Millie again !

"In the Ritz elevator you just go up and down"

It was on television, I recorded it (one has the dvd of course), its bliss watching it once again .... this may well be the only Julie Andrews film I love (apart from the first half of VICTOR/VICTORIA). I remember its opening in London in 1967 at that swanky new cinema The Odeon in St Martin's Lane - my best pal Stan and I went and loved it, we practically danced out of the cinema. It was one we returned to several times and used to quote those lines: "just a restless girl", "ARE you?", "sad to be all alone in the world", "please go, enjoy yourselves", "first that interfering Dillmount girl", "shooo show shooo show", "and her beads hang straight" etc - most of these uttered by the beyond words fabulous Beatrice Lillie as Mrs Meers the white slaver. The movie is a delicious pastiche of the 1920s - Millie trying to be a vamp and going out to interview bosses - "I'm in demand, I can typewrite 40 words a minute", then Millie's "first date" with Trevor Graydon (John Gavin spoofing his romantic leading man era), Julie is a delight as is Mary Tyler Moore as Miss Dorothy - the orphan with the chequebook - and James Fox scores again as Jimmy Smith, who invents that mad new dance The Tapioca and gamely drags up to trap Mrs Meers .... we had the soundtrack album. Ross Hunter produced, Russell Metty photographed, Jean Louis did the costumes, Elmer Bernstein did the score, Andre Previn was also involved, George Roy Hill directed it perfectly as he did THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT and THE STING. A class act then, and of course a camp delight.

Jimmy in drag with Millie ...

This is the movie that introduced us to Bea Lillie and we just had to find out more about her and collect her rare movie appearances (EXIT SMILING, ON APPROVAL, DR RHYTHM etc). There was somebody else also in the cast ... oh yes, Muzzy Van Hossmere, or Carol Channing who is delirious and had some terrific moments like her show-stopping "I'm a jazz baby" and "Do it again" - 
I saw Carol Channing in a solo performance at Drury Lane in 1968, I must dig out the programme, Throw in a Jewish wedding, high society Long Island parties, some dangling from skyscrapers, aeroplanes, and a fantastic finale in Chinatown.... 

Its A Movie I Love then, and a musical I cherish as much as A STAR IS BORN (1954) or THE BANDWAGON or GYPSY or SOUTH PACIFIC or ... 
If its the 1920s you want, forget the overblown  GREAT GATSBY and go back to MILLIE !Terrif !  
Later in the '80s, Rory loved it as well ...