JazzWax

Carl Saunders: New Standards

Carl Saunders is one of jazz's best-kept secrets, and he kind of likes it that way. Born in 1942, Saunders is a trumpeter, composer and educator of the highest order who has worked with a long list of jazz giants, from Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald to Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson. Many factors set Saunders apart, including his skills as a player-composer, his warm tone and his exquisite taste. [Photo above of Carl Saunders]

Even more significant is his vast catalog of original compositions that are built to stand the test of time. Fortunately, the brilliant minds at Summit Records decided to release four albums dedicated to his music, featuring different leading jazz musicians. Summit was founded in 1988 by trumpeter David Hickman and trombonist Ralph Sauer, and the Saunders series began in 2013.

Born in Indianapolis, Saunders fell in love with the sound of Don Fagerquist's trumpet and the Dave Pell Octet. He began playing trumpet in the seventh grade and became a high-school star without taking lessons. After graduation, he joined Stan Kenton's band. His first recording with Kenton's orchestra was Horns of Plenty Vol. 1 (Tantara) in 1961, in the mellophonium section. For a more robust bio, visit Saunders's site here.

Much of Saunders's career in the 1960s and beyond has been spent in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. All of his recordings are worth owning. Start with Phil Urso & Carl Saunders Salute Chet Baker and Phil Woods & Carl Saunders Play Henry Mancini.

Now, for the Summit series. Each of the four albums features New Jazz Standards in the title. While that claim may seem brash, once you hear Saunders's works, you'll realize that "new standards" is hardly an overstatement. All of Saunders's songs are richly melodic and engaging in their construction. At the heart of each piece is a singable melody that builds neatly and tells a story.

The New Jazz Standards series features albums by flutist Sam Most (2013), trombonist Scott Whitfield (2016), pianist Roger Kellaway (2018) and guitarist Larry Koonse (2019). All of the songs are by Saunders, and each album provides takes on songs chosen from his catalog. The artists chosen are impeccable. I wish I could tell you that one of these albums is the best of the bunch or that one is a perfect gateway to the series, but they're all marvelous. I'd buy all four. Each is executed at a high level, deeply personal from the artist's perspective and captures the spirit of Saunders's remarkable talent. [Photo above of Carl Saunders]

Of the four artists, only Sam Most is no longer with us. He died in 2013.

JazzWax tracks. You'll find the New Jazz Standards series for Most, Whitfield, Kellaway and Koonse here, here, here and here.

The albums also are available at Spotify and at YouTube.

JazzWax tracks: Here's Larry Koonse playing Saunders's A Poor Man's Mister Evans, with Josh Nelson (p), Larry Koonse (g), Tom Warrington (b) and Joe LaBarbera (d)...

Here's Roger Kellaway playing Saunders's Calming Notion, with Jay Leonhart (b) and Peter Erskine (d)...

Here's Scott Whitfield playing Saunders's Prudence, with Scott Whitfield (tb), Christian Jacob (p), Kevin Axt (b) and Peter Erskine (d)...

And here's Sam Most playing Saunders's Twinkling Eye, with Sam Most (fl, alto fl, clarinet, bari, voc), Christian Jacob (p), Kevin Axt (b), Santo Savino (d) and Leddie Gardia (perc)...

Bonus: And here's Carl Saunders and tenor saxophonist Phil Urso playing Line for Lyons...

Maxine Sullivan: Shakespeare

One of the most interesting albums singer Maxine Sullivan recorded in the 1970s was Sullivan, Shakespeare, Hyman in June 1971. The album's subtitle says it all: "Maxine Sullivan sings the songs of William Shakespeare as set to music by Dick Hyman." Dick, of course, has been one of the most prolific and versatile jazz pianists as a performer and recording artist and as a composer and arranger. Recorded for Monmouth Evergreen Records, the album at first glace would seem like a yawn, a high-culture overreach that imposes the Bard on Sullivan, draining jazz of its essential oils.

Quite the contrary. The album is alive with original music and arrangements, and Sullivan was put to the test, giving listeners an opportunity to hear how she takes on material that wasn't readily familiar to anyone except Dick. The musicians on the album accompanying Sullivan were Rusty Dedrick (tp,flhrn), Dick Hyman (p,harpsichord), Bucky Pizzarelli (g), Milt Hinton (b) and Don Lamond (d). [Photo above of Dick Hyman]

Dick was first asked to come up with melodies for a series of Shakespearean ballads in 1961 while working with the Arthur Godfrey TV and radio shows. Paul Kapp, who founded General Music Publishing Company and was associated with the Godfrey shows, suggested the idea. [Photo above of Maxine Sullivan at the Village Vanguard in 1947 by William P. Gottlieb]

Columbia's A&R executive Ernie Altschuler heard Dick's songs on the Godfrey show and asked Dick to come up with Bardian tunes for Earl Wrightson, a singer with an earnest and seemingly dated musical-theater voice. The result was Shakespeare's Greatest Hits. Wrightson's album has not aged well, though the songs retain their charm.

Fast forward 10 years. Though the liner notes on the Sullivan album say that the pieces were performed first by other singers, Dick said he had Sullivan in mind when he originally wrote them. Dick knew Sullivan from accompanying her on two earlier albums produced by Leonard Feather—Leonard Feather Presents Maxine Sullivan (1956) and A Tribute To Andy Razaf (1957).

All of the lyrics on the Sullivan songs were based on original Shakespeare verses. The album goes by fast, since the longest song is 3:18 and the shortest is 1:34. Here are the songs and the related Shakespeare plays:

• When That I Was a Little Tiny Boy (Twelfth Night; Act V, Scene 1)
• O Mistress Mine (Twelfth Night; Act II, Scene 3)
• Will You Buy Any Tape? (The Winter's Tale; Act 14, Scene 3)
• Winter and Spring (Love's Labour Lost; Act V, Scene 2)
• It Was a Lover and His Lass (As You Like It; Act. V, Scene 3)
• Take O Take Those Lips Away (Measure for Measure; Act IV, Scene 1)
• Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind (As You Like It; Act Ii, Scene 7)
• Under the Greenwood Tree (As You Like It; Act Ii, Scene 5)
• Sigh No More, Ladies, Sigh No More (Much Ado About Nothing; Act II, Scene 3)
• Come Away, Come Away, Death (Twelfth Night; Act II, Scene 4)
• When Daffodils Begin to Peer (The Winter's Tale; Act IV, Scene 2)
• Lawn as White as Driven Snow (The Winter's Tale; Act IV, Scene 3)

What I love about this album is that the songs are unknown, so instead of listening to familiar standards, this is off-beat, forcing you to listen to the quality of Sullivan's execution. In addition, the music is bouncy and upbeat, as if they were written for a musical. Interestingly, Sullivan sounds a lot like Peggy Lee here. She leaves lots of space, her voice is soft and all of the songs are jaunty. And it's a joy to hear Dick Hyman play piano and harpsichord behind her. [Photo above of Maxine Sullivan and Bob Wilber in 1969]

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Sullivan, Shakespeare, Hyman here.

The album also is available at Spotify.

JazzWax clips: You can listen to the entire album at YouTube here...

Bonus: To give you a feel for Wrightson's voice...

...here's a clip from Shakespeare's Greatest Hits...

A special thanks to Dennis Galloway.

Susan, Steve and Maxine

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed Susan Mailer, daughter of novelist of Norman Mailer, for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Susan talked about her mother moving her down to Mexico City when she was still a baby after she divorced Norman. Susan also talked about her years spent with her father in New York and Connecticut. [Photo above of Susan Mailer in her Manhattan home, on a desk that belonged to her father, Norman Mailer, by Matt Furman for The Wall Street Journal]

Over the holidays, my column interviews were with actor Masi Oka (go here), Booker T of the MGs (go here) and Arlo Guthrie (go here) on his father, Woody Guthrie. [Photo of musician Arlo Guthrie at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington, Mass., by Jason Grow for The Wall Street Journal]

SiriusXM. If you missed my December appearance on SiriusXM to talk about my "Anatomy of a Song" column for the WSJ on Steve Miller's Fly Like an Eagle, you can listen for free here...

Maxine Sullivan. After my post on singer Maxine Sullivan, I received the following from photographer and author Hank O'Neal...

Hi Marc. Nice to see such good words and clips about Max. I met her in 1965 at the Manassas Jazz Festival where she was possibly the classiest person there. She was married to Cliff Jackson at the time and
Cliff was playing regularly at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C. I visited Max and Cliff at their home on Ritter Place in the Bronx in 1986. The street is now called Maxine Sullivan Way. I recorded Cliff at Sherman Fairchild's within the year, his last solo record, I think, and then did an album of Max with Earl Hines in 1970. I hadn't thought about Max and Cliff in some while. Glad you made me remember. [Photo above of Maxine Sullivan in 1986 by Hank O'Neal]

I also heard from Danilo Morandi in Italy...

I really enjoyed your clips on Maxine Sullivan, a beloved figure in Europe at the beginning of the 1980s, where she made five delightful records with the Swedish All Stars on Kenneth Records. Here is a  great version of Fine and Dandy led by alto saxophonist Göran Eriksson, who also solos. 

La Notte. Over the holidays, during my "JazzWax Film Festival," I received the following from Ettore Ulivelli in Italy on my post about the film, La Notte [Photo above of Jeanne Moreau]...

Dear Marc, there are two mistakes in your post on La Notte: While much of the film was indeed shot in Milan, the jazz performance scenes and party scenes were shot at a villa in Barlassina, about 25 miles from Milan. It was a sprawling villa that was more like a country club with a pool and golf course.

As for the musicians, let me correct the information you provided: the tenor sax player was Eraldo Volonte, the pianist was Giorigio Gaslini, the bassist was Alceo Guatelli. I should know, since I was the drummer! By 1959, Gaslini was considered one of the top European players. [Photo above, on the set of La Notte, from left, Alceo Guatelli, Eraldo Volontè, Giorgio Gaslini, Jeanne Moreau, Ettore Ulivelli and Marcello Mastroianni]

As for the film at large, director Michelangelo Antonioni was famous for using 5,000 meters of film and then cutting it down to 3,000. Unfortunately, I have no particular recollection of the two leading actresses except their ravishing beauty.

I was the only amateur musician in the group. I continued drumming for three or four years after the film but soon quit to pursue a career in marketing. As a last remark: all in all, the film was a terrible bore, believe me. I have a VHS of La Notte that I've repeatedly watched and have never changed my opinion.

Thanks for your efforts. Keep it up, man!

My post has been updated.

Movies Til Dawn. Director Raymond De Felitta's podcast interview with director John Sayles (Lone Star, Matewan, Eight Men Out, Honeydripper, Go for Sisters) is up at Raymond's site here (click on the "episodes" tab for Sayles and other directors). [Photo above of John Sayles]

Lorez Alexandria radio. Sid Gribetz will present the singer Lorez Alexandria on Sunday (January 12), from 2 to 5 p.m. on “Jazz Profiles” on WKCR-FM in New York. You can listen on your phone, iPad or computer from anywhere in the world by going here.

What the heck. Here's Gene Pitney singing Town Without Pity...

Oddball album cover of the week.

Two monogrammed towels and a woman in a pink dish who looks like a bar of soap.

Doc: Jack Sheldon, 2008

Who was Jack Sheldon and why does he matter? Part of the answer can be found in Trying to Get Good: the Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon, a documentary released in 2008. Produced by Doug McIntyre and Penny Peyser, the film is part biography, part confessional and part intervention as Sheldon and his music colleagues shed light on the West Coast jazz scene in the 1950s and Sheldon's playing gifts and puckish personality. Jimi Mentis sent along links to the documentary below.

My only quibble is that the film missed critical moments to follow up on. For example, early on we learn that Sheldon's father abandoned Sheldon's mother and that she spent years looking for him. That thread is dropped instantly. Wow, I have at least five followup questions on that alone, since the abandonment surely had everything to do with Sheldon's personality and life.

But more to the point, the documentary is a loving tribute, and it's a joy to see so many talented artists talk about one of West Coast jazz's trumpet greats. To purchase the documentary, go here.

Here's Part 1...

And here's Part 2...

Maxine Sullivan in 10 Clips

The female jazz vocal starts with Maxine Sullivan. No knock on Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday or other great vocalists of the 1930s and '40s, but they were really show-time swing singers at the time. Sullivan was first to bring a conversational intimacy to the jazz vocal that was better suited to small rooms than theater stages. She began her singing career in the mid-1930s and her first recordings were in June 1937, with Claude Thornhill. Two months later, she had one of her biggest hits, Loch Lomond, again, with Thornhill. Her voice throughout her storied career was a work of relaxed perfection and sublime beauty.

Sullivan was married four times, and exchanged vows with her fourth husband in 1950. Which helps explain why her 1950s discography is so light. Spending time at home was probably a better move for Sullivan and her family than recording and touring. A shame she didn't record much more at her peak in the 1950s, when albums would have made her a superstar, like many pop singers of the period. Also a shame she wasn't in film more. She had the most amazing smile, and the camera loved her.

Despite Sullivan's towering significance as the first modern female jazz vocalist, she's just a name to most people today. So I figured I'd provide you with 10 audio and video clips so you have a sense of her qualities and an understanding of why I rave about her.

Maxine Sullivan died in 1987.

Here's Maxine Sullivan in 1938 with Bobby Hackett on cornet singing Easy to Love...

To hear Sullivan ace Loch Lomand in 1939, move the time bar up to 1:37...

Here's Sullivan with Teddy Wilson in 1944, with Charlie Shavers on muted trumpet singing Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye...

Here's Sullivan singing I'm the Caring Kind with Benny Carter's band in 1946...

Here's Sullivan with the Ellis Larkins Trio singing Takin' My Time in 1946. Larkins was one of the great accompanists...

Here's Sullivan singing I'll Remember April with Lionel Hampton's band in 1952...

Here's Sullivan singing Stompin' at the Savoy from the album A Tribute to Andy Razaf in 1956 with a pack of Leonard Feather All-Stars, including Charlie Shavers on trumpet and Dick Hyman on piano and Milt Hinton on bass...

Here's Sullivan on Art Ford's Jazz Party in 1958 singing I Can't Get Started and Ace in the Hole. That's Sir Roland Hanna on piano, another brilliant accompanist, Tyree Glenn on trombone and Mary Osborne on guitar...

Here's Sullivan singing We Just Couldn't Say Goodbye with Ernie Carson (cnt), Jack Howe (ts), Spencer Clark (bar), Art Hodes (p,arr), Johnny Haynes (b) and Tom Martin (d) in 1978...

Here's The Lady's in Love With You with Glenn Zottola (tp), Phil Bodner (cl,as), Keith Ingham (p), Marty Grosz (g), Phil Flanigan (b) and Jackie Williams (d) in 1985...

And here's Sullivan singing Something to Remember You By in Tokyo in 1985 with Scott Hamilton on tenor saxophone...

Tutti's Trumpets and Trombones

Brass heads, listen up. If you aren't familiar with the two albums I came across yesterday, you'll be thanking me by the end of this post. The albums are Tutti's Trumpets (1957) and Tutti's Trombones (1966). Tutti was Salvador "Tutti" Camarata—co-founder of London Records, the American arm of English Decca. He also was co-founder of Disneyland Records. London, of course, cleaned up in the 1960s, marketing top-selling European Decca artists on the London label in America, from Mantovani to the Rolling Stones. [Photo above of Tutti Camarata]

Born in New Jersey, Tutti's parents had come over from Catania in Sicily. His work ethic was remarkable. He grew up studying trumpet and played in leading big bands of the 1940s. He also arranged for them. He persuaded Billie Holiday to record her first records with strings for Decca in 1944 and arranged those sessions (when he was known as "Toots"). He also conducted a recording by Jascha Heifetz.

After 1945, Tutti spent considerable time in the U.K., helping Ted Heath start his big band and working on a film, London Town, as musical director. Back in the States, he helped start London Records in 1947 and discovered Vic Damone and Teresa Brewer, arranging their early hits for London.

Tutti always had a thing for trumpet sections, so in the mid-1950s, he came up with an idea for an album featuring a collection of star players. Which brings us to how I found Tutti's Trumpets (Disneyland)—looking around for Uan Rasey sessions. The trumpets on the album are Pete Candoli, Conrad Gozzo, Mannie Klein, Joe Triscari, Shorty Sherock and Rasey. I know, the equivalent of walking into a garage and seeing six mint Ferraris sitting side by side. [Photo above of Conrad Gozzo]

While the album weaves between dance and easy listening, it's still glorious to hear players of this caliber together and alone. They were accompanied on songs by three different musical backgrounds—with saxophones, with strings or with full orchestra. While Tutti's arranging taste tended to lean toward cinematic mood music, he left well enough alone in most cases to maximize these horn greats.

High points include Klein blowing on Trumpet Soliloquy, the entire section playing the melody on Stardust backed by strings, Trumpet's Prayer featuring Gozzo, and Candoli soloing on Southland. It's astonishing to hear these guys solo and play in formation. In most cases on other albums, you just hear them whisked into a section. [Photo above of Pete Candoli]

In 1966, Tutti decided to give the all-star concept another go—this time on Tutti's Trombones. The trombonists were Dick Nash, Joe Howard, Tommy Pederson, Ernie Tack, Kenny Shroyer, Frank Rosolino, Hoyt Bohannon, Herbie Harper, Gil Falco and Lloyd Ulyate. That's quite a bit of big-band studio firepower. Though the arrangements aren't as deft as the trumpet album, the playing is sweet. The trombones are either bouncing around together like a big rubber ball or individual players are weeping through their horns. [Photo above of Dick Nash]

High points include Mr. Lucky set to a bossa nova rhythm with Howard taking the lead muted solo, Nash soloing with an open horn and Rosolino using a cup mute. There's also Four Brothers, which may be the only time this song, written for four saxophones, was handled by a gang of 'bones. The album ends with an excellent frisky tune by Tutti called Tutti's Trombones, on which all of the horns take a turn. The sidemen on both albums are top of the heap. [Photo above of Frank Rosolino]

Tutti Camarata died in 2005. An amazing career—it's exhausting just writing about his many accomplishments. And he reportedly was a nice guy to boot!

JazzWax tracks. You'll find Tutti's Trumpets and Tutti's Trombones on a single album here.

It's also free for streaming at Spotify and if you have Amazon Prime. Or you can find many of the tracks at YouTube.

JazzWax tracks: Here's Stardust, with all the trumpets running the melody line together...

And here's Four Brothers...

Have You Met Inez Jones?

Mention West Coast jazz and you probably think of musicians such as Chet Baker, Bud Shank, Art Pepper, Russ Freeman, Conte and Pete Candoli, Shelly Manne, Lou Levy and Jack Sheldon. What do they all have in common? They were all white. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But in Los Angeles in the 1950s, there also were many top-flight African-American jazz studio musicians who had an equally tasteful, laid-back studio sound. [Photo above of Inez Jones by Ray Avery/CTImages]

I'm talking about guys like guitarist Oscar Moore, pianist Carl Perkins, bassist Curtis Counce and drummer Bill Douglas. In May 1957, all four African-American jazz musicians recorded a superb album behind singer Inez Jones.

Entitled, Have You Met Inez Jones?, the LP for Hollywood's Omega label, an early reel-to-reel tape company, would be her only album. Riverside picked it up on LP, since Omega had limited distribution, issuing it with a different cover. I suppose part of Jones's under-recorded career had something to do with an unwillingness to tour to support albums and that she wasn't as glamorous or as photogenic as other singers at a time when artists were being featured on covers. [Photo above of Inez Jones and Oscar Moore by Ray Avery/CTImages]

Still, the fact that Jones recorded only one album is almost criminal given how good she was on the Omega session. Instead, Jones apparently spent much of her career singing and playing piano at clubs in the Bay Area, notably the Harem Club and Rainbow Inn. Which is a shame for those who love her voice.

Born in Memphis, Tenn., Jones relocated to Kansas City before America's entry into World War II, met and married saxophonist Paul Jones, and remained there singing from 1940 to 1945. Then the couple moved to California, stopping first in L.A., where she worked after-hours clubs. At some point in 1952, she was in New York and recorded four sides for RCA. Up in the Bay Area, Inez Jones and husband Paul lived in Oakland.

Teamed with Jones on Have You Met Inez Jones?, Oscar Moore put his years in the Nat King Cole Trio to work running tasteful lines behind her. Jones had a warm, knowing voice in the happy-go-lucky mold of Sarah Vaughan and Maxine Sullivan. She also had a terrific range that was toasty on both ends. But too little is known about her. Surprisingly, based on my research, she wasn't interviewed much either.

Inez Jones died in May 1995. She was 82.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Have You Met Inez Jones? on a superb Fresh Sound release that includes her four RCA sides and Oscar Moore's Presenting Oscar Moore recorded in December 1956, where he played rhythm guitar and overdubbed solos, with Leroy Vinneger on bass. Go here.

JazzWax tracks: Here's Too Marvelous for Words...

Here's Where or When...

And here's Moore with Vinneger on Angel Eyes...

Jack Sheldon (1931-2019)

Jack Sheldon, a West Coast jazz trumpeter who, in the 1960s, as jazz recording opportunities dried up, began to diversify into film studio work, TV acting, comedy, singing and a regular vocal part on the children's animated series School of Rock, died on December 27. He was 88.

Sheldon was most notable for his clean, round sound on the trumpet and his easy-going personality and good cheer, which often seeped into his music. Sheldon spoke on camera in the Chet Baker documentary Let's Get Lost about how hard he worked practicing his horn at a time in L.A. when other trumpeters, such as Chet Baker, made it look so easy. It was resigned frustration that his jocular spirit always helped ease.

What Sheldon had on trumpet was a pensive romanticism that sounded best on ballads. As he played, he reminded me of someone wandering the empty galleries of a museum, stopping every so often to admire the paintings. He had a warm feel that was straight up and workmanlike. Most of all, he was of Southern California and L.A.'s melancholy—bright, jocular sun but long emotional shadows. On trumpet, he fully articulated the moody, milky West Coast trumpet sound but added a jazzy unevenness that humanized such solos, which is why Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel and other West Coast arrangers admired him and loved including him on their scores. On trumpet, Sheldon could sound like someone who had suffered something emotionally painful but couldn't make up his mind about it.

Hare are eight of my favorite Jack Sheldon clips:

Here's Jack Departs (1954)...

Here's Beach Wise (1955)...

Here's From Now On (1957)...

From Now On

Here's Arrivederci (1958)...

Here's Moonlight in Vermont from A Jazz Tribute to Ray Charles (1961)...

Moonlight In Vermont

Here's Sheldon soloing on Johnny Mandel's Baby Sandpiper (1965)...

 Baby Sandpiper

Here's Sheldon soloing on The Odd Couple from The Warm World of Jack Sheldon (1968)...

The Odd Couple

And here's Afterthoughts from The Cool World of Jack Sheldon (1969)...

Afterthoughts

'Journey to Italy' (1954)

Released in September 1954, Journey to Italy was directed by Roberto Rossellini and is considered by many to be his finest film. Set in Naples, with dialogue in English, presumably to market the film in England and the U.S., the film stars Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders as a married couple at the tail end of their marriage. The inheritance of an uncle's house brings them to Italy so they can sell it. But being alone, away from their London social life, exposes their differences and the traits they despise most about each other.

Bergman is tormented by Sanders's sarcasm, criticism and belittling manner. From Sanders's perspective, Bergman is humorless, overly emotional and a silly romantic. Through their performances, you can feel them get on each other's nerves. And yet each becomes jealous when the other is animated and happy. We learn that the couple decided not to have children early on. And yet, there they are in Naples, where every other woman on the street in the film is either expecting or pushing a carriage.

Death is a running metaphoric theme as well, from the catacombs Bergman visits as a tourist and the hearse encounter on one of her drives to the death of a prostitute's friend and a visit to an excavation site in Pompeii that reveals casts of those who perished under Mount Vesuvius's volcanic ash some 2,000 years ago. Obviously, a metaphor for the couple's barren relationship.

What's most special about the film is the modernity of its script. Co-written by Rossellini, who was married to Bergman at the time, the storyline seems to float without purpose. In some respects, the narcoleptic narrative is like Sanders's criticism of Italy, that it "poison's you with laziness." But rather than grow frustrated with the direction of the story's seemingly aimless glide, take the ride and savor it.

Elements of the film may seem overbaked: OK, we get it, death equals their marriage and the white house equals life. And Sanders's soulful outreach for love through encounters with a prostitute and a woman with a leg injury in Capri who turns out to be married seem like cliche ways to warm up his heartless character. But the journalistic views of Naples just nine years after the end of World War II along with Bergman's emotional seams popping under stress make up for the expected. 

Most fascinating of all is how the couple takes their relationship for granted, thinking that divorce is the solution. Not until Bergman is swept away by the crowd in the Saint Gennaro procession scene at the end does the couple mend their ways. Unfortunately, the turnaround can be considered the film's biggest flaw, that it surrenders to the audience's desire for a happy ending rather than retain its bite until the end. Ultimately, the couple are prisoners of their loveless history together, despite their encounters with Neapolitan humanity.

Interestingly, Sanders was 48 at the time and Bergman was 39. By today's standards, they seem so much older. Nice coat on Sanders, though. And I'm still not sure how Bergman managed to pack so many coats. I counted three or four.

Here is Journey to Italy. And for car buffs, that gorgeous vehicle is a 1950 Bentley MK VI (#B299FU) Drop Head Coupé. I worry each time they leave it unattended...

'C'était un Rendezvous' (1976)

At dawn on a Sunday in August 1976, when most of Paris was fast asleep or away on holiday, Claude Lelouch climbed into a Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9. For the next eight minutes and five seconds, the director of A Man and a Woman and Live for Life flew through Paris at speeds of up to 140 mph, from Porte Dauphine to Sacré-Cœur Basilica in Montmartre. [Photo above of Claude Lelouch]

The hair-raising drive was for a Lelouch short about reaching a destination. A camera was mounted on the front bumper, and the sound of Lelouch's Ferrari 275 GTB was reportedly dubbed in later. Apparently, the Mercedes moved fast but Lelouch felt it sounded boring. Some believe the Ferrari was indeed used but that the director didn't want it confiscated after the fact, so the Mercedes was "beard" in his story. Your call.

Before you watch the following, be sure you haven't eaten for a few hours. A map of the route is above. The Mercedes and Ferrari models are below, followed by an image of the camera attached to the Mercedes and the girlfriend, Finnish model Gunilla Friden in 1971.

Here's C'était un Rendezvous (It Was a Date). Enlarge to full screen before you start...