T.A.M.I. Show / The Big T.N.T. Show Blu-ray Review
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, November 26, 2016
Horace William Sargent, Jr. may not be a name familiar to many of you, but how can you not love a guy whose obituary in
Variety contained
the following memorable tidbit:
His ambitious but often-unrealized schemes included. . .a proposed closed-circuit fight between a man and a great white shark, stopped by the United
Nations.
In another online tribute to Sargent, a former collaborator of his stated, "He's Mike Todd and P.T. Barnum rolled into one. I have never met a more
flamboyant or brilliant promoter," though Sargent never seemed to be able to actually hold on to that vaunted brass ring after he fleetingly grasped it
at various times. Sargent (who went by the nickname Bill) was at the forefront of early quasi pay per view events, those these weren't transmitted
to televisions but rather via closed circuit to theaters. Sargent got the bright idea of videotaping live events and then transferring them to film in
what for all intents and purposes amounted to that era's version of a "high definition" kinescope (with over 800 interlaced lines of raw video data,
over twice that of "standard" television broadcasts), something that allowed the product to be projected on large screens without
much
degradation of image quality. Sargent dubbed this technology Electronovision, and debuted his idea with a perhaps intentionally highbrow effort,
Richard Burton's celebrated turn as
Hamlet, then a recent Broadway smash hit. Sargent followed up
Hamlet with something
decidedly more "populist" in nature, a concert video entitled
The T.A.M.I. Show, though it's perhaps indicative of some cracks in Sargent's
ostensible promotional acumen that no one seemed to be able to decide what the acronym T.A.M.I. stood for. The trailer for the film clearly states
Teen
Age
Music
International (whatever
that means), while other materials proffer
Teenage
Awards
Music
International, a definition which perhaps more accurately implies that Sargent's
original conception was an annual concert highlighting the best in youth oriented music. Both the appealing commentary on
The T.A.M.I.
Show as well as the in depth essay included in the insert booklet with this two disc set (a relative rarity for a Shout! release) detail how
Sargent's
failure to manage funds (not entirely his fault) led to the quick demise of Electronovision, at least in its iteration
as Electronovision. (For
those interested, there is an absolutely fascinating book called
Dueling Harlows by Tom Lisanti which documents Sargent's
post-
T.A.M.I. attempts to bring his Electronovision version of a biographical film about Jean Harlow out while Joseph E. Levine was prepping
another version of Harlow's tale—with neither "film" doing very well nor it should be added providing anything close to an accurate
accounting of Harlow's life.)
The T.A.M.I. Show is often cited as one of the most remarkable concert videos of its era, with a really
fascinating blend of acts that includes everyone from Lesley Gore to Gerry and the Pacemakers to James Brown to The Rolling Stones. The concert
has had a pretty spotty history on home video, with many bootlegs appearing over the years, often shorn of the performance by The Beach Boys.
Shout! released a restored version on DVD, and is now offering the first high definition version of the concert, along with what was for all intents and
purposes another Electronovision-ish (for lack of a better word) follow-up,
The Big T.N.T. Show, another concert which featured the same
videotape to film technology, but without Sargent's involvement.
For reviews for each of the films in this two disc set, please click on the following links:
The T.A.M.I. Show Blu-ray review
The Big T.N.T. Show Blu-ray review
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