Supremes in the Orient tv special

[sup_fan]

i've heard that part of the rationale for having the Orient tour filmed was to possibly use as a tv special for the girls.

seems like a great idea although there doesn't appear to be enough footage to fill a 60 min special. of course it is edited down so they could have maybe expanded. But i thought maybe they could have mixed in footage of the girls live, sort of like what i think the "Going Back to Gary" special was for the J5 - a mix of live performances and content taped just for the special

so what possibly could the girls have done to fill in the time? i would guess that since the Orient material was done in Sept 66 that the broadcast wouldn't be until early 67. so i'm using that as a cutoff date for material

the Orient footage is basically the Roostertail 66 show on Symphony EE.

*Come See About Me - i think this was a great opening on the bootleg video. would go ahead and make it unedited
*arriving in Orient - there's footage of them walking on the tarmacs and in the planes. maybe include IHAS along with this footage
*interview snippets in Tokyo and doing the a cappella YCHL and then segueing into the full live version of song
*Symphony medley

<commercial break>

Behind the scenes material
*studio footage starting with the clip of Detroit skyline used in Anatomy of Pop and My World is Empty
*additional motown footage of the girls rehearsing and recording [[some of this would probably have to be staged) maybe Yesterday is the song here and end with the footage of the girls about to go on stage, segueing into...
*You keep me hanging on - this would be new footage of the girls filmed for this broadcast. either singing live or lip syncing
*make someone happy

<commercial break>

*Back to the orient - Queen of the house in the costumes
*Back in my arms again - song fades out prior to the M and F verse and segues into...
*interview with the girls - they introduce themselves and D and M and F and there are a few of the basic interviews about they likes and backgrounds, the motown sound, etc. which segues back into...
*rest of Back in My Arms Again with "how can mary..."
*michelle
*let there be love or maybe More

<commercial break>

*new studio material doing some of the showtunes
*put on a happy face
*somewhere
*people
*millie/rose/mame medley

<commercial break>
*now that you've heard some of our favorite... intro
*baby love
*stop in the name of love
*where did our love go
*sam cooke medley

[bradsupremes]

Like everyone else, I've heard rumors it was intended to be a TV special, but anyone who watches it realizes there's no way any network would have bought it. It's beyond horribly edited. I'm not sure what Motown was thinking or the team they hired to do it [[according to the end credits - it was edited by Nancy Sen and produced & directed by Humphrey Hinshelwood), but for such a high profile label and the hottest group in the country at the time, it's embarrassing at how bad it is. It may be the reason why nothing was ever done with it.

Ideally, I would love to go back to the original footage to see what was all there as it appears they taped several of their live shows and there was more footage of their daily visits/activities. Unfortunately we know how Gordy/dePasse are when it comes to the video/film archive end of Motown...they do absolutely nothing with it.

[sup_fan]

in the fan bootleg, it's clear that Roostertail 66 was used for the audio. don't know if the film itself was done without audio or if it was so poor it was unusable

of course the fan footage is all sorts of jacked up. the bits and pieces of the tapes used in motown 25 and other specials do allow up to see the footage at least in a clear/top level state. And yes, the editing of this film was atrocious but i'm assuming somewhere is the unedited footage, which is what i think could have been used.

[Spreadinglove21]

I wonder if there was enough usable footage to plop into an Ed Sullivan show segment about the Supremes performing over there? Then after the footage, cut to Ed introducing the Supremes on the Sullivan stage performing a show tune like People or their latest single?

[sup_fan]

i wonder if they could have also used photographs in a montage format, similar to the Afro Vogue segment. Like the girls all dressed up in the geisha outfits. there are zillions of pics from that.

that's also why i thought maybe combining the orient footage with something in a studio/current. maybe Ed could have been convinced to use 30 of the 60 mins. in 1966 any of the international touring was pretty impressive [[more so than today) and certainly a Tour of the Orient would have been rather noteworthy. and that this was NOT part of a USO tour.

i think Ed did eventually use clips of the 4 Tops and GN&TP performing songs for troops in the military hospitals.

According to Mary's book, the tour included Tokyo, Okinawa, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Manila, plus several military bases and the USS Coral Sea aircraft carrier. now THAY would have been some footage!!! image the thousands of men on the deck and the girls' stage set up there.

[floyjoy678]

I'm not sure if they did use the Roostertail audio. There are some that sound different from that recording. Definitely would love to see the footage unedited.

Anyone ever notice Flo's microphone not working during Come See About Me? It seems like the same thing happened on the Roostertail show too.

There must have been a lot of military men seeing them at those shows. During Baby Love when the girls are dancing during the middle break, those guys are hollering like they haven't seen a woman in years.

[sup_fan]

it's hard to pick up the little inflections of their voices on the bootleg since it's so distorted. but i'm pretty sure it's the Roostertail. 1) they recorded the roostertail so they had the audio ready 2) flo's mic, i'm assuming that didn't happen frequently during Song #1 Come See About Me 3) the ad libs and all do seem to match up. So i was guessing that they used that audio and some video footage too. I'm pretty sure they also used some of the video footage from the roostertail in the "orient" movie. along with of course stuff from the orient. They played the Roostertail just days after getting home

[bradsupremes]

It has mixed audio from the Roostertail and what was recorded live on tape.