Sunday, September 28, 2014

Oscar Levant: one-man band




Oscar, reclining and reflective, begins to dream. He dreams he is in a vast concert hall. . . 




. . . playing Gershwin's Concerto in F with his cigarette-stained fingers. . . 




. . . and conducting at the same time. . . (and he was a real conductor so he isn't just waving his arms)




. . . and likewise the  percussion, he's really playing (an early
 example of cloning, or else he accelerates himself to the speed of sound)






My personal fave, cuz he looks so sexy. . . 




     Cute with a gong (and doesn't he look a bit like Buster Keaton?)




"Bravo! Bravo!"


(I stumbled on these while looking for gifs on Google. I keep looking for gifs on Google and finding MY gifs and thinking, why are MY gifs so much better than anyone else's? 'Strue, you know. These were made during my feverish Oscar Levant phase a couple of years ago. It was fascinating, and I am sure I could dig out more now if I wanted to. In fact, what brought me here in the first place was finding another Levant performance on YouTube. He shows up in odd places on Turner Classics and always adds something strangely appealing to otherwise-routine movies. He showed up in an abomination called The I Don't Care Girl, in which he played something so convoluted and strange that I couldn't guess who wrote it. Just ripped through it like chain lightning. He also wore a strange tiger-striped cat suit for one scene in which he had one line. There was nobody like him, and perhaps that was a good thing.)


 

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
    It took me years to write, will you take a look



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