Word: marcoes
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...inept administrator, a corrosive buttinsky on the set, a compulsive chiseler and a helpless planner, Levy was ripe for disaster when he announced his grand oeuvre in 1961: a version of Marco Polo budgeted at $4,000,000, mostly imaginary. He rented 200 elephants in Nepal, allowing 71 to die of malnutrition, ruined the careers of two Yugoslav bureaucrats when he conned state funds out of them, welshed on everything from actors' salaries to florists' bills. Finally finished, the film was uneditable...
...castor oil, others prime themselves with such elixirs as raw eggs, whisky with sugar, iodine in milk, quinine pills, or stiff injections of vitamin C. Also popular are small doses of strychnine, which, according to one doctor, "tunes the vocal cords like violin strings." Says Dr. Geraldo de Marco, house physician at Milan's La Scala Opera: "We give so many shots that occasionally we run out and just give injections of water. The singers never know the difference, and afterward they always say how wonderfully they sang...
...this, La Scala's Dr. de Marco replies that the singers could get the same effect with a tranquilizer...
...Marco the Magnificent looks great on paper. It has a big budget, seven famous names (Anthony Quinn, Horst Bucholz, Omar Sharif, Elsa Martinelli, Orson Welles, Akim Tamiroff, Gregoire Asian), and a hero who was one of history's great adventurers: Marco Polo. On film, unfortunately, it looks terrible...
Once the house has darkened, the Met improves infinitely.. I saw the new production of La Gioconda, in which designer Beni Montresor put San Marco Square on the stage with no trouble at all. The huge, deep stage also did justice to three other magnificent sets. What is more, the sets were built backstage and can be stored there. Several productions can be assembled in advance, and one scene can be slid forward onto the stage as another is hauled off to the side. (I assume that the interminable intermission waits at La Gioconda were due to the fact...