Here's another video from Guys and Dolls but this one's different. The last one was from the 1992 revival. This one's from the 1953 London production which starred Sam Levene and Vivian Blaine playing the roles they'd originated on the New York stage in 1950. It's "Sue Me" performed by the original Nathan Detroit and the original Miss Adelaide.

This was, famously, the only time they let Sam Levene sing in the original show. He was signed for his fame and skill as a popular comic actor but the producers and director soon found that he could not sing…or at least, couldn't sing well enough to belong on Broadway. Even in the songs sung by the entire company, they had to tell Sam to just mouth the words and not make any vocal sounds. But this one was simple enough that even he could handle it…

Polls show Roy Moore losing support left 'n' right in Alabama and of course, that's understandable. But I'm thinking maybe not all of that loss is folks who have now decided he's a child molester and maybe a hypocrite when it comes to scolding others on their morals. I can also imagine two other reactions from Alabama voters who don't care what he did with those young women or think it's ancient history…

One is that he sure looks weak and wimpish, unable to answer a straight question. The Roy Moore some of these folks loved was tough and decisive and if he thought the Ten Commandments oughta be posted somewhere, then by God, he was going to post them and anybody who didn't like it or thought he was breaking the law could go straight to H-E-Double Hockey Sticks. That was the appeal of Trump to some people. He looked like a guy who would take no crap and kick ass and let nothing stand in his way. Moore looks afraid, hesitant and evasive, plus he's hiding behind spokespersons, including his wife.

Another thing is that he must look to some like he doesn't care what's best for his party. He's going to fight to the death for the career of Roy Moore even if it means handing over that Senate seat to some damned Democrat. I can imagine some supporters thinking, "Roy, it's over. You can't win. Get out of the race and make a statement. Proclaim your innocence if you want, pledge to run in the next election after you clear your name…but withdraw and ask your supporters to protect the G.O.P. senate majority by voting for a Republican write-in candidate." But he's not about to do that, at least now.

We may never know the answer to this but I'd love to know how much the drop in his support is because of what he allegedly-but-probably did…and how much is because of how he's handled this whole scandal thing. I would think a fair amount of the latter.

Last Monday evening, my friend Jewel Shepard and I went to the premiere of Justice League up at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, aka "The place where they do the Academy Awards." I had a great time but a lot of that was being at the pre-screening cocktail reception that DC Comics threw, and later at the after-party that Warner Brothers threw, and some of it was the carnival atmosphere of the whole event. I saw lots of friends and there was great food and Jewel got selfies with several stars of the film. That's Jewel above with Henry Cavill. For some reason, she'd rather have a photo with the guy who plays Superman than the guy who writes this blog.

It was fun to see the crowds and on the way in, there were two reporters (I'm using that noun in its loosest sense) doing red carpet interviews of the arriving celebs. I was in awe of their ability to be thrilled to the point of beatitude over every single thing about the movie. They loved the people in it, every single thing they did in it, every single thing they were wearing, very single thing they said, etc. If and when Jesus Christ returns to Earth, he will not get such an enthusiastic reception.

Before I talk about the film itself, I should confess that I haven't seen a lot of these. I think the last DC super-hero movie I saw had Christopher Reeve in the title role. The last Marvel one was the first X-Men movie and I would have walked out of that around the mid-point except that (a) I was sitting next to Stan Lee and (b) I wanted to see if they'd really put Jack Kirby's name in the end-credits and, if so, if it would be in type any larger than the bottom line on an eye chart. Yes, they did and no, it wasn't.

Also, I have a problem with CGI special effects in a live-action movie. Once I'm too aware that that's what I'm watching, I'm watching a cartoon. Everyone in it might just as well have been created on a Wacom tablet.

What the live actors say and do becomes remarkably trivial to me and I'm no longer watching human beings doing those incredible feats or facing possible deaths. We know that in any kind of movie, when a building is going to collapse on the hero in ten seconds, he's not going to perish. He is, after all, the hero. But I can play along with the movie and self-generate a little tension and fear for his demise if it feels like there's a flesh 'n' blood person up there racing to get away. I can even pretend if it's an obvious stunt person. I just can't pretend if it's a cartoon character.

Justice League is full of incredible action scenes, done about as well as effects animators can do them these days. But only once in a while did I feel it had any actual people in it.

And yet, I probably liked it more than most of the reviewers who've weighed in so far. Some of them are furious that it's not the Justice League movie they wanted to see or perhaps make.

My reaction was tepid at first, except for the rescue scene with Wonder Woman. That was pretty good for two reasons, one being the stunning screen presence of Gal Gadot. It wasn't angled oddly and dimly-lit and cut at such a frantic pace that you couldn't get a handle on what was happening or where anyone was in relation to anyone else. And it featured a super-hero doing something super-heroic and not looking ferocious and maniacal.

Then came a lot of scenes that I found hard to follow and noisy and contrary to a lot of how I think those characters should be depicted. Since Jewel was next to me instead of Stan Lee, I pondered leaving…but I knew Jack Kirby's name was in the end crawl and in a legible font so I stayed. Also, we still had two hours 'til the after-party and you know what an After-Party Animal I am.

I was glad I stuck it out because about the time You-Know-Who was resurrected from the dead in the least-surprising surprise in the history of film — my mind changed about what I was watching. I made the shift to: "You know, I don't care a lot for this kind of movie but if I did, this would be a pretty good 'this kind of movie.'" I decided to just sit back, enjoy whatever I could find to enjoy and ignore the rest as I waited for Jack's credit and the after-party.

And why not? Jewel and I got in free and they paid for all the guests' parking at the Highland and Hollywood entertainment center which, knowing that place, probably doubled the budget of the movie. We had good seats and I had my free box of freshly-popped-last-month popcorn and my free bottle of Dasani water. I decided to turn off the writer part of my brain for the rest of the evening and stop thinking they'd buried the plot and "Why the hell didn't they explain where that came from?" and all other mental sniping.

Yeah, so it stretched reality that Batman was holding his own and surviving for two seconds against a villain who could annihilate mortals with the flick of his pinkie. The following mindset clicked in: This is a movie about a guy from the planet Krypton, a man who breathes underwater and talks to fish, an Amazon princess…

Where is any reality to stretch?

And besides, Batman was never any closer to death than Wile E. Coyote plunging into a canyon because yet another Acme product had failed him. Why didn't that punch he took, the one that sent him flying across the room, kill him immediately? Because he's Batman and he's CGI, that's why. When you look at it that way, it makes perfect sense.

Some reviewers don't seem to like what they've done to some of the characters we've lived with most of our lives. Some time ago, I decided the best way to deal with that was not to curse the new versions but just to say, "Okay, these are new guys with the same names." The Flash was once Jay Garrick. Later, he was Barry Allen. He was someone else for a while and now he's a different fellow named Barry Allen. Someday, completing the Circle of Life, he will probably be Jay Garrick again.

I actually thought the current Flash was the most interesting character in the film even though I have no clue how he got those powers or all that equipment or what he does with all of it. Is the idea here that I have to go see another movie year after next to learn all that and find out how he gets his dad out of prison? Okay, fine. Maybe DC will invite me to that one too. They'll probably still have some of the same popcorn lying around. But I'll go because I liked Ezra Miller in the role. He had about 85% of all the humanity there was in that script.

Who did I like least? Batman. And yes, I know: Everyone's got their own idea of who Batman should be. In Justice League and I guess in films before it, he's become a pretty ugly and way over-equipped character. A few weeks ago, Jewel and I were at a screening of the new Batman direct-to-video animated movie, the one with Adam West's final performance. It's now an ongoing joke in Batman's sillier depictions that he somehow has all these amazing gizmos with no known science or logic attached. If aliens from the planet Beta-23 were to land in Gotham City and begin changing everyone into talking, nine-legged scallops, Batman would save the day by hauling out the Bat-Nine-Legged-Scallop-Reversal-Ray that he always carries for just such an emergency. It also saves the day for the writers who can imagine up the most heinous, incredible menaces and awesome pending doomsdays free of any requirement that they come up with a genuine, satisfying solution to them.

That joke turns out to be how he functions in the Justice League movie, too. It's what gives him some parity with Superman and other characters who can fly and deflect bullets and who won't die even if someone drops a three-story condominium on them. "My Batman" uses his brains and his physical agility to triumph instead of billion-dollar hardware and he also isn't a brooding, obsessive maniac. He's also drawn by Dick Sprang.

But they didn't make a movie about My Batman. Someone will some day but for now…well, I started feeling too much like a guy I know who hates all the new James Bond movies because 007 isn't played by Sean Connery. I decided to stop fighting the movie I was watching for what it wasn't and looking for what I could enjoy for what it is. From that point on, I had a pretty good time. If you're of my age and/or you have grand affection for earlier versions of these heroes, you might try what I did. You don't have to renounce that affection but maybe you can put it aside for the duration of the movie and also stop looking for realism in a movie where even the heroes' muscles are CGI-enhanced. If you can't, don't go…no matter how awesome the after-party promises to be.

Baby hedgehogs adopted by a cat. That's right. I said "Baby hedgehogs adopted by a cat…"

Well, for some of us. I guess there are those who are cheering that Senator Al Franken is in trouble today…

A woman said Thursday that Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken groped her and kissed her without her consent in 2006 while she was on a USO Tour overseas.

That he did this doesn't seem to be in dispute — there's a photo, after all — and he has issued a couple of apologies and asked to have a proper ethics investigation which was probably going to happen even if he hadn't asked for one. The woman in question, talk radio host Leeann Tweeden, seems to have accepted his apology and she said, "I'm not calling on him to step down" but that her opinion may change if other women come forward with similar allegations. How she feels will not matter to some.

I assume that if other women turned up with other credible accusations, Franken would certainly have to step down. If it's just this one, some people will still call for it but he might survive. Most of us can buy the idea that someone could do a really creepy, inappropriate thing — something well below the seriousness of physical violence — once as a boneheaded mistake. If they do it repeatedly, that's when it becomes indicative of who they are.

If I were Franken, I think I'd cooperate with the ethics investigation and if its findings indicate it's just the one offense but that he should resign, I'd say, "Fine. I'll quit just as soon as you do the ethics investigation of the guy in the White House with far more (and far more serious) accusations against him!" But I bet he won't do that.

If seems like this is an isolated incident, he might still might be out but he'll surely have to quit if a pattern emerges. That's when a lot of people will be saying, "What a sad ending to the Al Franken Decade." No matter what happens, I'm really disappointed in the man.

This is the press reel for the 1992 Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls, which starred Nathan Lane, Faith Prince, Peter Gallagher and Josie de Guzman. It's 22+ minutes of musical highlights from the show and don't be fooled. They have real short versions of most of the numbers, then they go through them all again with longer excerpts. So don't quit on this the first time there's a long pause of blank video. The stuff you want to see is after the fast run-through.

You may notice in the cast a balding gent in a magenta suit. That's J.K. Simmons back then. Of course, there's now a law that prohibits the making of a super-hero movie without giving a role to J.K. Simmons so he's not appearing much on Broadway these days.

I saw this production and thought it was terrific…

I'd like to expand on a thought I posted here last night, writing about sexual predators. I wrote, "Some abusers cannot be made to understand the wrongness of what they are doing to others. At best, you might be able to get them to understand what they're doing to themselves." I should have added that you also might be able to get them to understand what they're doing to their friends and loved ones.

Back before we were all living 24/7 on the Internet, some of us communicated via dial-in (by phone) computer bulletin boards. I ran one for a time for the Writers Guild. Writers would phone in by modem and post public and private messages to one another.

There was a writer I knew well. Many of my friends will know exactly who I'm talking about. I liked the guy…at times. He did some wonderful things for others, including me. He did some rotten things to others, including me. He is gone now and I suppose I look back on him with a gram of fondness because I have the kind of mind that over time, minimizes the rotten things and gravitates to the wonderful ones.

He was a ferocious salesman for his writing, never taking "no" for an answer. He sold, sold, sold like no one else I've ever encountered. There were studios that hired him merely because it was easier to do that than to fend off his constant onslaught…and sometimes, they were happy they did. He was not a terrible writer. I envied him some of the jobs he got but not how he got them. I kind of like the idea that people hire me because they like my work and maybe even me. He didn't care if every producer he harangued thought he was an asshole of limited ability — an understandable assumption, given his approach — just as long as one of them gave him an assignment.

He took a not-dissimilar approach towards women, propositioning them relentlessly wherever he went. At one point, he decided it would be a good idea to send a private message to half the women who used the Writers Guild Bulletin Board System. It was a simple, straightforward invitation to come over to his office sometime soon and perform oral sex on him. He didn't even offer to go to them. They were to come to him, though he was magnanimously willing to be available at any hour as long as no one else was outside waiting her turn.

These were not women who had ever indicated the slightest interest in doing this. Most were total strangers to him and a few were not even women. He just picked his recipients at random — anyone he thought was female — and a couple were male writers with androgynous first names like Pat and Chris. Why did he send this message to only half of the BBS roster? Because he thought the response might be so overwhelming that he wouldn't be able to accommodate all the eager volunteers. Eventually, he'd get around to e-mailing the rest, he figured.

You may be surprised to hear that there were no takers…and oddly enough, he really wasn't. He was used to rejection. He considered it just a part of a campaign that would eventually at some point succeed…and if it succeeded, then who cared how many times he got rejected or how much discomfort he caused to others? Maybe he could send the same offer over and over again to some of these women and a couple would finally come over and service him just to stop him from asking. After all, producers had hired him on pretty much that basis.

Strangely, women did not rush to accept. I think one guy named Casey might have been vaguely interested but no one of the targeted gender was. A few, to be fair, were amused and sent back fairly witty rejoinders. A number of them suggested he try self-service. A lot of them complained to the management of the Bulletin Board System.

And who was the management of the Bulletin Board System? Why, that was me, of course. I'd signed onto the job to set up computers and modems and software. You can imagine how thrilled I was to have to deal with this.

I'm not sure how any of today's social media outlets handle a situation like this even if they even handle it at all. Back then, there were no policies or precedents and when I inquired of a WGA lawyer as to what I should do, he said, "I have no idea. You'd have to figure it out." I decided to phone the writer and have it out with him.

It did no good to tell him how mad some women were. He didn't take their outrage seriously and so what? If even one of them came across, it was a winning strategy. He actually said to me, "If you buy a hundred lottery tickets and one wins, you don't regret buying the 99 that didn't."

It also did no good to point out to him that so far, not a single woman had called to ask him for directions and say, "I'll be right over." Just because a strategy hadn't succeeded yet didn't mean it wouldn't. There was still half the membership of the B.B.S. who hadn't received his generous offer. And even if it never succeeded, in his mind nothing was lost. "It didn't cost me anything to try," he told me. The shameless cannot be shamed.

What did work on him was when I said, "Think about all the trouble you're causing me. This has already taken hours of my time…and while you might not care if they're furious at you, I'm not thrilled that they're so mad at me for not doing something about what you did." A couple had talked about taking legal action, I pointed out, and that would surely cost me grief and time, along with endangering the future of the B.B.S.

It also worked to tell him that if this matter got any bigger, it was likely the whole town would hear about it. I said, "It's sure not going to help you get work…and by the way, some of the women who now think you're a creepy pervert have hiring power or will in the future."

That really got to him, though I think just understanding the position he'd put me in might have been enough. He didn't send the message out again. He phoned some of the women who were most upset and sent e-mailed apologies to others. I'm not sure how much of that repair work he did but I did hear from several ladies that they were satisfied and everyone seemed to think we should just drop it…and dropped, it was. I don't think anyone ever mentioned it to me again.

Obviously, as sexual misdeeds go, that was not a major offense. He never laid a finger on anyone or cost them a job but it was still wrong. Obviously too, a lot of people who do bad things will stop doing them when they realize how they're harming themselves…or could. We will never know how many predators stop preying because they see what's happening to the Harvey Weinsteins of the world and think, "If they can nail them, they can nail me," but I'm sure some of them will be less inclined to harass.

What I think needs to be said to some of them is this: If you're not going to stop because you're hurting the woman…and you're oblivious or uncaring about how you hurt yourself…

Stop because you're putting your friends and family in a very bad, very awkward position. Predators may think of women as interchangeable and disposable but they probably don't feel that way about everyone in their world. Even psychopaths with no sense of the harm they do to their victims usually care about somebody, someplace. It's not as valid as getting them to understand what they're doing to their victims but it's a good start and hey, whatever works.

The Voctave singers are back with another Disney medley, this one from Cinderella…

A person who shall remain anonymous here wrote…well, actually a couple of people have written to ask this but I'll quote this one and then respond…

With all this talk of Sexual Harassment going on, I'm seeing something about a DC editor who has done some inappropriate things and I have to ask. Is this kind of thing as prevalent in comics as it is in movies and TV?

First off, I don't believe I've ever even met that particular editor at DC. I know zero about that matter other than what's been published for all the world to see and I don't even know how accurate that may be. So let's put that group of accusations aside.

Does it happen in comics? Yes, absolutely. Is it as prevalent? No, I don't think it could be. Part of that is because most people in comics don't get as wealthy and therefore as powerful (and maybe power-mad) as the top people in film and television. Sex and money have this way of integrating. More of one leads to more of another.

Part of it also is that the comic book business is not as crowded with young and beautiful people seeking employment. There are some but obviously, if you're really, really good looking, you're more likely to look in a mirror and think, "I should be in the movies" as opposed to "I should be inking for Marvel."

Part of it also is that a lot of folks involved in comics are freelancers who do their work largely by mail. It's hard to grope someone via Federal Express, even if you use Priority Overnight.

And part of it is that in show biz, there's a bit more of a sex-charged environment since you have performers auditioning for and engaging in love scenes, nude scenes and other scenes based on physical appearance. When I was working on variety shows, we had dancer auditions and rehearsals that made you think about sex the way working at See's Candy would make you think of chocolate-covered anything. I also think all those stories of "the casting couch" lead to an environment where some simply expect that's part of the playing field.

There's probably sexual impropriety in every business and it certainly isn't confined to the truly beautiful being targeted. Plain people are victimized along with the stunning. Like guys in a singles bar just before closing, some men will hit on anyone who fulfills one basic requirement: She has to be there.

(There was a time when I might have said, "She has to be there and awake" but Mr. Cosby has lowered the bar even further.)

The comic book field definitely has its share and the incidents I know of are probably not all that different from what goes on in a lot of industries. No matter what field you work in, there are those with hiring power and those who need jobs. There are probably also those with sexual yearnings that are not appeased via their mates…if they even have mates. And everywhere you go in this world, there are people with bad manners, bizarre senses of humor and an utter misunderstanding of the opposite sex.

Yeah, I know several stories. I wish I didn't but I do and I was involved in a few attempts, at least once of which was successful, to get someone to cease that kind of behavior and apologize to the victim…which was all that particular victim wanted to have happen. The resolutions of some other situations were not as satisfactory. Some abusers cannot be made to understand the wrongness of what they are doing to others. At best, you might be able to get them to understand what they're doing to themselves.

I think there is more of it in the TV and movie industries than there is in comics but I say that with a couple of caveats. One is that any amount is intolerable and the fact that it's worse somewhere else doesn't mean there isn't a problem where you are. Also, the comic book business is slowly but certainly merging into the TV and movie industries so this whole distinction is becoming increasingly moot.

I'm back from the big premiere of the Justice League movie. Someone said they spent $300 million on this movie and it shows, especially if you figure $100 million for that after-party. I'm not going to review it because I think we're supposed to wait until it formally opens and also because I'm even more tired than if I'd been in the big fight scene. I also think it's one of those movies where the less you know going in, the more you'll enjoy it. So I'll just say "Wow" and go to bed. Wow.

• If they don't start this movie soon, the sequel will be out first.

• No one in L.A. will go see Justice League this weekend. The entire population is here at the premiere.

They each had one line in the original 1967 film of The Producers. Hank was the stagehand who got conked on the head by Ken Mars. Bill was the jury foreman who said, "We find the defendants incredibly guilty." Georgi Mihailov was the first of many readers who wrote in with the right answer but we have some lovely parting gifts for the rest of you.

Riley the Toucan struggles to grasp the concept behind the water faucet…

I have a lot of e-mail this morning about the documentary just mentioned, and it's being debated in many crannies of Ye Olde Internet. Of those who think it was biased or unfair, about half seem to think it bent too heavily in favor of Stan Lee and about half think it leaned too far towards Jack Kirby. I'm not even sure what I think but I was greatly amused by this. A person I don't know at all, and who I suspect is hiding behind a bogus handle, wrote me angrily that I was too critical of Stan Lee. Among other things, he wrote…

Nowhere in the show do you say Stan was important. Nowhere do you admit that without both Stan and Jack, the Marvel Universe would never have existed.

It's usually a waste of time with these people but just for the heck of it, I wrote him back and, first of all, reminded him that I was interviewed for, like, forty minutes. The producers picked out which six or seven sentences of mine would get on the air out of hundreds I said in front of their cameras. "You don't know what I said that they didn't use," I told him and then I pointed out —

Near the beginning of the show, you hear an unidentified voice say, "If you didn't have Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the right place at the right time, we wouldn't be talking about Marvel Comics today." That's me.

They lifted the audio of something I said and put it over a photo of Stan and Jack, which is fine. I thought what I wrote would cause the guy to write back to me and say something like, "Oh, sorry." Instead, what I received was…

You criticized Stan for not defending Kirby more but you didn't have the guts to say that on camera.

I am reminded of a time one of my college professors was debating some point with a student who didn't want to listen and only wanted to insist over and over again that he was right and everybody else in the whole friggin' world was wrong. The prof said, "It's like arguing with a hamster."