Weekend treats ..... six from that fab year 1962

It should be in widescreen reallv....

Back to La La Land

A return visit to LA LA LAND was nice this week, for a rainy afternoon, as my partner had not seen it, and yes, he loved it - the music and dancing and the jazz and all those bright colours. I liked it a lot too again, but it seemed a tad too long, and maybe shallow. 

But hey, we like Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone is a big discovery for me and some sequences just sang for me, recalling moments from the Cukor 1954 A STAR IS BORN (walking around the movie sound stages), AN AMERICAN IN PARIS,  SINGING IN THE RAIN, THE BANDWAGON's "Dancing In The Dark"- Minnelli is a big influence here as is French director Jacques Demy - echoes of UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG and particuarly THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT, that 1967 delight and of course Scorsese's NEW YORK NEW YORK with that other driven, more intense couple both finding their individual careers but having to separate to do so - LA LA LAND is not quite in that league, but has so many blissful moments we don't care, thanks to Damien Chazelle's flair. He captures the spirit of those films and recreates it in present day Los Angeles - Joni's "city of the fallen angels", taking in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE's Griffith Park Observatory along the way. 
More on Scorsese, Demy, Minnelli and Ryan at labels. 

A new Dreamgirls

Wow - what a show: non-stop singing, dancing and more costume changes than one can count, plus a diva in the making, as  the 1981 musical DREAMGIRLS finally gets a London production, with a show-stopping turn by Amber Riley (we loved her as Mercedes in GLEE) as Effie, the lead singer of the girl group who is side-lined and finally ousted in favour of the prettier and slimmer Deena, as that girlgroup becomes famous in the late sixties and early seventies. The period is caught nicely here, as soul and r'n'b cross over from black music to mainstream, that era when Tamla, Stax, Atlantic etc hit their golden era.

The musical follows the career of The Dreamettes, a black girl trio from Chicago, loosely based on The Supremes, who rise to fame and fortune during the 1960s. But not before their ambitious manager, Curtis Taylor Jr – a Detroit used car salesman turned Svengali – has renamed them The Dreams and replaced the ferociously talented and feisty Effie White as both lead singer and the lover in his bed with her backup colleague and childhood chum, Deena Jones. She’s a more svelte and malleable proposition, whose prettiness and smoother sound Curtis reckons is likelier to appeal to the cross-over audience and television-viewing record-buyers he’s determined to conquer. It’s a powerful story of how music can sell its soul to avarice and about the artistic compromises forced on black composers and performers if they wanted to swim in the mainstream.

This show has it all. Amber is sensational and of course her huge number "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" raises the roof - standing ovation of course. Having seen Aretha and Barbra in their young prime (Aretha in 1968 and '70, Barbra in the London FUNNY GIRL in 1966) I can confirm Amber is the real deal. The whole team work non-stop and the other numbers like "Steppin' to the bad side" get them all moving, as well as the different versions of  "One Night Only".

Michael Bennett of course created the original show which featured Jennifer Holiday (whose albums I liked a lot), Jennifer Hudson and Beyonce did the film, and now Amber and Joe Aaron Reid (as manager Curtis) and Adam J Bernard as the James Brown like singer, now lead the London cast 35 years after it first opened on Broadway, and ten years after the movie, which I have now lined up to see this week. 

New year re-views 5: Les Demoiselles de Rochefort

LA LA LAND got me in the mood for those Jacques Demy musicals once again - we love THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, but even more, his 1967 THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT, which is sheer endless delight, as per my previous items on it, here's a reprise:

This was bliss to see again recently, to see it in colour and widescreen is magical. It is another all singing musical with great colour and sets – the whole town of Rochefort seems to be dancing at one stage. The sisters Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Dorleac star, with hoofers an older Gene Kelly, George Chakiris in tight pants, and a blonde Jacques Perrin as a lovelorn sailor. It all works perfectly now and I urge anyone who has not seen it to seek it out on dvd, as it is not as well known as the more famous Cherbourg film, it is in fact a perfect 60s film, which I have written about here several times already. We also get Danielle Darrieux as the girls' mother, and Michel Piccoli as her admirer.
The BFI dvd includes Agnes Varda's documentary on the film's 25 year anniversary party held at Rochefort, which sadly Francoise Dorleac was a major absentee ...

La La Land

Finally, LA LA LAND. See the hit movie, sure, but don't think it's the best musical ever just because you've never seen a musical.

The Oracle, my friend Martin says:

Believe the hype! Damien Chazelle's gorgeous, bitter-sweet new musical LA LA LAND filters both Demy and Minnelli through Chazelle's own post-modern vision of a 21st century LA that's steeped in a mythical musical past. This is a movie the way I sometimes remember movies used to be; big, bold, innovative and totally unafraid to take chances. It begins with a genuinely entrancing homage to the kind of fifties song-and-dance films that Gene Kelly might have dreamed up before launching into a boy-meets-girl love affair that isn't afraid to threaten to turn sour a la NEW YORK NEW YORK, (another musical it pays homage to with its jazz inflected score), but never really does. 

This is a truly uplifting experience. unashamedly romantic and blessed with a couple of sublime performances from Ryan Gosling and especially Emma Stone who together make falling in love seem like the most natural thing in the world. LA LA LAND recently picked up seven Golden Globes and is virtually guaranteed to sweep the boards at next month's Oscars. Who says they don't make 'em like this anymore.

I agree with most of that, but I do not regard it a a muscial as such - apart from the astonishing opening scene on the freeway, and some nice moments with the two leads dancing. Anyone who knows Jacques Demy's UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG or, especially, LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT from 1967 with its candy colours and the whole cast dancing - and yes, an older Gene Kelly is there too - will find much to enjoy here. It is certainly the film of the season, let's see how the rest of the awards pile up ...

Can't help loving that Showboat - 1936

There is a new production of SHOWBOAT currently on in London, (which I may have to go and see now) but I only know it from the 1951 MGM film which I may have seen once or twice on television - it now looks like a cartoon compared to the 1936 original (despite valiant work from Ava Gardner - dubbed - and Marge & Gower Champion). The rare 1936 film by James Whale (BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN etc) is the one to see and cherish, a film of such richness I want to see it again right away. Though I knew of Paul Robeson and Helen Morgan I had not somehow seen or heard them before, and I am bowled over.

Adaptation of the Broadway musical. Magnolia Hawks is the lovely daughter of Cap'n Andy Hawks, the genial proprietor of a show boat that cruises the Missisippi, and his nagging wife, Parthy. She is best friends with the show boat's star, Julie LaVerne, but Julie and her husband Steve are forced to leave when it is revealed that Julie has "Negro" blood in her, thereby breaking the state law by being married to the white Steve. Magnolia replaces Julie as the show boat's female star, and the show's new male star is the suave gambler Gaylord Ravenal. Magnolia and Gaylord fall in love and marry against Parthy's wishes. They and their young daughter lead the high life when Gaylord is lucky in gambling, but live like dirt when he's unlucky. During one such unlucky streak, a broken Gaylord leaves Magnolia and she is forced to start over by returning to the stage. Like Old Man River she just keeps rollin' along.

Jerome Kern's SHOWBOAT, from Edna Ferber's book, may well be the first great American musical, and possibly the greatest movie musical of all, this 1936 version of SHOWBOAT has Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Paul Robeson and Hattie McDaniel joining Helen Morgan and Charles Winninger from the original Broadway cast of 1927. So great that, when MGM made their own version in 1951, they tried to have all prints and copies of the original destroyed. Mercifully they weren't quite successful. Closer to the original stage version, this includes most of the classic songs by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, not least Robeson singing "Ol' Man River" and that's followed by Morgan's "Can't Help Loving That Man", brilliantly staged too, with Irene and Hattie. She was certainly the classic torch singer. Fascinating reading about her and Paul Robeson's life and career. Robeson's rich bass electrifies, I knew he had played OTHELLO and SHOWBOAT in London and how his political leanings had caused such trouble, but he was certainly a trailblazer ahead of his time. We like Irene Dunne a lot here too, as per label - one of the essential 1930s stars like Margaret Sullavan. Allan Jones was the father of singer Jack Jones.  

Jerome Kern has his finest moment here with unforgettable songs following one after the other. "Ol Man River", "My Bill","Can't Help Loving That Man of Mine", "Ah Still Suits Me", "Make Believe", After The Ball" The film remains a classic piece of Americana. James Whale's direction captures it all perfectly, its certainly an essential 1930s film. The last section though when Magnolia and Gaylord's daughter Kim becomes a stage star too in the then modern 1930s setting seems unnecessary now - we just want to be back on the Showboat with Paul and Hattie and Helen and all of them,

The film also show the ugly racism of the time, that blackface number seems grotesque now but was acceptable then ....
The Paul Robeson and chorus rendition of "Old Man River" has to be  one of the greatest numbers in the history of Hollywood musicals, up there with Judy;s "Over The Rainbow" or "The Man That Got Away" or the "My Forgotten Man" number from GOLDDIGGERS OF 1933. And what makes it even more impressive is that the number was directed by a director who had made his reputation directing monster movies (thats the gay James Whale of GODS AND MONSTERS).

Next: One of the great 1950s musicals: THE PAJAMA GAME. Book your tickets now ...

Summer re-runs: Its Always Fair Weather, 1955

Its that time of the year again, when we dig out old favourites for another enjoyable view. 1955's ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER is a film I love, I first saw it at a Sunday matinee when a kid in Ireland, and it has stayed with me. It seems curiously under-cherished in the pantheon of great musicals, being over-shadowed by Gene Kelly's bigger hits. BRIGADOON in 1954 is a bit dismal apart from a few great moments, but this, Gene's next one in 1955, with co-director Stanley Donen ticks all the boxes for me. 

It was originally intended as a sequel to 1949's ON THE TOWN, but that was jettisoned when Sinatra (who was on a roll then and didn't need to be second banana to Gene any more) declined, so Kelly and Donen decided to make it a dance-oriented musical and hired Dan Dailey and choreographer Michael Kidd to substitute for Frank and Frank Munshin. Made during a period of austerity at MGM, it obviously lacks the gloss of some other musicals but that works in its favour for the gritty story of street life in New York as the 3 returning sailors meet up again after 10 years and find they have nothing in common as it satirises the world of advertising and manipulative television shows - enter Madeline with her "Throb of Manhattan" sobfest. The dance routines are witty and energetic - Kelly on rollerskates, and the dustbin lids number - Gene had perfected his amiable heel routine, Dailey (fresh from THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS) is great as the advertising man, Cyd Charisse has some great moments too, particularly that dance routine in the gym (as Pauline Kael said: "Cyd Charisse is benumbed until she unhinges those legs") and stealing the show is the great Dolores Gray as Madeline. That number "Thanks A Lot But No Thanks" is a knockout, as is that dress, and I love that line "I've got a man who's Clifton Webb and Marlon Brando combined"! Jay C. Flippen is ideal too as the gangster who wants Gene's protege to lose the fight, thus causing mayhem in the studio as Madeline's saccharine show about the three G.I.'s reunion goes wrong. 

Kelly and Donen though found they could no longer work together, so this was their last movie in tandem, The CinemaScope format is perfectly used here, and Andre Previn's score is perhaps his best ever. It is all a mordantly funny, witty investigation of friendship as the three wartime buddies find their relationship has not survived the peace. It is surely one of Hollywood's most personal works dressed up as a witty musical. More on it at labels.  Here is what I wrote back in 2011:

It is the perfect mid-century story of 3 wartime buddies meeting up 10 years later in 1955 and realising that they don't like each other much now, and indeed Kelly and Dailey don't much like themselves either. Gene is mixing with hoods and managing a dumb boxer, while Dan Dailey has risen to "Executive Vice-President" level in advertising and is sick of the advertising game as he lets rip in his terrific solo number "Advertising-wise". Cyd Charisse is the television researcher who stumbles across them and realises their reunion is ideal for her television show "Midnight with Madeline" for "The Throb of Manhattan" spot where saccharine stories are featured. This is the early days of live television and the movie is a splendid satire on those artificial tv hostesses like Madeline and her diva tantrums. Cyd gets the hoods to confess on live air, Madeline has a hit show, the 3 buddies realise they are still friends after all. It's a perfect conclusion as Cyd joins Gene and the the guys back at the bar where they vowed to meet up 10 years previously.

Cyd and Gene sparkle as they spar with each other, and Dolores steals the show. What's not to love? It is a dark, sometimes bitter take on ON THE TOWN a decade later as the 3 buddies meet again -  Produced of course by Arthur Freed, with songs by Andre Previn, script by Comden and Green; perfect entertainment. The DVD includes a fascinating 'Making-Of' chronicling the fallout between Kelly and Donen, and several out-takes including a terrific inventive (that word again) deleted number between Kelly and Charisse "Love is Nothing But a Racket" which has been unseen for far too long, and Michael Kidd's solo spot with some kids, but Gene did not want that included, after his number with kids in AN AMERICAN IN PARIS! Essential stuff then.

I met Gene at a recording of a Parkinson interview for the BBC in 1975 - Donen of course went on to direct several of my enduing favourites: those Audrey Hepburn films like TWO FOR THE ROAD and CHARADE, Kendall in ONCE MORE WITH FEELING, Peck and Sophia ideal in ARABESQUE, and the marvellous BEDAZZLED with Pete and Dud and Eleanor Bron in 1967. We won't mention STAIRCASE or LUCKY LADY!  Gene of course after this went on to do another favourite of mine: Cukor's LES GIRLS in 1957 - as per label. 

Kismet, 1955

MGM's 1955 musical by Vincente Minnelli is actually rather wonderful, I hadn't realised - I enjoyed it enormously early today, and I have the dvd filed away too. Its lush, opulent, MGM at its best and Minnelli's wonderful eye for colour and movement are well to the fore here - unlike his previous one, the moribund BRIGADOON which only comes to life intermittently. 
Howard Keel is terrific here, as he was in KISS ME KATE, CALAMITY JANE, and as Hannibal in that other favourite of mine JUPITER'S DARLING, while stupendous Dolores Gray matches him .... 

The fifties were an odd decade for Vincente, starting with those enormous hits AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL and my personal favourite THE BANDWAGON in 1953 (see label).  His '53 comedy with Lucy and Desi THE LONG LONG TRAILER is an enduring childhood memory, but THE COBWEB is dreary, after KISMET came TEA AND SYMPATHY in 1956 and the wonderful DESIGNING WOMAN, a 1957 favourite where Peck, Bacall and Dolores Gray are all bliss - and Jack Cole too - Cole does the choreography in KISMET with his usual pizazz and chorus boys.   

Minnelli was big again in 1958: the Oscar-winning GIGI, THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE (Kay, Rex and Angela =  certified bliss) and SOME CAME RUNNING - could he have been busier? followed by his string of melodramas; HOME FROM THE HILL, TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN, FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE and the tedious GOODBYE CHARLIE - his 1970 ON A CLEAR DAY is a mixed pleasure, Barbra as Daisy Gamble annoys, apart from the Beaton Regency flashbacks in Brighton, while Montand' s accent is as impenetrable as it was in LETS MAKE LOVE a decade earlier. 

I now though have a Minnelli rarity lined up to see sometime soon: that 1976 oddity and his last film A MATTER OF TIME with Liza and Ingrid Bergman, its meant to be so terrible it was never released, we will soon see why ... more on Minnelli and his films at label. 

A NEW Sound of Music ....

THE SOUND OF MUSIC was one musical I never wanted to see and I successfully avoided it until New Year's Day 1996 when I had to give in and watch it with my then ill partner (he died 2 weeks later) and his mother ..... and ok, I enjoyed it, but it is not my favourite or even favourite Oscar & Hammerstein musical (that would be SOUTH PACIFIC). Far too saccharine - I relished Pauline Kael's famous review at the time, where she muses "Wasn't there one little Von Trapp who did not want to sing on cue with the others or who threw up before having to go on stage?" - or words to that effect; or as "Films and Filming" said: "THE SOUND OF MUSIC is 179 minutes, and the first minute is rather good".  Eleanor Parker was marvellous as the Baroness, she could do a lot with very little.

I also saw the London Palladium production some years ago which starred television discovery Connie Fisher, who was an ideal Maria too. The O&H show was first staged in 1959 with Mary Martin. The 1965 film air again here also on new Year's Day. But now our ITV commercial channel has aired a new production, done 'live' and as my current partner (of 13 years) also loves the show and has done the whole Salzburg thing, I had to sit down and watch it again, and actually liked it a lot, it may be the best production yet. Obviously it could not be opened out like the Robert Wise film with location shooting, but it was nicely done and included the songs, mainly for the Baroness, which were not included in the film. 

Kara Tointon was an ideal Maria - she is a television actress here (EASTENDERS)  and won a series of STRICTLY COME DANCING so is well versed in show business and is quite charming, particularly as her Maria matures. The children were all ok, TV regulars Alexander Armstrong was Max, Mel from the BAKE-OFF was the housekeeper, Katherine Kelly (CORONATION STREET, MR SELFRIDGE) as the Baroness, but Julian Ovendon seemed a tad too young for Von Trapp, though he too matures into the role - he sings at the Proms, was in FOYLES'S WAR and one of Lady Mary's suitors in DOWNTON ABBEY (final episode screens here on Christmas Day - there will be a report) and he stripped for that scene in that revival of MY NIGHT WITH REG at the Donmar, which we saw last year. Maria Friedman is a great mother superior at the convent and sings a convincing "Climb Every Mountain".  So in all, we quite liked it and it adds a new dimension to the well-known show. With David Bamber and Paul Copley. Directed by Mel's sister Coky Giedroyc and Richard Valentine. It is due to be repeated soon.

Getting back to SOUTH PACIFIC, I was wondering why it did not do more for Mitzi Gaynor - its really her last film of note, after that came that dreadful SURPRISE PACKAGE (reviewed a while back, Stanley Donen label), then a forgettable David Niven comedy and her final screen credit in 1963 in a long-forgotten comedy with Kirk Douglas. 
Mitz was a talented hoofer and comedienne who arrived just as musicals were going out of fashion, but she scores in the 1954 THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS (above, relaxing with Marilyn and Ethel), and ANYTHING GOES and she was one of the LES GIRLS with Kay Kendall and Taina Elg in Gene Kelly's dance troupe for Cukor in 1957, one of our favourites here, see label - and then her Nellie Forbush in SOUTH PACIFIC, where she seems ideal - I loved the movie as a kid and it was one of the first soundtrack albums I got. I would not have bought the more well known Doris Day in the role. Mitzi then had a good television career with all her musical specials and, like Debbie Reynolds, is still a game gal now.  
Below: those guys on the island, including muscle boy Ed Fury - ideal rainy day viewing.

Les Demoiselles de Rochefort

A midwinter treat ...... I simply love this movie, as per reiews - Deneuve, Dorleac, Demy labels. 
Click the full-screen icon to see it widescreen.

Jacques Demy's films are awash with that particular type of French glamour, as we have noted here before, see labels. Here he dresses up Deneuve and Dorleac in those pastels for LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHFORT in 1967, turns Jacques Perrin into a blonde sailor in a sailor suit, gets George Chakiris and Grover Dale into tight trousers, and makes Danielle Darrieux a very glamours mother to the singing and dancing sisters, then there is an older Gene Kelly!

LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT is now on the BFI list of '10 Best Gay French Films" .... it may not be gay as such, but there is a definite gay sensibility here. Bliss is assured watching it in mid-winter. 

As the BFI put it: "File this one under ‘queer aesthetic’. In the most excessive of Jacques Demy’s films, he creates an infectiously cheery musical in which everyone has a ball. Catherine Deneue and Francoise Dorleac are the damsels of the title, looking for love in the sunny seaside town of Rochefort. But will any of the attractive men on offer fall for their charms?

There’s nothing explicitly gay here, but any film that shoves Jacques Perrin in a sailor suit, squeezes George Chakiris into tight white trousers and decorates itself with lavish, lurid sets definitely has a queer eye. Its relentless good nature isn’t for Scrooges, but it’s a hard heart that can’t enjoy Gene Kelly’s surprise cameo, or the vision of Deneuve in elbow-length gloves, chain-smoking while removing a chicken from the oven (trust us, it’s amazing)".

A new Funny Girl ...

50 years after the original 1964 Broadway (and London in 1966) production of FUNNY GIRL, there is finally a new major production. It is currently rehearsing at the London Menier Chocolate Factory, a nice small theatre with cafe and bar (I was there earlier this year for Sondheim's ASSASSINS), so I wondered how they could stage this show with those big production numbers. Well it seems they are not ....

Funny Girl in 1966

In fact it may not be the same show at all. I have to declare an interest here - I saw the Broadway version when it played several months in London at the Prince Charles Theatre in 1966. I was 20 and somehow we got front row seats, and the young Streisand was the talk of the town.  It was the first big show I saw on stage and I was a total Streisand nut then ..... Michael Craig was her Nicky Arnstein (left, with Streisand). 
There have been other out of town productions since but no major London production, as presumably Streisand had made the part of Fanny Brice so much her own, particularly after the success of the William Wyler film in 1968. (We will kindly overlook FUNNY LADY).

So now we have a new FUNNY GIRL heading into town, it is already sold out at the Menier, but is transferring to The Savoy next April - where that current revival of GYPSY is still playing until later this month - Imelda will need a holiday after that! Sheridan Smith is the new Fanny - we like Sheridan a lot, one of our National Treasures in waiting, she played the young Cilla Black to great acclaim on television this year and has been in lots of successful series since she began as Antony's vegetarian girlfriend in THE ROYLE FAMILY and her hilarious Brandy in BENIDORM. She was a knockout on stage in Terence Rattigan's FLARE PATH a few years ago, and I also saw her in LEGALLY BLONDE - and she has also played (a younger than usual) HEDDA GABLER and Shakespeare's Tatiana on stage - but can she be Fanny Brice?

Fanny was an odd-looking Jewish woman, and one could say young Barbra also was though she re-defined beauty with her amazing looks. Sheridan is British, blonde and beautiful. Darius Campbell should be a good foil as her Nicky. It seems though the show is being overhauled for the new generation - it is 50 years later after all. Isobel Lennart's book has been revised by actor and writer Harvey Fierstein who has said "It had stuff in it that wasn't necessary any more for a modern audience". He has cut 40 pages from the script, a couple of songs have been dropped and others used. (I hope they still keep Barbra's final number "The Music That Makes Me Dance" which was electrifying on the stage, but was replaced with "My Man" for the film). It seems, according to The Daily Mail, that the new show will focus on Fanny and Nicky's troubled marriage, at the expense of Fanny's career - so there are no Ziegfield Follies numbers or showgirls. 

Fierstein says he has re-shaped the show so its all seen through Brice's eyes. "Its not Ziegfield Follies with 500ft staircases and 60 girls in white ostrich feathers. Hopefully, we can find the human being in the legend.". 
The Menier and The Savoy in a joint statement says: “It's enormously exciting to be bringing this legendary musical back to the West End for the first time since 1966, in a brand new production starring the incredible Sheridan Smith. We are also thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the hugely gifted, multi-award winning Broadway director Michael Mayer.”
Can a great musical be stripped down and made over for a new generation fifty years later? Well, we will see.

A Star Is Born and those Fifties dramas

Nice to catch 1951's A PLACE IN THE SUN again on television, along with SUNSET BOULEVARD and ALL ABOUT EVE, those great early '50s dramas, and of course, as the decade wore on, those Kazan classics like EAST OF EDEN, and the later 50s dramas like ANATOMY OF A MURDER or the over-heated SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER or Susan Hayward classics like I WANT TO LIVE or I'LL CRY TOMORROW, or Magnani or .... See Drama-1 label for my first post here on all those ...

Now, a few more comments on Cukor's A STAR IS BORN, that 1954 musical drama that just keeps looking better and better each time I see it.  There is quite a bit on it here - see the labels - as its one of the first movies I saw that year as a kid of 8. JOHNNY GUITAR was the first, what a vivid introduction to movies that was - but A STAR IS BORN may well have been the second. I loved the widescreen images, like that beach house with the sun reflected on the glass, and that rich Warnercolor just glows now, particularly after the film was restored and the extras included those 3 alternative versions of "The Man That Got Away" and all that premiere footage with all the stars of the time (Doris, Peggy Lee, Crawford, Bacall, the Wildings, the Curtises, the Fishers etc) 

It is one of the great Fifties dramas - a drama with music, as opposed to one of those MGM spectaculars, It was Brando's year of course but for me Mason delivers the performance of the year, and of his career, as Norman Maine. 

Judy of course is something else. It is easy to see now why Grace Kelly got the Oscar for that year. She was the hot new girl in town (like Audrey the year before, and Judy Holliday in 1950 when Bette and Gloria were seen as old-timers; and a decade later in the bright shiny early Sixties when the two Julies - Andrews and Christie - were the next hot new girls in town..).   Judy too had burned her boats a lot and had antagonised too many with her tantrums and delays, maybe caused by a bi-polar or medical condition caused by all her medications and addictions. 

It is though a Hollywood drama at its dizzying peak. Unlike more modern filmed musicals where the performances are edited to pieces (Rob Marshall) or upstaged by other action (Baz Lurhmann), Cukor goes in for long takes and full musical sequences. So many scenes that were phenomenal showing Esther's rise through Hollywood:  "The Man That Got Away" when Norman discovers her again after prowling the nightclub circuit in search of freash cuties (but not from Pasadena!), the number Judy stages for Mason ("I am discovered on a rather simple divan");  the Academy Award scene, the dressing room breakdown scene, Norman's shamed appearance in court ....any one of them would have propelled another actress to an Oscar. At least A STAR IS BORN is appreciated more today - when was the last time anyone mentioned THE COUNTRY GIRL or saw it on television?, its a dull boring film enlived by Grace playing dowdy in a cardigan. 

Yes, Judy's weight fluctuated and she does not always look her best (at only 32) but it is still Garland at her peak and she is thrilling. She was robbed of that Oscar. She and Mason deliver timeless, great performances, maybe the best in any musical. Add in Cukor's great widescreen compositions and lots of savage humour, like Jack Carson's vicious PR man, and Charles Bickford marvellous as the studio head. That first "You Gotta Have Me Go With You" number is brilliantly staged too as the drunk Norman invades Esther's act on stage .... It is full of lovely moments, like the studio makeup men trying to decide on Esther's face and Norman then wiping all the gunk off, or Esther getting her new name Vicki Lester - "Go to L" or the "We can see your face" moment ..... it made no sense to cut the scene where she works in the drive-in burger bar and leave in Norman telling her to "think of a man eating a nutburger" ! The "Born in a Trunk" sequence too has some delicious moments .... 

Judy might well have started out with good intentions but she quickly fell back into her old undependable patterns and habits from her MGM days. George Cukor vowed never to work with her again he was so frustrated with her. Jack Warner lost interest in promoting Judy or the film for any Oscars after his disastrous dealings with her husband and the film's producer Sid Luft, and Judy, (he was also furious to discover they had furnished their house with furniture from the set) and the film was quickly cut to fit in more screenings.  
She did, indeed, burn her bridges with Warners, her last chance to prove that, with all her talent, that she could behave responsibly, professionally.  It irreperably damaged her career. Blame it on drugs or being bipolar or whatever. 

It was the same problem with her last film I COULD GO ON SINGING in 1963, when again she is marvellous, and its a great record of Judy then more or less playing herself, but as Dirk Bogarde related in his memoirs, the shoot was a nightmare with everyone quickly getting tired of Judy's dramas, wanting to sack the director, etc. Mel Torme wrote a book on the nightmare her early '60s tv shows had become. The films continue to fascinate though. More on them at Judy/Dirk labels.

A Star Is Born, once again

Back again to 1954 and Warner Bros' great musical A STAR IS BORN - I have done a lengthly post on it already, see labels, but just now want to focus on that great number "The Man That Got Away" - there are 3 different versions (below), as per the restored dvd (which also has that all-star premiere footage). I find the other 2 versions just as marvellous as the one they went with in the movie ... Judy delivers every time and the number is brilliantly staged for the widescreen each time, and then there's that lush rich Warnercolor .... and those lyrics: "the night is bitter, the stars have lost their glitter...."  - above: "You Gotta Have Me Go With You" at the opening gala benefit where "Mr Maine is feeling no pain".

Such a shame the film was cut to fit in more showings, but at least now we have it restored as much as possible - the story makes more sense now showing how Norman lost and then found Esther again before her screen test, and that lovely scene where the microphone picks up their conversation ... it made no sense in the cut version when he tells her to think of a man eating a nutburger when she was nervous, as the earlier scene with her working in the hamburger joint had been cut ! 

 

I was about 8 when I first saw A STAR IS BORN but those images on the widescreen were indelible, not only Judy's numbers but others like that great scene at the Academy Awards, and that beach house with the glass windows reflecting the sunset as Norman goes for his swim .... it is the greatest musical drama ever. 
Now too, our Sky Arts channel here is showing those early 60's black and white Judy shows which are fascinating time capsules of popular music then: Judy with the young Barbra Streisand, as well as Peggy Lee, Lena Horne, Ethel Merman etc. I never saw those at the time or since ...