Strike Up The Band film on DVD

Well, this 1940 MGM film may share its title with the 1930 Gershwin musical, but that's about all Strike Up The Band has from the original. A follow-up to the box office bonanza Babes in Arms, this vehicle for Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland doesn't deserve the Gershwin name.

I've actually seen the original stage version performed in a Encores-like semi-staging. I can't recall a thing about it, but in comparing the song list of the stage and film versions, only the title song appears in both. This seems to be due to Roger Edens, who is credited with writing most of the music in the film. After butchering Bernstein in On The Town, and now Gershwin in Strike Up The Band, I'm starting to dislike Mr. Edens. Perhaps there is a back story that needs to be uncovered to understand what happened.

I have to say, I do like the fruit orchestra sequence. I wonder if this is one of the earliest examples of stop-action photography, or whatever film technique is used.

Strike Up The Band
One song by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin
The rest of the songs by Roger Edens
MGM film from 1940
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, June reisser, Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra, Larry Nunn, Ann Shoemaker

Ghost Light Monday--Chris and Don: A Love Story

Intriqued about Christopher Isherwood from my recent thinking about Cabaret, I went to see the film documentary Chris and Don: A Love Story about the 30+ year relationship between Isherwood and Don Bachardy.

The focus of the film is really on Bachardy as he reminisces about the life that Isherwood opened up to him. It deals very little with Isherwood as a literary figure, although does mention most of his significant works. Excerpts from Isherwood's diaries are read by Michael York, continuing his doppleganger position from Cabaret.

The film is enjoyable. While referring to the 30 year age difference between the two men, the film doesn't dwell on it. Nor does it make a big deal about the sexual intimacy of the relationship. But it serves up a big dose of the emotional intimacy between Isherwood and Bachardy, which included a father-and-son-like fostering of Bachardy in the early stages of the relationship, and a parent-child-like care-taking of Isherwood in the late stage of his life.

I had never heard of Bachardy prior to seeing this film, and knew nothing of Isherwood's personal life beyond his early days with W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender in England and Germany. Perhaps I'll now read some of Isherwood's later diaries (if they are published) or his seminal Christopher and His Kind.

Chris and Don: A Love Story
Documentary Film by Tina Mascara and Guido Santi
In limited release currently
Cast: Christopher Isherwood, Don Bachardy, Michael York, Leslie Caron, Liza Minnelli

On The Town film on DVD

New York, New York, it's a Wonderful Town. And this is a Wonderful Film! Deservedly a classic musical picture with a star-studded cast. The stage show of On The Town has some music that didn't make it to the film, most notably for me is "Lonely Town", a ballad which Gabey sang in the original Broadway production. It's a great song and I miss it. I also miss "I Can Cook, Too" which Nancy Walker sang in the stage version as cabby Hildy. The songs that Roger Edens wrote for the film, aren't all that special when compared with Bernstein.

With Gene Kelly as star and co-director, it's not surprising that dance plays a big role in this film, as it must do in the stage version, too, since the show originated as an idea for a Jerome Robbins ballet with music by Bernstein. As the theatrical trailer, which is about the only DVD extra, states--"It's twice as gay as 'Anchors Aweigh' " and boasts "A Torrent of Talent and Tunes."

I wonder if there is a more accurate version of On the Town on film, perhaps a taping of a stage production.

On The Town
Music by Leondard Bernstein
Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Screenplay by Comden and Green based on their stage play
Additional music by Roger Edens
Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
Cast: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, Vera Ellen.

Cabaret film on DVD

My Year now has two musical films in a row directed by Bob Fosse. Let's compare and contrast Sweet Charity with Cabaret.

Both films feature standout performances by lead women.

Both lead female characters are alone and searching for something.

Charity is looking for a quiet life with a husband and baby.

Sally is looking or the wild life of fame and fortune and avoids getting a husband and baby.

Both leading characters are eternal optimists.

Both feature a chorus line of women from the wrong side of the rail.

Clearly, the Mr. Fosse of Cabaret owes a lot to the Mr. Fosse of Sweet Charity. In Sweet Charity he was trying out various cinematic techniques; with Cabaret, Mr. Fosse has a much stronger sense of his cinematic vision for telling the story. The camera tricks are used much more sparingly and don't get in the way of the story, but help us see it more clearly. In Charity there was an Overture and Intermission, mimicking how people experienced the stage version of musical. With Cabaret, that convention is thrown out.

Fosse's choreography seems to have evolved as well. The isolation moves are still there, but they are much less constraining--perhaps fitting in the looser environment of Weimar Berlin.

The movie loses some of the music of the stage show and really only presents musical numbers that are in the setting of the Cabaret. So Brian and Fritz and Natalia and Fraulein Schneider don't sing. I think this probably heightens the contrast between the cabaret-world and the "real" world of fascism, hate crimes, and violence. However, it prevents us from knowing some of the inner thoughts of the characters, which a good ballad would give us. I've never seen the show on stage, so I don't know for certain what's missing.

Michael York seems the perfect embodiment of Christopher Isherwood, on whose Berlin Stories this stage show and film are based--young, thin, beautiful, blond, with a swoop of blond hair that makes him look like he just left the campus of Eaton.

There is an independent film out right now called Chris and Don: A Love Story, that is about Isherwood in Hollywood. Perhaps it will soon add some insight to my musical thinking.

Cabaret
Music by John Kander
Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Book by Joel Masteroff
Screenplay by Jay Presson Allen
(a woman, who is also the playwright of Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Tru)
Directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse
Cast: Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Joel Grey, Fritz Wepper, Helmut Griem, Marisa Berenson.

Sweet Charity film on DVD

I seem to be in a DVD rut at this point in my Year. But if they are all as good as Bob Fosse's film version of his stage production of Sweet Charity, then I'm fine by it. Shirley MacLaine has exactly the right balance of bravado and vulnerability, eternal optimist and perennial victim. And she is the perfect embodiment of Fosse's choreography. The music is at the same time bubbly and specific to time/place/character.

This was Bob Fosse's first job directing a film and there is an interesting DVD extra about his efforts to translate his stage production to film. He uses a lot of various cinematic techniques in telling the story and presenting the music and dance. Sometimes they feel a little dated and slow down the story-telling, but I give him points for looking outside the box.

The men get short-changed in terms of musical numbers in this film, which cuts several of the songs from the stage show. But there is a good ol' fashioned Stubby Kaye chorus number.

I found myself mesmerized by the portrayals by some notable musical theater performers in smaller roles in the film, which I think is a positive comment on their watch ability. Chita Rivera is front and center on the rail during the "Big Spender" number, and finally gets the dance on the roof she was denied when Rita Moreno was cast in the film of West Side Story. The afore-mentioned Stubby Kaye is the dance hall manager. Ben Vereen appears in the night club dance scene. And I think I can totally get behind any religion that has Sammy Davis Jr. as its apostle!

Sweet Charity
Music by Cy Coleman
Lyrics by Dorothy Fields
Screenplay by Peter Stone (of 1776?) based on the book of the stage musical by Neil Simon
Directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse
Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Chita Rivera, Ricardo Montalban, Stubby Kaye, Sammy Davis Jr., John McMartin

Finian's Rainbow film on DVD

I always thought the Rankin and Bass version of Fred Astaire in Santa Claus is Comin' to Town was a tremendous exaggeration of his long face and strong jaw, but some shots of Mr. Astaire in Finian's Rainbow prove that the claymation version is not overly exaggerated.

This film version was produced in 1968, 20 years after the stage musical premiered, and is the final film lead for Mr. Astaire. According to the movie database, the racial satire in the story had to wait for a more liberal time to be made into a film. From the opening chorus number, the inter-racial cast is a clue that this is not a typical musical of the 1940s, and some of the racial humor is hysterical even 40 years after the film was made. At the same time, the casting of Petula Clark and Don Francks as romantic leads Sharon and Woody clearly make this a film of the 1960s.

I had heard the songs "How are Things in Glocca Morra" and "Look to the Rainbow" before and liked their folk-song style in the context of the story. But there are lots of styles of music in this show-including a rousing gospel-style chorus about buying things out of the Sears-Roebuck catalogue! Other songs have a more contemporary feel to the era of the musical's creation and feel a little dated now. "Old Devil Moon" feels very much like a big band era song, especially in the orchestral arrangement in the film.

Finian's Rainbow
Music by Burton Lane
Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg
Book by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy
Warner Bros. film release directed by Francis Ford Coppola!
Cast: Fred Astaire, Petula Clark, Don Francks, Tommy Steele, Keenan Wynn, Al Freeman Jr., Barbara Hancock

Paint your Wagon film on DVD

Points given to Lee Marvin for at least trying, which is more than some seem to do in this 1969 film version of Lerner and Loewe's 1951 Paint Your Wagon.

Alan Jay Lerner is the producer of the film, and it must be due to his efforts that the show was put on film 18 years after its stage debut. I've never seen the stage version, so I don't know how they compare.

This show and story and score have not passed the test of time. "They Call the Wind Maria" is the only song I previously knew from the score. "I talk to the Trees" might be a pretty tune, but it's lost in delivery. And Elizabeth's song "Behind the Door" and Ben's "I was Born under a Wanderin' Star" might be pretty, too, if they were written in a real vocal range, rather than in the key of basement husky. There's some fun choruses for men--lively and raucous--but nothing that really moves the story along. On the whole there are better "frontier" musicals that I look forward to hearing and seeing as my Year progresses.

Paint Your Wagon
Music by Frederick Loewe
Lyrics and book by Alan Jay Lerner
1969 Film version
Cast: Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, Jean Seberg, Harve Presnell, and Ray Walston with the worst red hair and accent of his career.