It's easy to beat-up on projects that reek of pretention or hubris for laughs, bad ideas gone awry through ego or the tossing of cash or drug use or simple eccentricity; in fact it's one of my favorite pastimes, reading OR writing about filmed "failures." So why defend "Mary's Incredible Dream?"
Because it's bloody amazing. The world has never seen the like, nor will it again. In the drab post-Christmas days of January 1976 this little kid-and scores of others-sat down in front of the TV to be Entertained. We had already survived the World of Sid and Marty Kroft...I defy anyone to point out anything in "Dream" that is more brash, vulgar, loud or confusing than what Kroft's shows did *every Saturday morning* in their shows. We'd had variety specials...watch even the most conservative episode of "Donny and Marie" from the era and feel your ability to blink diminishing...it's still That Powerfully Camp.
But this was different (and still is). The "Mary" we all thought we knew and loved stepping out as a singer and dancer was one thing...merrily jumping feet-first into a Ken-Russell-in-Lisztomania-mode nightmare-rock-opera television special wasn't something ANYone expected, and that's half the fun.
The special loosely explores Biblical themes (God vs. Satan, Adam and Eve, Noah...there's even-gulp-a nail through a giant hand ala crucifixion). It has singing, dancing, fiddle-playing, wacky costumes, tacky sets. It has the Manhattan Transfer playing demons and Old Scratch himself screaming ridiculously as he's returned to his Hellfire. It's a musical variety TV special for the whole family where they chant, "666 is the number of The Beast!"
It assaults the viewer with a barrage of mis-matched musical cues, none of which last more than a minute or so, replicating what one suspects the effects of being on cocaine are like. It has the visual aesthetic of early-70s Sesame Street mixed with a tub of LSD. In one hour it crams in a complete journey from heaven to hell and back again that rivals Disney's "Night On Bald Mountain" in terms of both redemption and insanity.
Yes, it's "bad." We all know it's "bad," it doesn't bear repeating...but what's so bad about it? That it didn't quite do what it set out to do?
Mary doesn't quite convince as a triple-threat diva, warranting smirks at times (even when I was a kid). It looks as if it was hacked together from random cuts at times, as if neither the performers nor the producers had any idea what was going on. It rambles...some parts go on and on, some are cut short. It meanders...it's impossible to tell what's going on half the time. The music is generally shrill (I don't know which is more grating, Ben Vereen's voice, Doug Kershaw's pre-punk fiddling or Manhattan Transfer's blasts of small, screeching segments of otherwise pleasant tunes). Visually it hardly ever slows down (again, channeling Russell), and the visual effects-innovative for the time perhaps-are headache-inducing, although that actually works in its favor after a couple of strong drinks I've noticed. Perhaps the worst "sin" it commits is taking itself too seriously, even as it, like all 70s variety shows, embraces its camp...it doesn't embrace it in the right way I guess.
So what's the "good?" The haunting image of giant hands as a visual motif was seared into my brain when I was a kid, as was the image of a half-submerged Eiffel Tower. The surreal, yet silly, juxtapositions (Mary as a fallen glamor-girl Eve living in a cave singing a torchy love song is alternately weird, sad and hysterical, Mary singing a call-to-arms for recruiting nubile young men nears Fosse-level sexy fun, her expressionistic version of "I'm Still Here" is heartfelt if, still, kind of embarrassing). The religious "rise and fall" elements really hit me as a kid (well, I was pretty religious as a kid)...yeah, her "Morning Has Broken" is laughable but the song is powerful enough to overcome even Mary's feeble attempt. But I memorized every frame of this as I watched it for some reason and it has influenced my own work in myriad ways; it was different, unexpected, it hits the mark in weird ways here and there and it's hard to forget once you've seen it, in positive and negative ways.
Bottom line...this is a fun watch, whether you watch it with irony or straight. I've watched it dozens of times since I first acquired it years ago, after searching for it for decades. I love this messy thing, and I know others do too, and the only thing that's "incredible" is that there's no way to see a good copy of it (yet). Here's a toast to Mary for trying something new and different, for better and for worse...I'm not a "Mary" fan (and maybe Mary fans who didn't like how it betrayed their shallow image of who Mary was are most of the haters) but I'm sure glad this thing exists.
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