herb4 said:

Biggest miss in cinematic musical history was not casting Prince as Willy WOnka in the remake instead of Johnny Depp. God, what a soundtrack and a career move that would have been. Prince practically WAS the Willy Wonka of music. Eccentric, odd, well meaning, reclusive, musical, whimsical, dedicated to the craft, living in his own "factory"...

Either Michael Jackson or Prince would be awesome!

Whistle four times!

violetcrush said:

Wow, great to see color shots of the location along with the B&W footage. Thanks for posting those!!!

I tried to find a picture onllne of Mary and Isaac arguing about her marrying Jonathan Donahue, but here are the stairs anyway.

iZsaZsa said:

violetcrush said:

iZsaZsa said:

I tried to find a picture onllne of Mary and Isaac arguing about her marrying Jonathan Donahue, but here are the stairs anyway.

Nice!! Beautiful detail - one of my favorite things about the historic buildings and structures of Europe - such ornate detail.

As a movie fan, I can really appreciate the cinematography and the locale. As a Prince fan, I appreciate what he was doing in this movie, and love the humor, music and even the sometimes bad acting. I think it was all part of the charm. I do occasionally watch this movie, even now moreso that I have it in the Cloud.

Having said all that, it's not a great movie compared to other movies. But compared to Graffiti Bridge, UTCM deserves an Oscar.

Se7en said:

violetcrush said:

The world seemed to be his oyster, then he decided to make one of the worst films since Plan 9 from Outer Space. What was he thinking??

Ethos said:

The world seemed to be his oyster, then he decided to make one of the worst films since Plan 9 from Outer Space. What was he thinking??

My guess...."that everything he did was great and adorable, and everyone would love it because he was Prince"

I find the UTCM-movie so very stylish... and so funny as well....



Prince had a wonderful humor,


it shows here (in this film)..

iZsaZsa said:

luv2tha99s said:

Ethos said:

The world seemed to be his oyster, then he decided to make one of the worst films since Plan 9 from Outer Space. What was he thinking??

I pulled out Matt Thorne's Biography -Prince, The Man and His Music, and found some good info...here's what he got from Bob Cavallo and Howard Bloom:

*

Bob Cavallo: "Because they had made this very stringent deal with Purple Rain, we owned everything. I made them pay us so they couldn't screw us on the back end of the film, and I made a three-picture deal where Prince had all the control. But unfortunately, then Prince became enamoured with being the next Fellini and he decided that he should co-write, even though there's no credit. He demanded that the movie not be a musical, that he die at the end, and that it be in black and white."

*

Cavallo: "I said, why are we shooting in black and white? And he (Prince) told me that's what he wanted. So I say, why are we shooting in the south of France - we can do this in the West or the South West or Florida. And he said, "no, I want people in the community to see the south of France." And I said, then why the hell do you want to do it in black and white??"

*

Cavallo: "After Purple Rain and the tour of Purple Rain, where we played multiple dates everywhere in the country, now he was a true monster star and his creataive chops were unbelievable, so he thought he could become a director, even though he had only acted in one film. So we got a great deal from Warner and forced them to do it in black and white so he got what he wanted. And some people liked it, but of course we knew it was going to be a stiff. We didn't have high hopes for the movie. We just had a good time making it. We were in the south of France, we had big-time movie-business stuff: a beautiful villa on the Cap d"Antibes and two multlingual drivers. I bought a yacht. Fargnoli found me a 93-foot Benetti and he said to me, "We'll have the yacht the whole time we're shooting the movie and then the captain can take it across to Fort Lauderdale, and between the lira and the dollar and the scarcity of that kind of boat in America you'll come away with a profit, and we'll have had a yacht and a crew of four for ten weeks. I called it "fiddling while Rome burned."

*

Howard Bloom: " I went to this theatre in Sunset Boulevard, and Warner Brothers had done something I would usually oppose with all my heart: they had made Prince change the ending to a happy ending. And I watched the movie and it was light but it was delightful. It wasn't a classic like Purple Rain, but it was damn good entertainment, and I told that to Bob outside the theatre. My chest swelled with pride in someone I loved - I really loved this movie. Then two weeks later I got another phone call: "you've got to come out here immediately. Prince has changed the ending of the film." I wasn't supposed to be able to see this, so they got me a VHS of the film, waited till the building was closed for the night and made me sit on a rug on the floor of a storage room, watching this thing on a tiny TV, because they were afraid that Prince would know I had seen it. And I thought it was a piece of shit. I knew exactly why Prince had done what he did and killed off the main character, because in his mind the main character was a scamp- dishonest, defying God, and breaking the rules of morality. To become moral, to become faithful to God, he had to kill his previous self off. It was a big mistake."

violetcrush said:

luv2tha99s said:

Sheena WAS an actor at that time. She had done an arc on Miami Vice and later went on to act in Brisco County Junior.

A stint on Miami Vice does not an actor make - sorry, but it's true Kristin was a good actress - even early on, but it was a bad script and there was zero sexual chemistry between her and Prince. She certainly had it later with Ralph Fiennes in The English Patient. Wooo-eee those scenes were on fire!!

SoulAlive said:

violetcrush said:

A stint on Miami Vice does not an actor make - sorry, but it's true Kristin was a good actress - even early on, but it was a bad script and there was zero sexual chemistry between her and Prince. She certainly had it later with Ralph Fiennes in The English Patient. Wooo-eee those scenes were on fire!!

but to be honest,though....most of the roles in a Prince movie are played by non-actors Applonia wasn’t a real actress and neither was Ingrid Chavez.Heck,Prince wasn’t even a real actor,lol

Right, which is why the films - with the exception of PR which was mainly based around the musical performances, but also had an experienced film crew - Writer/Director - tanked at the box office

*

Per the Biogrpahies, they had to re-shoot about 30% of Apollonia's scenes because her acting was so bad. The original stunt double for Prince was fired, because he told a tabloid reporter she couldn't act her way out of a paper bag - or something similar to that. Also, remember, with most of the heavier scenes in PR, except the basement scene where Prince did a great job, the actors were experienced. The role of the Mother and Father were played by experienced actors.

[Edited 1/30/19 17:46pm]

violetcrush said:

Ethos said:

The world seemed to be his oyster, then he decided to make one of the worst films since Plan 9 from Outer Space. What was he thinking??

I pulled out Matt Thorne's Biography -Prince, The Man and His Music, and found some good info...here's what he got from Bob Cavallo and Howard Bloom:

*

Bob Cavallo: "Because they had made this very stringent deal with Purple Rain, we owned everything. I made them pay us so they couldn't screw us on the back end of the film, and I made a three-picture deal where Prince had all the control. But unfortunately, then Prince became enamoured with being the next Fellini and he decided that he should co-write, even though there's no credit. He demanded that the movie not be a musical, that he die at the end, and that it be in black and white."

*

Cavallo: "I said, why are we shooting in black and white? And he (Prince) told me that's what he wanted. So I say, why are we shooting in the south of France - we can do this in the West or the South West or Florida. And he said, "no, I want people in the community to see the south of France." And I said, then why the hell do you want to do it in black and white??"

*

Cavallo: "After Purple Rain and the tour of Purple Rain, where we played multiple dates everywhere in the country, now he was a true monster star and his creataive chops were unbelievable, so he thought he could become a director, even though he had only acted in one film. So we got a great deal from Warner and forced them to do it in black and white so he got what he wanted. And some people liked it, but of course we knew it was going to be a stiff. We didn't have high hopes for the movie. We just had a good time making it. We were in the south of France, we had big-time movie-business stuff: a beautiful villa on the Cap d"Antibes and two multlingual drivers. I bought a yacht. Fargnoli found me a 93-foot Benetti and he said to me, "We'll have the yacht the whole time we're shooting the movie and then the captain can take it across to Fort Lauderdale, and between the lira and the dollar and the scarcity of that kind of boat in America you'll come away with a profit, and we'll have had a yacht and a crew of four for ten weeks. I called it "fiddling while Rome burned."

*

Howard Bloom: " I went to this theatre in Sunset Boulevard, and Warner Brothers had done something I would usually oppose with all my heart: they had made Prince change the ending to a happy ending. And I watched the movie and it was light but it was delightful. It wasn't a classic like Purple Rain, but it was damn good entertainment, and I told that to Bob outside the theatre. My chest swelled with pride in someone I loved - I really loved this movie. Then two weeks later I got another phone call: "you've got to come out here immediately. Prince has changed the ending of the film." I wasn't supposed to be able to see this, so they got me a VHS of the film, waited till the building was closed for the night and made me sit on a rug on the floor of a storage room, watching this thing on a tiny TV, because they were afraid that Prince would know I had seen it. And I thought it was a piece of shit. I knew exactly why Prince had done what he did and killed off the main character, because in his mind the main character was a scamp- dishonest, defying God, and breaking the rules of morality. To become moral, to become faithful to God, he had to kill his previous self off. It was a big mistake."

Very interesting.

Interesting interesting interesting.... Jaguar...

If I glare really hard at WB, will we get the color version and the alternative ending?

onlyforaminute said:

SoulAlive said:

does anyone know how the alternative ending is? Obviously,Christopher doesn’t die but what happens? I’m guessing that he convinces Mary to move to Miami with him and they live happily ever after.

Maybe the last shot is Christopher and Mary sailing toward Miami on Bob Cavallo's new Yacht??

*

Sorry....couldn't resist....

violetcrush said:

SoulAlive said:

does anyone know how the alternative ending is? Obviously,Christopher doesn’t die but what happens? I’m guessing that he convinces Mary to move to Miami with him and they live happily ever after.

Maybe the last shot is Christopher and Mary sailing toward Miami on Bob Cavallo's new Yacht??

*

Sorry....couldn't resist....

violetcrush said:

Se7en said:

As a movie fan, I can really appreciate the cinematography and the locale. As a Prince fan, I appreciate what he was doing in this movie, and love the humor, music and even the sometimes bad acting. I think it was all part of the charm. I do occasionally watch this movie, even now moreso that I have it in the Cloud.

Having said all that, it's not a great movie compared to other movies. But compared to Graffiti Bridge, UTCM deserves an Oscar.

The music is beautiful. I love the piano medley he would do during the Nude tour with mixing Venus De Milo/Honest Man/UTCM/Question Of U - some or all. Such pretty music. * And of course Mountains, Kiss and Anotherlover..are great tracks too

Of course. The music is amazing. Parade is one of the standalone albums in his discography. Not claiming it to be "the best", but it's probably easily the most unique.

Se7en said:

violetcrush said: