SYMBIOPSYCHOTOXIPLASM (1968) is an arty metatextual film about director William Greaves filming various couples working out their romantic issues in Central Park, but also filming himself, his cast and his crew making the movie we’re watching. That leads to discussion of the acting challenges, the director musing on his role and the crew arguing they’re the only ones who truly get Greaves’ vision.
This could easily have been pretentious crap that appeals only to clever people talking loudly in restaurants (to use Monty Python’s phrase) but it works as a quirky piece. The Take One was added to the name when Take Two came out in 2005. “What makes you think everyone else is so stupid and you’re so smart?”
Greaves’ SYMBIOPSYCHOTOXIPLASM Take 2 1/2 (2005) is less interesting because 90 percent of it remakes the original film and I’ve seen that one. Greaves argues at one point that it’s not the same movie because everyone working on it is aware of the original — but that doesn’t affect what we actually see. “That’s the way life works — every situation is without precedent.”
AFTER YOU MR. HYDE is a musical stage production starring Alfred Drake (as Jekyll and Hyde) and Nancy Dussault (as his fiancee Margaret) that New England’s Goodspeed Opera House (which provided the photo above for use in my book) staged in 1968. I was lucky enough to find a recording on YouTube, though as it was taken by an audience member and doesn’t include video (not feasible back in the pre-cellphone days) I couldn’t gather much.
What I did learn (partly from notes at the link) is that this was the basis for the ABC Kirk Douglas musical. Like a lot of stage-to-screen adaptations, they’re quite different; the only songs that survive are “Something Very, Very Good” and “I Bought a Bicycle” (the result of Hyde’s libertine ways loosening his regular self up a little). And the stage show’s ending has Jekyll commit suicide, leaving his friend’s baffled what could drive the doctor to that step. “The good in me emerges/purged of evil urges/What a splendid plan!”
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