Bernadette

 

You might remember this song by The Four Tops. It was a hit in 1967. I remember hearing it on the radio. I might have even see The Four Tops preform it on The Ed Sullivan Show. We used to watch that variety show every sunday evening. Ed Sullivan was a newspaper showbiz writer and he somehow got to do a tv show. Each week he had several acts preform. Acts of great variety. Not all of them were what I was interested in but I liked the MoTown artists and Ed liked putting them on tv.

I was watching the 1990 movie  Madhouse the other day and the song features in a bonding scene between John Larroquette and John Diehl. The movie was pretty average but it's nothing outstanding. I had forgotten I had actually seen it when it was first in the theater. It's a version of The Man Who Came To Dinner which was a play first. Written by Moss Hart and George S Kaufman, and starring Monty Woolley, it first opened in 1939. Kaufman and Hart also wrote You Can't Take It With You. I read a Moss Hart auto-bio back in the 1980's and enjoyed that. Kaufman was a member of the Algonquin Round Table and I have read a bit about that group. I used to read a lot by and about humor writers and newspaper columnists from the 1920's and 1930's. TMWCTD was turned into a movie in 1942 and it starred Monty Woolley. He's totally annoying and heavily based on Alexander Woolcott. That guy is a mixed up kettle of fish and sadness. Best not to think about it. Look him up if you want. Me I'm going to go finish that Star Trek novel I'm reading.