MOVIN’ WITH NANCY….Last night I watched a newly-released DVD edition of a 1967 NANCY SINATRA television special called “Movin’ With Nancy” (brought to you in living Technicolor by Royal Crown Cola!). I saw that it featured some Nancy numbers with LEE HAZLEWOOD, and being an admirer of the latter & his duets with the former, I gave it the old college try. Well, I’d hoped it was going to be a Nancy-hosted variety show, with wacky skits and corny interludes, and in a way it was – but really this hour-long show is all about Nancy traveling from location to location and outfit to outfit for a series of primitive (but well done, in their way) music videos. Sometimes Dean Martin shows up; hey, look, here’s Sammy Davis Jr.; and in the most nauseating & cloying number imaginable, a maudlin tribute to dear old dad. Of course her duets with Hazlewood steal the show – they do “Some Velvet Morning”, in which a very narcotized-looking Hazlewood comes riding in on horseback, and a funny romp through “Jackson”, which looks like it was filmed among tract homes in suburban Canoga Park or Downey. The lip synching is bad, the dance numbers are hilarious, and the whole thing makes one wonder how the NBC audience sat through it without excessive fidgeting, without a pause button, and without the benefit we have in 2003 of enjoying it for kitsch value. Get it at Netflix if you’re still so inclined – my copy should be restocked by tomorrow.

posted by Jay H. at 2:54 AM