No one thought of it at the time as the Golden Age of the
Bway Musical, but in retrospect the culmination of talent, prestige, cultural
influence and dominance was at a peak as the '50s gave way to the '60s. Elvis
may have set the future on a different path, but the R&H revolution was
then the more reaching, ubiqutious, and lucrative American cultural expression.
In turn, the evolution of the Bway musical led to the decline of the original
Hlwd tuner, to the point of extinction. But conversely, the steady stream of
Bway hits--sold in escalting bidding wars, shot in ballooning extravagance, and
rewarded with an avalanche of awards and chart-topping grosses--made the '60s the decade of the Bway musical in Hlwd.
At the start of the '50s, On the Town--the
first Golden Age arrival in Hlwd--was given traditional studio treatment: rape
& pillage. By decade's end, even the most frivolous musical comedies like Li'l Abner and Bells Are Ringing, were filmed with greater reverence to their
source.
With Bway growing in cultural prominence (helped in no
small measure by the first LP recordings of Bway shows) the typical Hlwd
musical looked more & more inconsequential. With the added insurance of
being a proven bill of goods, a hit from Bway became a hot commodity on the
Coast. Unlike today, when, ironically, Bway is dominated by musicals--some
running for decades--few ever make it onto the screen; including some of the
biggest financial hits in stage history. (Isn't it astounding that Disney, or someone hasn't made an animated movie of
Cats?--not that I'm complaining.) By
contrast, there are very few Golden Age musicals that Hlwd neglected to make.
And of those, at least half were in active development before being shelved.
But aside from the aforementioned High
Button Shoes, none of the great un-made are much of a puzzlement.
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Just as R&H topped themselves in their sophmore show,
Arlen took another leap forward in his score (with Johnny Mercer) for St.
Louis Woman. The show itself, a slight piece of "Negro
folklore" concerns a quartet of players similar to those in Carmen Jones, with a racetrack
background in 1890s St. Louis .
Lena Horne was initially attached, but objected to the playing a
"loose" black woman and pulled out. The show also had Pearl Bailey and the Nicholas Bros. but
the central role--a role designed to showcase Lena --went
to Ruby Hill--a gal so obscure today as to lack even a cursory entry in Wikipedia.
The show labored thru book and direction problems, and arrived severely
compromised on Bway--for a short run of 13 weeks. But St. Louis Woman had been partially financed by Arthur Freed as an
investment in a project for Lena Horne, which is how it ended up on Freed’s
plate at MGM in 1953. Rouben Mamoulian came to the show's rescue on the road to
Bway, but shortly after lost MGM a lot of money going over-budget on Summer Holiday--an early attempt at the
R&H musical on screen, a tuner of O'Neill's Ah Wilderness! (Which didn't stop David Merrick from taking another
stab at it a dozen years later with Take
Me Along). With Mamoulian persona non grata at MGM, St. Lou might have been a good fit for Vincente Minnelli. But could
the script be revised enuf to satisfy Lena Horne? Who else could have done it?
Well, there's Dorothy Dandridge; but that just about exhausts the pool of
female black stars in the '50s. Horne did eventually make it to Bway, in
another Arlen/Harburg musical, Jamaica .
But this was little more than a concert with scenery--and even Hlwd was looking
for more substance in a musical by then. But with St. Louis Woman you can see
why they tried; the score is remarkable. The Original Cast recording prevented
it from slipping into obscurity, but suffers from brevity and early technology.
Happily, a fully restored Encores! production was preserved on audio in 1998.
It showcases how nuanced and varied Arlen & Mercer's score is, and really
makes you wish a decent story could have been found to support it. Arlen wrote
two other post-R&H musicals, neither of which were Hlwd bait. House
of Flowers was a triumph of atmosphere over substance, and instantly
earned its cult status. A confection written by Truman Capote; a sort of
bordello caramel, with Caribbean spicing, the
musical reeked of "specialness"--of the sort that never draws crowds.
It ran a few short months in 1955. Saratoga
was Arlen's final Bway show in late '59; and a sad occasion it was, despite
bringing Howard Keel to Bway, with Carol Lawrence, in a tuner of the Edna
Ferber novel, and Ingrid Bergman/Gary Cooper film, Saratoga Trunk. Poorly written, and likewise reviewed, the show
closed in ten weeks. Sadly, Arlen never wrote an original film musical after The Wizard of Oz, and certainly none in
the post R&H mode. Unless you count his animated feature Gay Purr-ee from '62, which featured the
voice of Judy Garland. And tho he stamped his signature on Judy's '54 A Star is Born (most noticeably with
"The Man Who Got Away"); Arlen wrote but a few songs for the movie;
the rest culled from various sources. Whether by fate, bad luck or indifferent
selection, Arlen never quite found projects equal to his talent.
On the other end of the spectrum: Even before his first
Bway success, Alan Jay Lerner negotiated himself some Hlwd deals incommensurate
with his Bway track-record. In 1946 MGM bought Lerner & Loewe's Day
Before Spring (a mild college reunion story) for producer Jack
Cummings, who then threw out everything about the (failed) show but the title.
A new score was written by Johnny Green & Frank Loesser, but the movie was
never made. After Gigi, Arthur Freed tried
to interest MGM in any & every Lerner & Loewe property, including Camelot and Paint Your Wagon, to no avail--the latter-day president Joseph Vogel
was allergic to musicals. But the studio already owned Day Before Spring, so another go-around was attempted, with Bway librettist Joseph Stein adapting the original script and score. This, too, was
shelved, and Vogel denied Freed even the highly coveted Camelot--which he wanted to make with Vincente Minnelli and the
original stars. As early as 1953, Paint
Your Wagon was reported to be a candidate for Cinerama treatment. But this,
and a few others that looked like time had passed them by (Song of Norway ,
The Boy Friend) would come back to life in the coming decade. As well as Finian's Rainbow-- which was long in development
as an animated cartoon, but was finally shelved in April '57.
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Wish You Were Here seems a no-brainer. Less a story than a series of
episodes with a motley group of characters--young adults trying to have the
time of their meagre lives in a Pocanos summer camp--any studio could cast the
whole thing in an afternoon with their available contract players: Virginia
Mayo, Gene Nelson, Danny Thomas, Mitzi Gaynor, Polly Bergen, Buddy Hackett,
Tony Martin; you get the idea. It was fairly much a stinker of a show on Bway,
but it ran and ran. Joshua Logan + an onstage swimming pool = you do the math. Harold
Rome's score was conspicuously forgettable--but for the title tune, which Eddie
Fisher rode to the Hit Parade. He could as easily have been in the movie. With
a score so disposable and a story scarcely less so, the show would seem easy
bait for any studio. The musical was based on a play called Having Wonderful Time, filmed in 1938 by
RKO--which presumably held some rights to the property. But RKO was virtually
defunct by the mid-'50s, which suggests one possibility why the musical was
never filmed.
One enchanted evening
in
my quiet living room
candle-lit
and heavy with perfume
love
songs I played him
that
sent shivers down his spine
and
he fell in love with
.
. . Oscar Hammerstein!
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Even R&H had their misfires. Their concept musical
from '47, Allegro may have inspired Stephen Sondheim to no end, but it
was a headscratcher to most, and not for a moment a lure to the studios.
Likewise, their '53 backstager, Me & Juliet, suffered from a stiflingly dull book filled with utterly generic "show
biz" characters. Audiences wanted their R&H magic front & center,
not scenes of stock backstage dealings. Tellingly, Hammerstein was as deficient
in creating vivid original characters as he was masterful in developing
memorable ones in adaptation. Pipe Dream, from '55, the last
unfilmed R&H production suffered from conflicts of tone between Hammerstein
and Steinbeck--whose gritty Cannery Row milieu was compromised for familiy
consumption. It could have been wonderful; there's much in the score that is beautiful.
But the show was born in strife; health problems for the both R&H; a
director (Harold Clurman) alien to musicals; a dull cast (why not John Raitt,
Mr. Rodgers?); and the miscalculation of booking Wagnerian soprano, Helen Traubel,
as a bordello madame. Here's where Shirley Booth was needed--in Cannery Row,
not Brooklyn .
The show opened at the peak of R &H's fame and popularity--right on the heels of
the Oklahoma ! movie--and was a tremendous disappointment. It had the shortest
run of any of their productions, including the filmed Oklahoma ! which ran for a solid year at the
Rivoli. In a world in which there was never enuf R&H to revive or
resucitate, it surprises me that Pipe
Dream hasn't been reworked. The score can stand up nicely (even lesser
R&H measures up to the best of many others) and a rewrite of the book, with
a stronger dose of Steinbeck could breathe new life into the score, and reveal
another R&H treasure. But this is too much to expect from a film
adaptation--particularly from R&H, who by then were anything but interested
in revisiting this failure. To his last days, Hammerstein had but one desire:
to go back and "fix" Allegro.
Tho on paper it would seen a natural, somehow Cannery Row eluded the R&H
treatment.
So here's the decade's biggest hit that wasn't filmed: The
Most Happy Fella. Surprising? Not really. At first glance, Frank
Loesser's hybrid of musical comedy & operetta, was a show virtually
drowning in music (the OCR was released on 3 LP's--the entire show-- virtually wall
to wall music); but just as there was a single album of "highlights,"
the score could likewise be pruned for the screen. After all, it's Frank
Loesser!--Hlwd's homeboy made good on Bway. And if there's a good deal of
"opera" in the score, there's no lack of pop tunes: "Standing on
the Corner," "Joey, Joey, Joey," "Happy to Make Your
Acquaintance." "Big-D." The story (from Sidney Howard's play They Knew What They Wanted), which
ostensibly takes place in the 1920's, is so period deficient that it not only
feels, but more importantly sounds like
the '50s. Three film versions of the play already existed; the last in 1940
with Charles Laughton & Carole Lomabard. But the challenge was also in
finding a credible box office lead for Tony--the aging Italian farmer, confined
to a wheelchair for most of the action--with a genuine Opera voice. That is
unless the studio preferred to dub everyone, and go for dramatic chops or Star
power over musical talent--as was becoming more and more the norm. In that case
we might have seen Paul Muni, Charles Boyer, or even Edward G. Robinson as
Tony. (Here's one show with no part for Sinatra). For Rosabella, Joanne
Woodward somehow comes to mind--doesn't she seem just right, emotionally? Of
course there were plenty of young studs in the late '50s to play the sex bait,
Joey. How great would it have been to snag Brando for his second Loesser
musical? Can't you just picture him, in his field-hand dungarees, crooning
"Joey, Joey, Joey":
That's
what the wind sings to me--
--When I've had all I want of the ladies
in
the neighborhood--
Sounds crazy, no? Wait till the '60s for some real absurd
casting. Yes, they could've taken the Zinnemann or Preminger approach; cast
actors for dramatic strength over musical ability. Or they could have gone the
old MGM route of using actual musical talent: a legit Opera baritone, Robert
Merrill, perhaps; or the original Tony, Robert Weede. Shirley Jones for
Rosabella, with Janis Paige or Mitzi Gaynor for Cleo, and Stubby Kaye as Herman.
Dean Martin as Joey. Perhaps Loesser nixed the idea of a film himself. This was
his dream pet project; written at the peak of his Bway clout, with near
absolute creative freedom. A film would not have been within his control; nor
was it likely to have been realized in anywhere near its full operatic glory.
In any case, here's one musical that keeps coming back despite no celluloid incarnation
to sustain its fame in the canon. Loesser's name alone does that. Yet, The Most Happy Fella has the curious distinction
of being the focus of an episode of I
Love Lucy. The usual hijinx ensue when Ricky & Lucy & Fred &
Ethel attend the show, only to find that Lucy lost the tickets. Two box seats
are left. . . and you can take it from there. But there are at least half a
dozen moments when we are hearing songs from the musical (off the recording, no
doubt)--as we watch them watch the show.
The episode was broadcast far into the play's Bway run, and had no discernible impact on perking up the box office. Of course, the irony is that this bit of exposure has been seen--in reruns for over half a century--by many millions more than had ever seen, or heard of, the musical.
The episode was broadcast far into the play's Bway run, and had no discernible impact on perking up the box office. Of course, the irony is that this bit of exposure has been seen--in reruns for over half a century--by many millions more than had ever seen, or heard of, the musical.
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At the start of the '50s, Hlwd was pouring forth such
concoctions as An American in Paris , Singin' in the
Rain, The Bandwagon, 7 Brides for 7 Bros.--studio originals that won
respect from critics and audiences alike. By decade's end Hlwd was throwing in
the towel in competetion with Bway product. And thus was born an unspoken
creed: If you can't beat them, buy them. And buy them they did--at
record-breaking prices, with ever-growing budgets and cinematic ambitions.
Welcome to the Sixties.
Next Up: Fanny
Welcome to the Sixties.
Next Up: Fanny
1 comment:
THE MOST HAPPY FELLA is one of my all-time favorite musicals. I've listened to the 3 LP set (and later the CD) over and over again, and yet I've never once thought about how it would've worked on screen, so thank you for giving me that to ponder over my morning coffee. But PLEASE don't suggest anyone other than the glorious Susan Johnson for the role of Cleo. As a young kid, watching I LOVE LUCY and hearing Johnson's 'aha' in the 'Big D' snippet you describe made me jump on my bicycle and run off to the library to see what she was all about. I was smitten. Susan Johnson will always and forever be Cleo, the waitress with the sore feet.
BTW, Desilu, invested in THE MOST HAPPY FELLA, which is why the show is so prominently featured in that episode of I LOVE LUCY. The episode aired in March 1957 and she show ran until December 1957, so LUCY may or may not have helped promote the show. 1956 was an especially good year for Broadway. Just think, in December 1956, you could've seen the original cast of MY FAIR LADY at the Mark Hellinger, Rosalind Russell in AUNTIE MAME at the Broadhurt, THE MOST HAPPY FELLA at the Imperial, Ethel Merman in HAPPY HUNTING at the Majestic, Judy Holliday in BELLS ARE RINGING at the Shubert, and Judy Garland at the Palace. Kinda makes your head explode).
Incidentally, Lucy didn't lose the tickets, they were for the matinee and they missed the curtain, thinking the tickets were for the evening performance. I think the exterior of the theater was the Pantages on Hollywood Blvd. Seems to me I recognize the doors.
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