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Dr. Lotte Lenya from Undercover Blues

I love Undercover Blues!  I catch something new and interesting every time I watch it.  While listening to some oldies music, I heard the MOST-EXCELLENT Undercover Blues reference.


 The Story of Dr. Lotte Lenya:

  1. Michael Bublé sang a cover of Mack the Knife.  Bublé covered Sinatra who covered Bobby Darin's "definitive version," who took it from Louis Armstrong, who brought it to the U.S. from Germany in 1956 from a beautiful singer/actress named Lotte Lenya.
  2. So I looked up the song on Wikipedia and found that The Ballad of Mack the Knife was originally a medieval, German murder ballad sung in an Opera called, Die Dreigroschenoper or The Threepenny Opera.  The Opera opens with a carefree, traveling mistral (read: Jefferson Blue), who sings the gruesome tale of Macheath, comparing him (unfavorably) with a shark, and and recounting the tales of his robberies, murders, rapes, and arson in order to intimidate and frighten the audience (read: Mr. Ferderber).  But article didn't mention Lotte Lenya.  So I looked her up too...
  3. Wikipedia informs us that "Lotte Lenya (born: 18 October 1898 – died: 27 November 1981) was an Austrian singer and actress. In the German-speaking and classical-music world she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her husband, Kurt Weill [composer of the Opera, Die Dreigroschenoper]."  Therefore, if Jefferson Blue is Weill, telling the Opera through his main character, the verbose Balladeer, then naturally Weill's wife, Lenya, is Jane Blue.
  4. Now, here is where the metaphor gets good! The article continues, "In English-language film, Lenya is remembered for her Academy Award-nominated role in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) and as the sadistic Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love (1963)!"
  5. Boom!  Mind blown.  Most brilliant script-writing ever.

*Side Note: Pop mogul and creator of American Idol,  Simon Cowell, named "Mack the Knife" the best song ever written.
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Comments

  1. Julie TSat Mar 05, 12:47:00 AM MST

    thanks for that great detective work, Muerte...would ever would have known? Just ask Rick about Mel Torme's cover of Jack the Knife. It's world renowned.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HeatherSat Mar 05, 06:49:00 AM MST

    That is absolutely fascinating! I should've looked into the name more. Did you know that when he goes in as a reporter and asks about a big front page picture he uses the name of a famous reporter character in an old Cary Grant film. Genius script writing it is.

    ReplyDelete
  3. NoelleSun Mar 06, 10:32:00 AM MST

    And here all this time I just imagined it was a name they'd made up. I'm impressed you did all that research. Bravo, most interesting stuff.

    ReplyDelete

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