Hey, I Didn't Know Her!

At least once or twice a year one of the cable stations runs a whole weekend of James Bond films. I enjoy watching Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan do their best to give life to Ian Fleming's master spy. I never really liked Roger Moore as Bond, he played every film with the same flippant note; it was all a big joke and he knew it and the way he acted he made sure you knew it. I don't know if this was Moore's decision to play the part this way or not, but it ruined those pictures for me. It wasn't James Bond, it was the Saint.

The first Bond film I saw at the theater, and I was pretty young at the time, was the second film, From Russia, With Love. I remember three things vividly about my first James Bond experience: 1) The opening sequence where Bond is stalked and killed (only we find out that it was not Bond but a training mission for some Russian spies). 2) Robert Shaw's tougher than nails bad guy, Grant, and 3) the evil Rosa Klebb with the poison-tipped knife in the toe of her shoe.

But that's not what I'm here to talk to you about (well, OK, partly that's what I'm here to talk to you about, but not soley). I'm here to talk about how From Russia With Love connects to the Burt Reynolds/Kris Khristofferson film Semi-Tough and how both of them connect to the Bobby Darin hit song, Mac the Knife.

You can learn a lot about the song, Mac the Knife if you search the Internet. For example...

"The lyrics are Marc Blitzstein's. They are a translation of the original lyrics by the great German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and are from Brecht and Kurt Weill's socially-significant theatre piece, "Die Dreigroschenoper," or "The Threepenny Opera," as we know it. The play, which was basically a German adaptation of John Gay's "The Begger's Opera," was one of the factors that got the two collaborators run out of Berlin on the proverbial rail. Hitler was not pleased--so Brecht and Weill both fled the country and ended up in America, Weill in New York and Brecht in California (where he wrote a few unsuccessful screenplays.) Weill stayed in the U.S. and had a number of Broadway hits, most notably "Knickerbocker Holiday" (which includes the beautiful "September Song"). He died in NY sometime during the '60s, I think. In 1951, Brecht, who was a Communist of sorts, ran afoul of the infamous House Un-American activities Committee. After a rather rough and rude questioning, he saw the handwriting on the wall and moved back to Germany, settling in East Berlin, where the great master of "epic theatre" died in 1956."

Interesting but I know what you're thinking, "What has that got to do with From Russia With Love or Semi-Tough?" Good question and I'm getting to it, I swear!

A few months ago I Tivoed Semi-Tough, a film which I had not seen in years but which I remembered did a hilarious skewering of Werner Erhard's est Training. Anyway, I'm watching Semi-Tough and at one point Burt Reynolds' character goes to get "Pelfed," the latest new age trend. Getting "Pelfed" consisted of being sadisticly beaten by masseuse Clara Pelf, a scrawny little old lady. It was a funny scene, but what really caught my attention was the old woman playing Pelf; it was Rosa Klebb from From Russia With Love (see, the first connection!).

I recognized the face, but didn't know the name. When the film ended I carefully scanned the credits and there it was: Clare Pelf -- Lotte Lenya. Huh? I couldn't have read that right! Back up the TiVo and it still says: Clare Pelf -- Lotte Lenya. But isn't that the name of a character from the song Mac the Knife?

Doesn't it go somethng like...

There's a tugboat, down by the river dontcha know
Where a cement bag's just a'drooppin' on down
Oh, that cement is just, it's there for the weight, dear
Five'll get ya ten old Macky's back in town
Now d'ja hear 'bout Louie Miller? He disappeared, babe
After drawin' out all his hard-earned cash
And now MacHeath spends just like a sailor
Could it be our boy's done somethin' rash?

Now Jenny Diver, ho, ho, yeah, Sukey Tawdry
Ooh, Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown
Oh, the line forms on the right, babe
Now that Macky's back in town

I said Jenny Diver, whoa, Sukey Tawdry
Look out to Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown
Yes, that line forms on the right, babe
Now that Macky's back in town.....

Look out, old Macky's back!!

Well, I had to look this one up and, yep, it's her. The "Lotte Lenya" whose name appears late in the song is, in fact, the actress who appeared in From Russia With Love and Semi-Tough -- she was an Austrian-born singer and actress with a lucrative career in the years between the world wars, and on Broadway following WW II. She was also Mrs. Kurt Weill. For the opening of The Threepenny Opera, Weill wrote The Ballad of Mack the Knife as a part for Lenya the night before the premeire. The Bobby Darin version of the song changed the name of one of the characters from Polly Peachum to Lotte Lenya as a tribute to her career.

And that is how I get from Semi-Tough to From Russia With Love to Mac the Knife.