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Marty Feldman "It's Marty" 1969

Started by Rizla, May 11, 2018, 11:47:06 PM

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Rizla

Just watching a load of these on youtubs. John Junkin's such a great funny straight man. It's fun to try and work out which sketches are written by which python man.

First two sketches in this one are crackers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_6811Q5MGA

edit: sorry meant to say, do you find Marty Feldman hilarious or not?

Brundle-Fly

I must dig out my old It's Marty DVD because I have forgotten how progressive this show was. Thanks!

The sketches are too long-form by today's standards but there are so many great gags


Annie Labuntur

He's brilliant, and I recommend the posthumous autobiography "eYE Marty" to anyone here who hasn't read it.

Looking at the coach trip sketch in the link above, it's fascinating how half a century ago - blimey! - depictions of toilet breaks were guaranteed to get a wave of laughs, even though that's practically all there is to the joke. (I think Cleese said that when he wrote for Doctor in the House and Doctor at Large the easiest way to get a laugh from the studio audience was to put the word "bedpan" in the script.)

kidsick5000

Quote from: Rizla on May 11, 2018, 11:47:06 PM
First two sketches in this one are crackers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_6811Q5MGA

That announcer 'knickers to you' looks uncannily like Steve Pemberton when he's Harvey Denton

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Annie Labuntur on May 12, 2018, 02:49:49 AM
He's brilliant, and I recommend the posthumous autobiography "eYE Marty" to anyone here who hasn't read it.

Looking at the coach trip sketch in the link above, it's fascinating how half a century ago - blimey! - depictions of toilet breaks were guaranteed to get a wave of laughs, even though that's practically all there is to the joke.

Once in a while, my mid-octogenarian parents visit me in London on coach trips. It's not about 'piss breaks' but being rushed around and treated like sheep to meet parking schedules. The highspeed tradition stands then? (although in the It's Marty sketch, the pensioners are probably about sixty years old)!

Annie Labuntur

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on May 12, 2018, 04:22:25 AM
Once in a while, my mid-octogenarian parents visit me in London on coach trips. It's not about 'piss breaks' but being rushed around and treated like sheep to meet parking schedules.

I get that, and I love the sketch. I'm just talking about how audiences were guaranteed to laugh immoderately at the mere sight of people entering a public convenience or having a desperate roadside whizz. Extra funny if the film was speeded up.

Revelator

Has any explanation been given why It's Marty/Marty has never been received a comprehensive DVD release? Eight complete episodes exist (all but one in color) and some lost ones can be partially reconstructed from the Montreux entry and two 70s compilations. The specials Marty Amok and Marty Abroad are also extant.

I can understand why Network's release of the Marty Feldman Comedy Machine was delayed to the point of cancellation, since the music acts and guest stars must have presented lots or rights clearance hassles, but It's Marty lacked those, and a hour-length compilation VHS/DVD was released by the BBC in the 90s. If the BBC has no interest, I hope the BFI or Network will licence the material, since they've done superb work with their recent Python-related releases.

I shamefully didn't catch up with the series until quite recently. In some ways it's the equivalent of a transitional fossil (I don't mean that in a pejorative sense) between At Last the 1948 Show and the Flying Circus and Q. Like 1948 it still uses corny music to transition between sketches, but the editing (by MPFC's Ray Millichope) is much more professional. And of course many of the sketches are by Cleese/Chapman and Palin/Jones.

But what gives the series an identity of its own are the visual comedy set-pieces, at their best beyond the primarily-verbal skills of Cleese/Chapman and in some cases Palin/Jones. The latter wrote superbly visual sketches like "A Day In The Life Of A Stuntman" and "Tabletop Battleground," but even those aren't as great as "The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Golfer," a completely successful attempt to bring Buster Keaton/Harold Lloyd physical comedy beyond the silent era. Only Tati and Pierre Etaix in France had succeeded with this. Feldman at one point wanted to make a series of half-hour silent programs for the BBC--I dearly wish he had.

On that note, Kino Lorber is releasing The Last Remake of Beau Geste and In God We Tru$t on Blu-Ray for what I believe is the first time:
https://www.kinolorber.com/product/the-last-remake-of-beau-geste-special-editon-blu-ray
https://www.kinolorber.com/product/in-god-we-trust-special-edition-aka-in-god-we-trut-or-gimme-that-prime-time-religion-blu-ray

From what I understand, Feldman was denied final cut on Beau Geste, a mild success, only to get it on God, a critical and commercial disaster.

Piers Fletcher Dervish

Totally agree. It's Marty would deserve a DVD release exactly like the brilliant BFI reconstructions of 1948 Show & DNAYS. The seven color episodes were shown by Arte (in Germany) years ago and contained some of the best sketches the Pythons penned outside of the Flying Circus, and great performances by Marty's co-stars Junkin, Brooke-Taylor and MacLeod.

Jake Thingray

Quote from: Revelator on January 12, 2021, 02:14:41 AM
Has any explanation been given why It's Marty/Marty has never been received a comprehensive DVD release? Eight complete episodes exist (all but one in color) and some lost ones can be partially reconstructed from the Montreux entry and two 70s compilations. The specials Marty Amok and Marty Abroad are also extant.


Agree that it should be done, but the reason it hasn't is that Marty really is forgotten in Britain, sadly. It's been said so many times, but it's true. (And the Brexiteers who stink up YouTube uploads of vintage British comedy with "this would offend the snowflakes" whingeing comments tend to prefer sitcoms to sketch shows, not helping his case.) Pity the channel that has the shows linked to upthread doesn't have the compilation that won the Silver Rose at Montreux in 1969.

Will always love him for co-writing Round the Horne, but also enjoy him as a performer, despite the eyes (which of course he couldn't help) he didn't really mug that much, often kept in character and wasn't afraid to appear sinister, so much more bearable than Milligan pretending to corpse, upstaging his co-stars and generally going tee-hee-nicky-nacky-noo.

Of the It's Marty clips and specially shot studio sketches included in Dean Martin Presents The Golddiggers in London, a lot are sadly available already, but it's intriguing that in one ep, he rehashes the Four Yorkshiremen sketch before the Pythons did, only it's just two Yorkshiremen, him and the delightful Julian Orchard, both in aged make-up. Like all the other Golddiggers eps I've seen, the end credits insist that all Marty's material was by him and Barry Took; nice that they got the credit for something (co-)written by Pythons, but it would never happen again.

Revelator

There's an interesting bit of recycling in Marty Amok. Beyond the expected reuse of the Bookshop sketch (very good, even if Junkin doesn't have Cleese's latent mad streak) there's also a performance of "Airline Pilots" from How to Irritate People, a non-Feldman project. HtIP also recycled a couple At Last It's the 1948 Show sketches, hence the credit "additional material by Marty Feldman & Tim Brooke-Taylor."

As far as I know "Airline Pilots" is not a 1948 sketch, though there's a possibility it was originally written for that show by all four of its stars. Or maybe Brooke-Taylor helped Cleese and Chapman write it for HtIP. Or it was a purely Cleese/Chapman sketch offered to Feldman after HtIP came and went.

Oddly the version of "Airline Pilots" in Marty Amok has a different ending than the original. I'm not sure why it was changed--the new ending is softer, if slightly more plausible. Also, the end credits of the 1974 documentary Marty Feldman: What Do I Spy with My Little Eye feature a live version of "Airline Pilots" from Feldman's cabaret show. So it looks like Feldman got more mileage out of this excellent sketch than Chapman and Cleese ever did.

Note: Marty Amok and all the other circulating surviving material from It's Marty is viewable at: https://www.youtube.com/c/ItsMartyFeldman/videos

There's a compilation that Channel 4 showed on the week of his death. It had one joke I really disliked: Jack The Ripper singing "Give me the moonlight...". Horrendous misogyny.

Jake Thingray

Horrendously offensive to Frankie Vaughan perhaps. Think you've got your wires crossed there, that sketch is from At Last The 1948 Show and was not shown on C4 at the time of his death, he had no tribute show on British TV.

Shit Good Nose

Big fan of Marty - my dad always sat me down with him to watch repeats of It's Marty and Comedy Machine (which I was a little bit obsessed with for a time), and a bit later I'd introduce him to The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, Young Frankenstein and the masterpiece Silent Movie (honestly thought my dad was going to die during the sequence in James Caan's little caravan, he was laughing so hard).


Quote from: Revelator on January 12, 2021, 02:14:41 AM
On that note, Kino Lorber is releasing The Last Remake of Beau Geste and In God We Tru$t on Blu-Ray for what I believe is the first time:
https://www.kinolorber.com/product/the-last-remake-of-beau-geste-special-editon-blu-ray
https://www.kinolorber.com/product/in-god-we-trust-special-edition-aka-in-god-we-trut-or-gimme-that-prime-time-religion-blu-ray

From what I understand, Feldman was denied final cut on Beau Geste, a mild success, only to get it on God, a critical and commercial disaster.

Beau Geste is actually pretty good but, sadly, God is pretty rubs, a literal couple of moments aside - I think its 5.5 IMDB score is VERY generous.

Quote from: Jake Thingray on January 17, 2021, 05:08:35 PM
Horrendously offensive to Frankie Vaughan perhaps. Think you've got your wires crossed there, that sketch is from At Last The 1948 Show and was not shown on C4 at the time of his death, he had no tribute show on British TV.

Thanks. On checking the episode is probably that shown in ITV Comedy Classics 27.12.83

Lfbarfe

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on May 12, 2018, 12:24:50 AM
I must dig out my old It's Marty DVD because I have forgotten how progressive this show was. Thanks!

Was that the same as the Comedy Greats: Marty Feldman VHS compilation the BBC put out? I wish they'd just bung out the surviving shows. There's a great sketch not on the DVD where the annoying character (I think he was called Mr Grobb?) is in a choir, objecting to the words of the Whiffenpoof Song.

"To the tables down at Morey's..."
"Albert's."
"Pardon?"
"Albert's."
"The song says Morey's. To the tables down at Morey's."
"Don't like Morey's. I go to Albert's. I'm going to sing Albert's."

Lfbarfe


Spiny Norman

The first episodes was probably the strongest! Sadly, partly lost. :( As is the sketch that featured nearly all the pythons except for Cleese.

Probably my favourite is the Job Interview. Lost too, but the audio exists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HK75arIYyQ&t=3m50s


I must say, though, that what I saw from The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine was that it was weaker than the earlier (BBC) series. Somehow a bit to American, "aha, look, we're going to do something silly now, haha, look we're saying things that make no sense, isn't that silly". LOT of recycling of earlier sketches too. Half The 1948 Show is in there.

Lfbarfe

Quote from: Spiny Norman on January 21, 2021, 04:15:14 PM
I must say, though, that what I saw from The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine was that it was weaker than the earlier (BBC) series. Somehow a bit to American, "aha, look, we're going to do something silly now, haha, look we're saying things that make no sense, isn't that silly". LOT of recycling of earlier sketches too. Half The 1948 Show is in there.

ATV did similarly with Pete and Dud. Goodbye Again wasn't as good as Not Only...But Also...

Lew always had one eye on export, so stuff was homogenised a bit.

Spiny Norman

Quote from: Lfbarfe on January 21, 2021, 06:36:23 PM
ATV did similarly with Pete and Dud. Goodbye Again wasn't as good as Not Only...But Also...

Lew always had one eye on export, so stuff was homogenised a bit.
And you watched all 4 of them?

Not Only But Also in Australia, now that was weak. The TV shows, not the recorded stage show.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Lfbarfe on January 21, 2021, 06:36:23 PM
ATV did similarly with Pete and Dud. Goodbye Again wasn't as good as Not Only...But Also...

Lew always had one eye on export, so stuff was homogenised a bit.

Also, the American-style writing room wasn't attractive to most of the writers that Feldman wanted.

Arguably, there was a quantity over quality approach to the writing team, which wasn't helped by the production issues.

Lfbarfe

Quote from: Spiny Norman on January 21, 2021, 07:06:34 PM
And you watched all 4 of them?

I think I've seen two of the four, and the compilation DVD.

Ignatius_S

I suspect most (if not all) have already seen this, but watched this documentary again a while ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oChBT5B3Ulg

Not long ago, I posted a little about Michael Caine's work with Johnny Speight, particularly the two BBC plays that helped establish the actor. Recordings were wiped (natch) but they were redone with Feldman and is online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk66qXF2ixE

Spiny Norman

Quote from: Lfbarfe on January 21, 2021, 07:15:36 PM
I think I've seen two of the four, and the compilation DVD.
I watched NOBA and GA with some time in between, but it didn't immediately strike me as sub-par. Alan-a-Dale appears in both!
Well, I did wonder what the use was of casting John Cleese only to make him do nothing interesting at all.

Absorb the anus burn

Quote from: Ignatius_S on January 21, 2021, 07:17:48 PM
Not long ago, I posted a little about Michael Caine's work with Johnny Speight, particularly the two BBC plays that helped establish the actor. Recordings were wiped (natch) but they were redone with Feldman and is online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk66qXF2ixE

Double Bill? With Eileen Atkins / Joby Blanshard (Doomwatch boffin). That's a great piece of television!

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Jake Thingray on January 13, 2021, 04:23:59 PM
Agree that it should be done, but the reason it hasn't is that Marty really is forgotten in Britain, sadly. It's been said so many times, but it's true...

I suspect the BBC is a big factor. Although I have heard (quite a while ago) that it's more open to licensing approaches, it's still difficult to deal with - I dread to think about the resources required.

Spiny Norman

Quote from: Ignatius_S on January 21, 2021, 07:17:48 PM
I suspect most (if not all) have already seen this, but watched this documentary again a while ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oChBT5B3Ulg

Not long ago, I posted a little about Michael Caine's work with Johnny Speight, particularly the two BBC plays that helped establish the actor. Recordings were wiped (natch) but they were redone with Feldman and is online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk66qXF2ixE
Speight and Marty were planning a comeback BBC series but that was cancelled due to disagreements before broadcast, 2/6 still exist.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Absorb the anus burn on January 21, 2021, 07:26:10 PM
Double Bill? With Eileen Atkins / Joby Blanshard (Doomwatch boffin). That's a great piece of television!

Indeed - and such a shame that we don't have the original productions, but was delighted to be able to see this version.

Revelator

Quote from: Ignatius_S on January 21, 2021, 07:11:10 PM
Also, the American-style writing room wasn't attractive to most of the writers that Feldman wanted. Arguably, there was a quantity over quality approach to the writing team, which wasn't helped by the production issues.

Michael Palin said "Marty approached a lot of us to work on that show. Perhaps he felt he was running out of ideas or he wanted some familiar people around him. He was losing that quality of English eccentricity. I know he asked a lot of us. Terry [Jones] and I. John [Cleese] and Graham [Chapman]. Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden. Tim Brooke-Taylor. Barry Cryer. The idea was to get all the writers he knew to go down to Elstree Studios and sit in a big room and work there. They were going to practically lock us in! This was quite against everything comedy writers did. It was a cottage industry. You worked from home, from your attic. You didn't go out and work in a factory production line. That was very much a Hollywood thing that Marty obviously was warming to. I got the feeling that the American audience wanted something high energy and whatever they had seen in Marty in his British television successes they wanted that times ten. We were asked and we were very reluctant. I don't think Barry Took actively advised us against it but he was certainly more interested in us doing our own thing on television. As were we. Frankly, we didn't have the time or the desire to write for Marty at that point."

The only one who actually wrote for the Comedy Machine was Tim Brooke-Taylor, who commented "I wasn't in those shows, but simply being a very small cog in the writing team was enormous pressure. Far more than we had had on Marty. I think it was too much material [fourteen hour-long programmes in a single series] and the pressure on him must have been impossible. I felt Marty lost his unique comedy identity in that series and that, coupled with the pressure of delivering the goods must have been a big strain. I found the pressure on me was pretty hard to bear, even for an external writer. It was always a case of: 'Why haven't you written more?' They worked us very hard."

The idea of making 14 hour-long comedy programs in the amount of time usually spent for a series of six programs is what strikes me as the real problem. Unsurprisingly, the half-hour version of the show compiled for Montreux won the award and still plays very well. That said, I've only seen one normal episode (#7) and thought it was long but still good.

Quote from: Spiny Norman on January 21, 2021, 07:23:25 PM
I watched NOBA and GA with some time in between, but it didn't immediately strike me as sub-par. Alan-a-Dale appears in both!

My memory could be wrong, but I don't think many classic Cook-Moore sketches arose from Goodbye Again. But I've only seen the "very best of" DVD.

Spiny Norman

Quote from: Revelator on January 21, 2021, 07:39:47 PM
Michael Palin said "Marty approached a lot of us to work on that show. Perhaps he felt he was running out of ideas or he wanted some familiar people around him. He was losing that quality of English eccentricity. I know he asked a lot of us. Terry [Jones] and I. John [Cleese] and Graham [Chapman]. Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden. Tim Brooke-Taylor. Barry Cryer. The idea was to get all the writers he knew to go down to Elstree Studios and sit in a big room and work there. They were going to practically lock us in! This was quite against everything comedy writers did. It was a cottage industry. You worked from home, from your attic. You didn't go out and work in a factory production line. That was very much a Hollywood thing that Marty obviously was warming to. I got the feeling that the American audience wanted something high energy and whatever they had seen in Marty in his British television successes they wanted that times ten. We were asked and we were very reluctant. I don't think Barry Took actively advised us against it but he was certainly more interested in us doing our own thing on television. As were we. Frankly, we didn't have the time or the desire to write for Marty at that point."

The only one who actually wrote for the Comedy Machine was Tim Brooke-Taylor, who commented "I wasn't in those shows, but simply being a very small cog in the writing team was enormous pressure. Far more than we had had on Marty. I think it was too much material [fourteen hour-long programmes in a single series] and the pressure on him must have been impossible. I felt Marty lost his unique comedy identity in that series and that, coupled with the pressure of delivering the goods must have been a big strain. I found the pressure on me was pretty hard to bear, even for an external writer. It was always a case of: 'Why haven't you written more?' They worked us very hard."

The idea of making 14 hour-long comedy programs in the amount of time usually spent for a series of six programs is what strikes me as the real problem. Unsurprisingly, the half-hour version of the show compiled for Montreux won the award and still plays very well. That said, I've only seen one normal episode (#7) and thought it was long but still good.

My memory could be wrong, but I don't think many classic Cook-Moore sketches arose from Goodbye Again. But I've only seen the "very best of" DVD.
This does not surprise me at all. I suppose re-using a lot of 1948 show material was not such a bad idea in itself, if only it hadn't resurfaced at long last so that we can tell. (Where did Tim say that by the way? Michael's bit is from the diaries no doubt?)

What are classic Cook-Moore sketches anyway? Apart from their Pete 'n Dud Dagenham Dialogues? Tarzan was a Fringe sketch. It's a lot harder to tell than naming the Monty Python classics.

Revelator

Quote from: Spiny Norman on January 21, 2021, 07:46:15 PM(Where did Tim say that by the way? Michael's bit is from the diaries no doubt?)

Both quotes are from Robert Ross's biography of Feldman. He took Palin's quote from the Six Degrees documentary.

QuoteWhat are classic Cook-Moore sketches anyway? Apart from their Pete 'n Dud Dagenham Dialogues? Tarzan was a Fringe sketch. It's a lot harder to tell than naming the Monty Python classics.

Aside from the numerous Pete and Dud sketches (Bloody Greta Garbo, the Art Gallery, Heaven), there's Superthunderwhatever, Teaching Ravens to Fly Underwater, the Frog and Peach, Tramponuns, A Bit of a Chat, Bo Duddley, and Emma Bargo. By contrast, I can't think of any sketches from Goodbye Again as memorable as those.