After a bit of digging, I've found that the 'Maria' clip comes from Meet Sammy Davis Jr part 2, which was made the year after the show that BBC4's repeating tonight. So, here, from The A-Z of LE, transmitted as part of Lime Grove Day in 1991, is the clip in question. The bongo player is Juan Mendoza, and on first viewing, I thought that the shot had been achieved using overlay or inlay techniques, but the shadow cast on Sammy's arm at 0:50 clinches it. Mendoza is physically sitting in front of the camera, which is mounted on a camera crane being moved backwards and forwards. I'd love to know who the senior cameraman on this was. Someone like ELS904 will have a shrewd idea.
4 comments:
I'm afraid this is just a little before my time. I could make an educated guess - as you probably could. A producer credit would help. We might have a definitive name this time next week.
Producer was Dennis Main Wilson, and it was done at the TV Theatre.
I'm surprised that DMW produced the shows - it really wasn't his kind of thing and I would have thought that the powers that were would have given the gig to someone more experienced in music. Perhaps there were fewer specialists the, but LE was divided into Comedy and Variety and Denis was firmly in the Comedy camp when I knew him. I don't recall him having a favourite crew, though.
I was very surprised too, but then Sammy was a handful, so maybe Tom Sloan thought fighting fire with fire was the way. Also, there's a lot of comedy in the show. It was 1963, which would probably have been during Stewart's wilderness years. Whatever, Dennis did a grand job. His side of the story is here - http://www.screenonline.org.uk/audio/id/946860/index.html
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