{"id":27164,"date":"2017-12-15T05:44:01","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T10:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=27164"},"modified":"2017-12-15T15:28:39","modified_gmt":"2017-12-15T20:28:39","slug":"the-bootleg-files-julies-christmas-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/15\/the-bootleg-files-julies-christmas-special\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Julie’s Christmas Special"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 617:<\/strong> \u201cJulie\u2019s Christmas Special\u201d (1973 television production starring Julie Andrews).<\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> It is on YouTube and Vimeo.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> It fell through the cracks.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> It\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n

In 1972, Julie Andrews sought to re-energize her career by focusing on television. This migration from big screen to small screen followed a string of big-budget flop films that damaged her viability as a movie star. But she still had name value, and the less expensive and more intimate parameters of a television variety seemed perfect for her distinctive talents. \u201cThe Julie Andrews Hour\u201d was produced in England by ATV and distributed internationally by Lew Grade\u2019s ITC Entertainment, with ABC picking up the U.S. rights.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While \u201cThe Julie Andrews Hour\u201d was praised by critics and won seven Emmy Awards, it failed to find a consistent audience in the U.S., which resulted in its cancellation after one season. But ABC maintained its faith in the star and a new offer was made for Andrews to headline a series of specials. On December 14, 1973, \u201cJulie\u2019s Christmas Special\u201d gave the one-time Mary Poppins another shot at U.S. television.<\/p>\n

\u201cJulie\u2019s Christmas Special\u201d opens with a lavish number rich with the jolly camp nonsense that permeated television specials of the early 70s: Andrews is surrounded by a multicultural battalion of dancers in maxi-skirts and bell-bottomed polyester jumpsuits (billed as Dougie Squires\u2019 Second Generation) who gyrate in a strange mix of lite-ballet and Vegas vamping while the star offers a cheery rendition of \u201cI Saw Three Ships.\u201d To its credit, the number does not end in canned applause (another staple of the era\u2019s production protocol), but with an off-screen voice declaring, \u201cThat\u2019s a good one, Julie!\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrews retreats to her dressing room for a nap. While asleep, she is visited by the Sugar Plum Fairy, played by Peggy Lee and filmed through the thickest gauze-covered lens this side of \u201cMame.\u201d Andrews awakes, puts on a hooded white cloak and walks out the door of her dressing room and into a snowy landscape to sing \u201cHark the Herald Angels Sing.\u201d (And this type of stuff was relatively sane compared to the typical 70s television output.)<\/p>\n

Andrews then returns to her TV show\u2019s stage to introduce Santa Claus, played by rotund Peter Ustinov while sporting a bushy white beard. But Ustinov is wearing a tuxedo, and his Santa needs to show an ID card to verify his claims. Where is Santa\u2019s red suit, you may wonder? \u201cI left it at home,\u201d Ustinov mumbles, with a shrug.<\/p>\n

Ustinov\u2019s Santa takes Andrews to a Christmas from long ago, where a brass band plays \u201cGod Bless Ye Merry Gentlemen\u201d under a bridge before being joined by a squad of working class blokes who join Andrews in singing \u201cCarol of the Bells.\u201d Ustinov\u2019s Santa complains that \u201cpeople don\u2019t care about me anymore,\u201d and Andrews insists that he has a persecution complex and needs a \u201cgood psychiatrist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrews then departs to visit the Sugar Plum Fairy, whom Santa dislikes. \u201cThere are times she can be real pain in the ice,\u201d he grumbles. The Sugar Plum Fairy resides in a suite that looks like Belle Watling\u2019s parlor if it was designed by Mr. Freeze, and Andrews and Lee launch into a string of pop tunes that have nothing to do with Christmas. Sadly, their voices and performing styles don\u2019t truly mesh, and the segment feels like an eternity before Santa reappears to play with his electric trains and reminisce about how he once delivered toys to \u201cGeorgie Washington\u201d and \u201cTommy Edison.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee comes back to sing \u201cHave Yourself a Merry Little Christmas\u201d while seated on an airplane, then Andrews drinks a cup of the wine-laced \u201cSanta\u2019s Little Helper\u201d to help St. Nick lift his massive bag of toys. The scene shifts to a Victorian food market for no very good reason, and then Andrews joins the Treorchy Male Choir to sing \u201cSilent Night\u201d and \u201cO Come All Ye Faithful.\u201d Lee returns to wake Andrews up \u2013 remember, it was all a dream! \u2013 and Andrews performs a holiday-themed song that I\u2019ve never heard before or since. And then, the closing credits cue us that it\u2019s time to turn off the telly.<\/p>\n

Yes, \u201cJulie\u2019s Christmas Special\u201d is full of mild absurdity, especially Ustinov\u2019s droll and slightly indolent Santa. By contemporary standards, it is fascinating to hear a Christmas special where the musical selection is so heavily focused on the religious roots of the holiday \u2013 outside of a Mother Angelica rerun, I haven\u2019t heard Jesus mentioned so frequently within the course of an hour.<\/p>\n

And, yet, the production doesn\u2019t generate a lot of fun. Andrews has a magnificent voice, but she doesn\u2019t bring any soul or feeling to her vocalizing. Her renditions of the Christmas classics are among the most antiseptic ever recorded. Indeed, she seems to have more fun in her non-holiday duet with Lee, even though their styles are ill-suited for a combination.<\/p>\n

\u201cJulie\u2019s Christmas Special\u201d was a one-off broadcast that ABC never reran. Andrews\u2019 other specials for the network paired her with Jackie Gleason, the Muppets, and her \u201cMary Poppins\u201d co-star Dick Van Dyke, but none of these efforts seemed to click. By 1975, ABC dropped her option and Andrews was mostly unseen until a role in her husband Blake Edwards\u2019 1979 film \u201c10\u201d helped bring her back into movies.<\/p>\n

\u201cJulie\u2019s Christmas Special\u201d has yet to be presented in a commercial home entertainment format, although decent bootleg dupes can be found on YouTube and Vimeo. But maybe it\u2019s best that it is not on DVD \u2013 if it was, it would be a prime candidate for the after-Christmas returns department.<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall<\/a>\u201d on SoundCloud, with new episodes every Monday.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 617: \u201cJulie\u2019s Christmas Special\u201d (1973 television production starring Julie Andrews). LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube and Vimeo. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks. CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It\u2019s possible. In 1972, Julie Andrews sought to re-energize her career by focusing on television. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":27165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[200,1874,1875,1876,1728],"class_list":["post-27164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-christmas","tag-julie-christie","tag-peggy-lee","tag-peter-ustinov","tag-tv-special"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27164"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27167,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27164\/revisions\/27167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}