker Jeff Desom recut the scenes from Alfred Hitchock’s Rear Window (1954) viewed out the apartment window into one video. In the original movie, L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies, played by James Stewart, is confined in a wheelchair with a broken leg and spends his time watching his neighbors through the window of his Greenwich Village apartment. Eventually, he begins to suspect that one of his neighbors murdered his wife. Jeff then convinces his girlfriend, played by Grace Kelly, to help him investigate. Did he see what he thinks he saw, or is he imagining things?
Desom’s complete 20-minute recut of the window scenes from Rear Window, entitled Rear Window Loop, is not online. But a making-of video called Rear Window Timelapse contains three minutes of what Jimmy Stewart saw outside his window in the film. Check it out.
Desom tells a little more about the process of creating the film in a recent interview. He completed the project by himself in six weeks for a Luxembourg club to show on a screen above the bar. Hopefully nobody gets so drunk they think they witnessed an actual murder.
What do you think of the Rear Window recut? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Before the movies, there was the classic Chipmunks Christmas album that featured “The Chipmunk Song.” Although the version below with puppets does not have the technology of the movies, I still like it best. Perhaps my fondness for the original results from the fact that my family played this song (and the album) every year when I was growing up.
in 2006.
