Searching for a lost pair of kites hurrying towards heaven.
December 7, 2010 9:13 PM Subscribe
For much of my childhood, the annual airing of ABC Stage 67's Emmy-winning production of Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory, starring the absolutely incomparable Geraldine Page, was at the very core of how my family understood Christmas. In my time, it aired on local PBS stations. Sometime in the 80s, though, it disappeared, and is only available in a black & white version of questionable quality. What happened, and where did it go? How can we recover this treasure and share it with a broader audience?
But gradually in her letters, she tends to confuse me with her other friend, the Buddy who died in the 1880s; more and more thirteenths are not the only days she stays in bed: a morning arrives in November, a leafless birdless coming of winter morning, when she cannot rouse herself to exclaim: "Oh my, it's fruitcake weather!"
And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying towards heaven.
We'd all be sitting there in near-silence, every year around that time, my parents, my brother and my sister—all of us caught with our hearts in our throats, even though we'd sat through this old film many times, and there was always this perfect moment before anyone would choke, letting us all admit that we were all crying over the same lines, read in that inimitable way Truman Capote spoke. It's the season of high emotions, of desire and disappointments, where everyone goes a little nuts, but this was our common point of understanding, even more than the usual cultural touchstones, more than a cartoon Linus quoting gospel on an empty stage or the joyous way you almost swam in the sinuous scent of evergreen in that month.
The production was spare, but just so, frank in the way the last vestiges of those old attempts at serious theater on the boob tube tended to be, and it was played in the voice of the man himself, Capote in his most loving tenor, and in the austere, but evocative, realism of Page at her best. Part of me understands why it's too much for the rest of the country, and it's what makes me realize why I am one of the luckiest people in the world, growing up where and under what circumstances I did, but I wonder, too—
Why isn't A Christmas Memory a part of the national narrative in the season that most of us would consider a high point of the year, even those of us who no longer have a faith in the root of the holiday? Stories like a Charlie Brown Christmas, the Grinch, It's A Wonderful Life, and A Christmas Story all have earned their places in the collective consciousness, but somewhere along the way, the '66 Christmas Memory just sort of faded away.
It's gone from the airwaves/cablewaves, for one thing. We were lucky enough to get a copy on a VHS tape in the early 80s, captured on a giant videocassette deck that loaded from the top, and that tape has been tended to like the Ark of the Covenant, brought out only to dub increasingly shaky copies to share within the extended family, but PBS stopped airing it some time around '85 or so, and no one's picked it up since. It's not on TCM, on PBS, on ABC, or anywhere. There's a mediocre (IMHO) rendition from '97 that comes around now and then, and Patty Duke does what she can, but she's no Sook. There's no Sook but Geraldine, at least for me, and while I'm conscious that I may be imposing my own prejudices based on a beloved collective memory particular to the Wall family of Scaggsville, Maryland, I think it's not just me.
A few years back, after arguing with people who, for years, insisted that the film was a black & white production against my memory and videotape to the contrary, I turned up an avi copy that's roughly equivalent to our old sacred master, in color and with decent encoding, and there was much rejoicing.
Still, I've become increasingly curious. Where did this film go?
Is it an issue of rights, of the Capote estate or the screenwriter, or something with the music? How would someone go about finding these things out? I feel a bit like Don Quixote, albeit less so than in my desire to one day see a boxed DVD set of every episode of Madame's Place, but it's not just about me—I think people need to see the '66 Christmas Memory.
There are points throughout my life when I can clearly identify my influences and the little epiphanies that made me start writing, and made me unable to stop, too, and that little story, in just 34 double-spaced pages in a small book, sums up one perfect path to speaking volumes with simple gestures, metaphors, and brilliantly turned-out details. The selfish part of me would love to keep it a secret, and my secret, inasmuch as such a silly thing is even possible, but fortunately, I can't manage to stay selfish for long.
Every year, I come back to this, and always too late to really do anything. This year, I'm wondering—where would one even begin in this windmill-tilting project? Would it be a letter-writing campaign? Who would we write to? Mass action, hunger strikes, pie-throwing mock terrorism?
I just despair a little, and the years slip on by. There's got to be a way, for chrissakes—even my old embarrassing favorite TV show of 1978, the almost entirely forgettable Quark is on DVD. Hell, I'm not even dreaming a fever dream of a Criterion release, either, just a little airplay, so people can see what I've been talking about for all these years.
But gradually in her letters, she tends to confuse me with her other friend, the Buddy who died in the 1880s; more and more thirteenths are not the only days she stays in bed: a morning arrives in November, a leafless birdless coming of winter morning, when she cannot rouse herself to exclaim: "Oh my, it's fruitcake weather!"
And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying towards heaven.
We'd all be sitting there in near-silence, every year around that time, my parents, my brother and my sister—all of us caught with our hearts in our throats, even though we'd sat through this old film many times, and there was always this perfect moment before anyone would choke, letting us all admit that we were all crying over the same lines, read in that inimitable way Truman Capote spoke. It's the season of high emotions, of desire and disappointments, where everyone goes a little nuts, but this was our common point of understanding, even more than the usual cultural touchstones, more than a cartoon Linus quoting gospel on an empty stage or the joyous way you almost swam in the sinuous scent of evergreen in that month.
The production was spare, but just so, frank in the way the last vestiges of those old attempts at serious theater on the boob tube tended to be, and it was played in the voice of the man himself, Capote in his most loving tenor, and in the austere, but evocative, realism of Page at her best. Part of me understands why it's too much for the rest of the country, and it's what makes me realize why I am one of the luckiest people in the world, growing up where and under what circumstances I did, but I wonder, too—
Why isn't A Christmas Memory a part of the national narrative in the season that most of us would consider a high point of the year, even those of us who no longer have a faith in the root of the holiday? Stories like a Charlie Brown Christmas, the Grinch, It's A Wonderful Life, and A Christmas Story all have earned their places in the collective consciousness, but somewhere along the way, the '66 Christmas Memory just sort of faded away.
It's gone from the airwaves/cablewaves, for one thing. We were lucky enough to get a copy on a VHS tape in the early 80s, captured on a giant videocassette deck that loaded from the top, and that tape has been tended to like the Ark of the Covenant, brought out only to dub increasingly shaky copies to share within the extended family, but PBS stopped airing it some time around '85 or so, and no one's picked it up since. It's not on TCM, on PBS, on ABC, or anywhere. There's a mediocre (IMHO) rendition from '97 that comes around now and then, and Patty Duke does what she can, but she's no Sook. There's no Sook but Geraldine, at least for me, and while I'm conscious that I may be imposing my own prejudices based on a beloved collective memory particular to the Wall family of Scaggsville, Maryland, I think it's not just me.
A few years back, after arguing with people who, for years, insisted that the film was a black & white production against my memory and videotape to the contrary, I turned up an avi copy that's roughly equivalent to our old sacred master, in color and with decent encoding, and there was much rejoicing.
Still, I've become increasingly curious. Where did this film go?
Is it an issue of rights, of the Capote estate or the screenwriter, or something with the music? How would someone go about finding these things out? I feel a bit like Don Quixote, albeit less so than in my desire to one day see a boxed DVD set of every episode of Madame's Place, but it's not just about me—I think people need to see the '66 Christmas Memory.
There are points throughout my life when I can clearly identify my influences and the little epiphanies that made me start writing, and made me unable to stop, too, and that little story, in just 34 double-spaced pages in a small book, sums up one perfect path to speaking volumes with simple gestures, metaphors, and brilliantly turned-out details. The selfish part of me would love to keep it a secret, and my secret, inasmuch as such a silly thing is even possible, but fortunately, I can't manage to stay selfish for long.
Every year, I come back to this, and always too late to really do anything. This year, I'm wondering—where would one even begin in this windmill-tilting project? Would it be a letter-writing campaign? Who would we write to? Mass action, hunger strikes, pie-throwing mock terrorism?
I just despair a little, and the years slip on by. There's got to be a way, for chrissakes—even my old embarrassing favorite TV show of 1978, the almost entirely forgettable Quark is on DVD. Hell, I'm not even dreaming a fever dream of a Criterion release, either, just a little airplay, so people can see what I've been talking about for all these years.
Amazon sells the DVD.
http://www.amazon.com/Truman-Capotes-Christmas-Memory-Stage/dp/B000UFNHD2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1291786887&sr=1-1
Buy it and crisis averted
posted by Ideefixe at 9:42 PM on December 7, 2010
http://www.amazon.com/Truman-Capotes-Christmas-Memory-Stage/dp/B000UFNHD2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1291786887&sr=1-1
Buy it and crisis averted
posted by Ideefixe at 9:42 PM on December 7, 2010
Paramount Television properties went to CBS Paramount in the big Viacom split a few years ago. CBS Paramount is now CBS Home Entertainment. CBSHE is in the process of restoring its entire catalog, possibly for future DVD-on-demand release. If it exists, it will probably be released.
Sadly, it is not unheard of for television shows to be lost entirely. Lots of bad things can happen to the videotape masters for episodes, even when they're not on 44-year-old 2-inch Quad tape reels like "A Christmas Memory" probably was. A surviving 16mm print with good sound was definitely good enough for networks to air in the 80s and 90s, but perhaps not these days.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:28 PM on December 7, 2010
Sadly, it is not unheard of for television shows to be lost entirely. Lots of bad things can happen to the videotape masters for episodes, even when they're not on 44-year-old 2-inch Quad tape reels like "A Christmas Memory" probably was. A surviving 16mm print with good sound was definitely good enough for networks to air in the 80s and 90s, but perhaps not these days.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:28 PM on December 7, 2010
Ideefixe, that's the grainy black-and-white version the OP was complaining about.
The originals were shot on film in color. They still exist, but haven't been released as of yet, due to the corporate complications described above.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:36 AM on December 8, 2010
The originals were shot on film in color. They still exist, but haven't been released as of yet, due to the corporate complications described above.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:36 AM on December 8, 2010
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"I've loved the episode of ABC Stage '67, "A Christmas Memory" (and "The Thanksgiving Visitor", a separate special airing a year later), ever since I first saw them in the 1960s. Fortunately, I was able to make a decent video copy of "Memory" when it re-aired on ABC in 1987 and again when both "Memory" and "Visitor" aired on 'The Family Channel' in the late 1990s. Per both programs' end credits, rights to the TV distribution of these programs belong to WORLDVISION (not the charity, the video company). Worldvision (originally a division of ABC Television) was sold to Spelling Entertainment Group in 1991, which merged with Viacom in 1999, and now Viacom is run by Paramount Television. So any pleas to release both programs on DVD (and, oh, how I wish this would happen soon) should be sent to Paramount Television and/or Paramount Home Video, c/o Paramount Studios, 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, CA 90038. Tell your friends!"
There are some more posts on that link. Something to start from.
posted by vidur at 9:25 PM on December 7, 2010