NOW PLAYING.....

NOTE: This is just a slideshow of covers....the downloads are not here in the thumbnails. To download, you have to go to the post for each item here on this blog.

Phantom Of The Opera - Walter Murphy (1978)

I've had this cassette for a good many years now, and wanted to rip it to post here, but unfortunately have had a problem I can't get around. Part way through the playback, the tape begins to drag and either creates a "wobbling" sound, or the auto shutoff on my tape deck engages and the playback stops. I've attempted everything I can think of, from removing the tape reels from the original shell and putting them into a couple of different ones in an attempt to get around a possibility of the original tape shell being warped or something, and also have tried playing it back in two different players....but no dice. I can't figure out what's wrong with this tape, unless it has something to do with age or something which has happened to the tape itself. I did manage to rip the first two tracks from Side 1: "Introduction" and "The Phantom Of Your Dreams" at 320k...the link is in the comment area. It segues immediately from the first track into the second, so the MP3 is a single file of both pieces. I have really enjoyed this album over the years....it's great dance music from an era which also spawned the likes of other people like Meco. This particular album is actually quite good (IMHO), because it does manage to convey the essence of the Phantom story both through the music, the lyrics, and the track titles (which can be seen on the scan here of the cassette insert). If anyone happens to have this and can provide me with a good rip to post (as well as for myself to continue to enjoy), please let me know. Even though I'd love the "clean-ness" of a tape rip, I'd settle for a decent vinyl LP rip, or better still, a rip from any import CD that might exist which I might be unaware of, or if anyone has any idea as to how I can get around this playback problem I'm having, please let me know. THANKS!
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SOLVED! A visitor here has been able to provide a very clean LP rip of the album....THANKS!
Link is in the Comments area. (You can click the pics below to see larger versions of the LP labels from each side)

R.I.P. Susanna Foster, "Phantom of The Opera" (1943) & "The Climax" (1944)

Tribute site with videos, by her son

L.A. Times Obit

Susanna Foster dies at 84; costarred in 1943 version of 'Phantom'
Universal Pictures
Susanna Foster was offered the lead in "National Velvet" but turned it down because she wanted only singing roles. MGM soon dropped Foster, and the part went instead to the young Elizabeth Taylor.
By Elaine Woo
January 20, 2009
Susanna Foster, a singer and 1940s leading lady whose most famous role was the terrorized prima donna in the first talking version of "Phantom of the Opera," died Saturday of heart failure at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, N.J., according to publicist Dale Olson. She was 84.

Foster costarred with Claude Rains and Nelson Eddy in the 1943 Academy Award-winning remake of the 1925 silent screen version of the macabre melodrama that starred Lon Chaney. It was one of a dozen films Foster made before virtually disappearing from the screen in 1945.

After leaving Hollywood, she performed on stage, including a 1948 Los Angeles Civic Light Opera production of "The Naughty Marietta," one of composer Victor Herbert's best-known operettas. Foster performed opposite her soon-to-be husband, popular baritone Wilbur Evans.

Foster was born Suzanne DeLee Flanders Larson on Dec. 6, 1924, in Chicago and grew up in Minneapolis. When she was only 3, she won attention for her ability to mimic popular performers, such as vaudevillian Eddie Foy and actresses Bebe Daniels and Jeanette MacDonald.

At 5 she was performing regularly on radio, helping to support her family during the Depression with her earnings of $5 a week.

At 12 she landed a contract with MGM, where studio chief Louis B. Mayer viewed her as a potential successor to singing sensation Deanna Durbin, who was leaving the studio. Foster was groomed for stardom alongside Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.

She was offered the lead in "National Velvet" but turned it down because she wanted only singing roles.

MGM soon dropped Foster, and the part eventually went instead to the young Elizabeth Taylor, whose luminous performance became Hollywood legend.

After losing her MGM contract, Foster signed with Paramount, where at 14 she made her film debut opposite Mary Martin and Allan Jones in "The Great Victor Herbert" (1939), a biopic about the renowned composer.

At 19 she jumped to Universal to star in "Phantom of the Opera." New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote that she played and sang "quite pleasingly" and considered her performance one of the few bright notes in the movie.

"She had a kind of open quality, a warmth and a vulnerability and sweetness, that came through in addition to the beauty of her voice," Miles Kreuger, president of the Los Angeles-based Institute of the American Musical, said Monday.

She made several more pictures at Universal, including a horror movie called "The Climax" (1944) with Boris Karloff, but quit Hollywood in 1945 to raise her two younger sisters and take them away from their alcoholic mother.

After marrying Evans, Foster performed with him in musicals and operettas. They had two sons, Phillip and Michael. She is survived by Michael and two grandchildren.

Kreuger, who knew Foster for many years, described her as a bright but emotionally fragile woman who struggled to raise her sons on her own after her marriage to Evans ended in divorce in 1956.

She held a succession of low-paying jobs, including switchboard operator and receptionist. At one point she was homeless and lived in her car.

She dreamed of a Hollywood comeback but made only one film after 1945, appearing in a 1992 remake of the 1945 cult classic "Detour."

Foster was cremated, and plans for a memorial service are pending. Donations in her name may be sent to the Actors Fund, 729 7th Ave., New York, NY 10019.

Just for laughs....a sci-fi line

Until I come up with something Universal-related, here's what has just become my fave line about sci-fi (at least in regards to the scientists), delivered by John Hoyt from "When Worlds Collide".

R.I.P. Forrest J. Ackerman

Wonderful blog entry here:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/12/forrest-j-acker.html

Associated Press obit:

Sci-fi's grand old man, Forrest J Ackerman, dies

Associated Press Writer John Rogers, Associated Press Writer –

LOS ANGELES – Forrest J Ackerman, the sometime actor, literary agent, magazine editor and full-time bon vivant who discovered author Ray Bradbury and was widely credited with coining the term "sci-fi," has died. He was 92.

Ackerman died Thursday of heart failure at his Los Angeles home, said Kevin Burns, head of Prometheus Entertainment and a trustee of Ackerman's estate.

Although only marginally known to readers of mainstream literature, Ackerman was legendary in science-fiction circles as the founding editor of the pulp magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland. He was also the owner of a huge private collection of science-fiction movie and literary memorabilia that for years filled every nook and cranny of a hillside mansion overlooking Los Angeles.

"He became the Pied Piper, the spiritual leader, of everything science fiction, fantasy and horror," Burns said Friday.

Every Saturday morning that he was home, Ackerman would open up the house to anyone who wanted to view his treasures. He sold some pieces and gave others away when he moved to a smaller house in 2002, but he continued to let people visit him every Saturday for as long as his health permitted.

"My wife used to say, 'How can you let strangers into our home?' But what's the point of having a collection like this if you can't let people enjoy it?" an exuberant Ackerman told The Associated Press as he conducted a spirited tour of the mansion on his 85th birthday.

His collection once included more than 50,000 books, thousands of science-fiction magazines and such items as Bela Lugosi's cape from the 1931 film "Dracula."

His greatest achievement, however, was likely discovering Bradbury, author of the literary classics "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Martian Chronicles." Ackerman had placed a flyer in a Los Angeles bookstore for a science-fiction club he was founding and a teenage Bradbury showed up.

Later, Ackerman gave Bradbury the money to start his own science-fiction magazine, Futuria Fantasia, and paid the author's way to New York for an authors meeting that Bradbury said helped launch his career.

"I hadn't published yet, and I met a lot of these people who encouraged me and helped me get my career started, and that was all because of Forry Ackerman," the author told the AP in 2005.

Later, as a literary agent, Ackerman represented Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and numerous other science-fiction writers.

He said the term "sci-fi" came to him in 1954 when he was listening to a car radio and heard an announcer mention the word "hi-fi."

"My dear wife said, 'Forget it, Forry, it will never catch on,'" he recalled.

Soon he was using it in Famous Monsters of Filmland, the magazine he helped found in 1958 and edited for 25 years.

Ackerman himself appeared in numerous films over the years, usually in bit parts. His credits include "Queen of Blood," "Dracula vs. Frankenstein," "Amazon Women on the Moon," "Vampirella," "Transylvania Twist," "The Howling" and the Michael Jackson "Thriller" video. More recently, he appeared in 2007's "The Dead Undead" and 2006's "The Boneyard Collection."

Ackerman returned briefly to Famous Monsters of Filmland in the 1990s, but he quickly fell out with the publisher over creative differences. He sued and was awarded a judgment of more than $375,000.

Forrest James Ackerman was born in Los Angeles on Nov. 24, 1916. He fell in love with science-fiction, he once said, when he was 9 years old and saw a magazine called Amazing Stories. He would hold onto that publication for the rest of his life.

Ackerman, who had no children, was preceded in death by his wife, Wendayne.

MAGNAVISION 1981 LASERDISC DEMO - Hosted by Leonard Nimoy

Here's another very rare one...hosted by none other than Leonard Nimoy!

MAGNAVISION 1980 LASERDISC DEMO

Okay, here's something really offbeat for this blog, but also really rare....it's a video of a 1980 demo disc for Magnavox's laserdisc player called Magnavision. There are several Universal titles on MCA Discovision seen throughout the video, but specifically keep an eye out for when the host mentions the 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi....what is shown onscreen is not the laserdisc sleeve (from probably the rarest of all the Universal horror titles released on Discovision at that time), but rather the Aurora plastic model of Dracula, and painted somewhat oddly with popping bug-eyes! Also keep an eye out for the footage of the fahion show models....one of the models is none other than Grace Jones! My own recording from the demo disc in my collection....bear with any imperfections due to the age of the disc (after all it's 28 years old) and the then-inherent problems due to imperfect manufacturing (known as "laser rot"). This actually turned out pretty well, and I'll work on getting a downloadable AVI video if anyone is interested enough in this.

UNIVERSAL MACARENA

A montage of Universal horror clips set to the "Macarena" tune.