A Trio of Musicals On Blu-ray: Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940), Athena (1954), and The Tender Trap (1955)

While I’ve never been a particular fan of musicals, I’ve found them to be a wonderful escape in these tense times. Recently I enjoyed a trio of them on newly-released Blu-rays from Warner Archive.

Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940) 

Ginger Rogers is rightfully Fred Astaire’s most famous partner. Together they possessed the perfect mix of skill and chemistry. The pairing of Eleanor Powell and Astaire in Broadway Melody of 1940 is another matter. It is an explosive match of talent; the two best dancers in Hollywood delighting in each other. 

George Murphy is game as the guy who hoofs with Powell until the magical match-up. We get a taste of Astaire and Powell’s high-stepping energy together in a couple of numbers, but the stunner is the climactic Begin the Beguine. Tapping across a highly-polished glass floor, they match each other move for move, with well-practiced precision, looking as if they are prancing among the stars, weightless and vibrant. To top it all off, they perform to the best Cole Porter tune in a film full of winners. It’s simply one of the best moments of classic Hollywood. 

Special features on the disc include Cole Porter in Hollywood: Begin the Beguine, Our Gang short The Big Premiere, the cartoon The Milky Way, and a theatrical trailer. 

Athena (1954) 

All I knew of this lesser-known musical before I pressed play was that it starred two of my favorite stars from the fifties: Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds. This is a nice early venture for both of them, lightly entertaining, though without a single memorable original song in the mix. 

They are sisters in a large, eccentric family that owns a health food store and houses a gaggle of muscle men in training at an enormous hilltop mansion. Louis Calhern, in full Colonel Sanders white, is Grandpa, the patriarch of the clan. Evelyn Varden is his spacy, but spiritual wife. Powell (Athena) and Reynolds (Minerva) are two of their six granddaughters, all of them with ancient Greek and Roman names and obsessed with astrology and healthy living. Their vegetarianism and rejection of cigarettes and alcohol were quirky to the extreme at the time, now it just looks like your typical Instagram post. 

This film was my introduction to Vic Damone, a dreamy-eyed crooner who woos Minerva. He does a wonderful rendition of the Boy (Girl) Next Door from Meet Me in St. Louis for the film’s opener for an auditorium full of swooning teens. Edmund Purdom is an uptight businessman upon whom Athena sets her sights; he does a fine job injecting enough lightness into his persona from the beginning that you don’t wonder why this sparkling woman would want such a square. There are also a couple of stand-outs in the supporting cast. Steve Reeves, who was then best known for his Mr. Universe title, caught the attention of an Italian producer in his role here as one of the muscle men and was soon starring as Hercules in the series of films for which he would be best known. Linda Christian is also fabulously icy as Purdom’s fiancée, properly playing her role with the personality of a foundation garment. In a part that was meant to fade into the background, Henry Nakamura is especially charming and funny as Purdom’s servant. 

Special features on the disc include a trio of musical outtakes, a menu of song selections, and a theatrical trailer. 

The Tender Trap (1955) 

Frank Sinatra sets an easygoing tone from the first shot of The Tender Trap. He ambles towards the camera across a wide, empty landscape, singing the title tune with his characteristic warmth, inviting you into his orbit. He plays a charming talent agent up to his eyeballs in women, but lacking fidelity or an understanding of true intimacy. An old friend (David Wayne) comes to stay with him on a break from his own marriage, Sinatra begins to think he might be more serious about a television orchestra violin player (Celeste Holm), and then suddenly he meets Julie (Debbie Reynolds), a singer who claims to have her dream life all mapped out. 

It could all be a silly trifle good for passing a couple hours, but there’s a scene that elevates all the romantic nonsense. Sinatra watches Reynolds float through the title tune, without a hint of its meaning reaching her. He sits at the piano and puts the tune under his loving care, as he does, and she understands immediately what he is trying to communicate. It is the template for the rest of their relationship: he demonstrates that he is capable of emotional depth and she realizes that life and love can’t be planned out like a dinner party. According to Reynolds, that was precisely the way Sinatra himself approached a song himself and that as her friend he helped her to understand and more deeply absorb the feeling in lyrics. 

Special features on the disc include the featurette Frank in the Fifties, which includes great commentary from Reynolds, two excerpts from the television show The MGM Parade, and a theatrical trailer.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copies of the films for review.

On Blu-ray: Musical Stars Go Modern in Finian's Rainbow (1968) and S.O.B. (1981)

This month, Warner Archive has released a pair of titles on Blu-ray where classic musical stars adapt themselves to modern times. Fred Astaire abandons the controlled environment of a big studio sound stage for wide open spaces in Finian's Rainbow (1968), while Julie Andrews exposes her raunchy side in S.O.B. (1981).

Finian's Rainbow 

Though the original stage play debuted in the late forties, attempts to censor the racial politics of Finian's Rainbow prevented the musical from making it to the screen until the more liberal sixties. 

In it father and daughter Finian and Sharon McLonergan travel from Ireland to the mythical Rainbow Valley, Mistucky with a pot of stolen gold in a carpet bag. Finian thinks that because of the valley's proximity to Fort Knox, the fortune will multiply if he buries it. Instead, the pair end up getting involved with a merry, multi-racial band of rural landowners who are battling a racist Senator (Keenan Wynn) who wants their property, while a leprechaun (Tommy Steele) falls in love with Sharon.

Finian's Rainbow could be recommended on the basis Fred Astaire's performance alone. After decades of dancing on immaculate indoor sets, here he prances around on grass, dirt roads and even through a rocky creek bed, managing the danger of those uneven surfaces while maintaining his usual grace. Surrounded by young dancers, he matches them step-for-step (or they match him) while swinging around an enormous carpet bag. He dances up hills, ladders and trees without sacrificing pace, elegance or precision. While it's clear that he sometimes economizes movements to conserve his strength, he is far more limber than most people half his age. In addition to all this, he's such a pleasure to watch: the ice blue eyes, his lean figure and the way he makes every movement a performance.

As the leprechaun, musician Tommy Steele is almost precisely the opposite side of the coin for me. Where Astaire is effortless, Steele's effort to entertain is painfully visible. No matter the role, there's no line, movement or smile this man seems to deem worthy of any subtlety. Even playing a fanciful character like a leprechaun doesn't require so much flailing and eye bugging. I know this man is adored by many, but I don't yet understand why.

Though Petula Clark is most famous for her singing career, she has also had a long career as an actress, starting as a child. She's a great fit for musicals; it's a shame she didn't have the opportunity to appear in more high profile projects. That said, it's miraculous that, along with Goodbye Mr. Chips (1969), she found two major productions in which to star in an era where big studios and old-fashioned singing and dancing were going out of style. It's great to watch her with Astaire. They have good chemistry, and you can tell she appreciates the legend dancing alongside her.

As the racist Senator, Keenan Wynn takes his mischievous persona to horrific places. It's uncomfortable to watch, because he so completely understands the rot at the core of this man, but he has that Joan Blondell quality of never being able to turn in a bad performance.

The rest of the ensemble is cheerful, light-footed and almost ridiculously adorable. This different generation of dancers mixes well with Astaire, looking like a band of hippies who haven't heard of drugs and who bathe twice a day. It all borders on being too corny, but their uncomplicated joy practically forces you to love them.

A jaunty score by Burton Lane and E.Y. Harburg doesn't have many stand-outs, though the hit Look to the Rainbow would become a classic. Like the rest of the film, it has its good points, but eventually begins to wear out its welcome.

The color on the Blu-ray is gorgeous, sometimes revealing a remarkable glow to the cinematography. Special features include an introduction and commentary by Francis Ford Coppola and the featurette, The World Premier of Finian's Rainbow.

S.O.B.

I've always said that at its core, comedy is more serious than drama, and Blake Edwards' S.O.B. (Standard Operating Bulls***) is perfect evidence of that. Making people laugh is a great way to slip in hard truths. That can be seen in this wild, vicious account of a failed movie director (Richard Mulligan) who wins back his box office mojo by turning a perky musical and its wholesome star (Julie Andrews), who is also his ex-wife, into a scandalous erotic production. Reportedly this satire of the film industry hews close to Edwards' own Hollywood experiences.

It's a huge cast, and everyone plays their own version of a jerk with self-interested, horny, hedonistic zeal. Julie Andrews seems to enjoy unleashing a few curse words, while William Holden (in his final film) is in that contradictory part of his career where he looks old and tired, but still handsome, and Richard Mulligan doesn't have a moment of sanity as the suicidal director with nothing to lose. Robert Preston stands out as a jovially blunt doctor who loves hurling insults like, "you look like an anemic turtle!" and "you look like 180 pounds of condemned veal!" His lines are so much more outrageous than the rest if the cast that I wondered if he had some input into what he said.

Also along for the ride are Shelley Winters, Loretta Switt, Robert Vaughn, Larry Hagman and a very young Rosanna Arquette. Altogether it's a madhouse. They all seem to have been told to crank it to eleven and keep it there.

This film is notorious for featuring Andrew's first onscreen nudity. The great reveal doesn't yield many surprises. Julie Andrews' boobs look pert, proper and like they are about to remind you to clean behind your ears. If she thought going topless would change her image, she clearly didn't realize how thoroughly drenched she was in her squeaky clean persona.

Though much remains of the movie after this moment, it is in some ways the end. There's a bit more insanity, a few more laughs, but for the most part as it gets more blatantly mournful and the pace slows along with that change in tone. S.O.B. isn't a great film, and it overstays its welcome, but it makes its point in an entertaining way and the insanity has its appeal.

There are no special features on the Blu-ray.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copies of the films for review. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.

On Blu-ray: Astaire and Charisse Bid Farewell to the Big Musical in Silk Stockings (1957)

It's 1957 and the era of big musicals is ending, but Silk Stockings doesn't feel like a dying gasp. It is a slick, colorful and expertly executed production. Now available on Blu-ray from Warner Archive, it isn't likely to top the favorites list of many musical fans, but with Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in the leads, you can always expect to be impressed.

Based on the story of the 1939 comedy romance Ninotchka, which became famous as the production in which Garbo let out a highly uncharacteristic belly laugh, it stars Charisse as a serious-minded Russian envoy out to bring home a countryman and composer, Fred Astaire as an American musical producer who woos her and wants to hire that very composer and Janis Paige as a water-logged swimming film star looking to diversify her filmography. As one of a trio of Russian commissars who are seduced by Parisian life, Peter Lorre makes his musical debut and seems to have the time of his life doing so.

Director Rouben Mamoulian set the course for the modern film musical with innovative early sound efforts like Applause (1929) and Love Me Tonight (1932) and later made the charming Summer Holiday (1948) during the genre's colorful heyday. Stockings was his last completed film and evidence that if he'd been given the right materials and autonomy, he might have made a few more classics. As it is, this was not a bad way to go.

While the scenes between numbers can be trying (they all could have been half as long and gotten the point across), the dances are deservedly classic, polished, energetic and the perfect showcase for its impeccably rehearsed stars. Everyone is perfectly lit, arranged and garbed; it's almost as oppressive as it is delightful.

The Cole Porter songs have their cute moments, but with the exception of the dynamic Stereophonic Sound, they don't zing like the best of his work. 

It also doesn't help that Charisse's habit of saying lines like she learned them phonetically is made further awkward by the Russian accent. So much of what she says is identical to the Ninotchka (1939) script that you can't help but pine for Garbo's take on those clever quips.

None of this is truly bad, in fact it's all quite lovely, as if the baseline standard of quality for a Charisse and Astaire flick extends to the MGM musical. At its best though, this is a dance film and that is what makes it magical. There's some charm to be found in the early numbers, but things really get hot when these two masters of screen dancing pair up for All of You and Fated to be Mated. They are like sleek, limber animals together, effortlessly sophisticated, and beautifully in tune with each other. Charisse is also expressive and moving in a solo where she reveals she has given in to the beauties of French fashion.

Seen through modern eyes, it's a bit depressing to watch Charisse abandon her earnest interest in public works for more traditional femininity. Couldn't she keep the slinky hose and continue to visit power plants? But this is mid-century America, so the athletic prowess of her dancing in the final showstopper Red Blues will have to suffice as a reminder that she is still one powerful lady under all that silk and satin.

The film's image is clean, with more softness and grain than I've tended to see on the Warner Archive Blu-rays. Even with an impeccable, brightly-colored production like this one, I prefer that lighter touch when it comes to high definition.

Special features on the disc include the short Cole Porter In Hollywood: Satin and Silk, hosted by Charisse in her later years, a theatrical trailer for the film and two musical shorts featuring the tunes of Porter: Paree, Paree and The Poet and the Peasant Overture.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copy of the film for review. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.

Book Review--Footwork: The Story of Fred and Adele Astaire

Footwork: The Story of Fred and Adele Astaire
Written by Roxane Orgill
Illustrated by Stéphane Jorisch
Candlewick Press, 2007

I've been fascinated by the partnership of Fred and Adele Astaire ever since I reviewed the excellent biography The Astaires: Fred & Adele last year. One thing that tortures me about them is that none of their legendary performances were filmed. Not one! For this reason, I was especially charmed by the illustrations in Footwork: The Story of Fred and Adele Astaire, a biography for young people, because they helped me to better imagine what this pair must have looked like in action.

Footwork follows the dancing Astaires from early tap lessons, through their decades-long stage career together, to Fred's leap from the footlights to screen stardom. It tells their story in an engaging fashion, capturing the facts, but with the artistry of a solid piece of fiction. We see the young dancing prodigies hoofing on the vaudeville stage and sharing the program with acts ranging from performing seals who stink like fish to dance geniuses like Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. You get a vivid sense of the triumphs and struggles they encountered on their way to fame and fortune.

The element that makes this brief bio special is the way it explores the relationship between Fred and Adele. Before he was a movie star, Fred danced in the shadow of his wild and charismatic sister. He focused on constant rehearsals and fine-tuning the details in their act, while she received the loudest applause and acclaim. When gifts of flowers and puppies came over the footlights, he knew they were for his sister.

Footwork explores this aspect of the Astaires' relationship beautifully, acknowledging the different reception each sibling received and showing how they worked through it by focusing on their act. There's also a beautiful moment where Adele sees her brother performing on his own and admires his skill, acknowledging that he can succeed on his own. It's a great example of how influences from the outside world do not need to lead to sibling rivalry.

While Footwork is most appropriate for children, I enjoyed experiencing the Astaire team's biography this way. I would recommend it to anyone who is fond of the Astaires or curious about their story.

Thank you to Raquel Stecher of Candlewick Press for providing a review copy of the book.

Fred and Adele Dipping

Quote of the Week

Once after a dinner party, Gregory Peck and I drove Fred Astaire home. Fred lived in a colonial house that had a long porch with many pillars. When we dropped him off, he danced along the whole front porch, then opened the door, tipped his hat to us, and disappeared. Wow! Greg and I couldn't speak for a few minutes. It was a beautiful way to say thank you.

-Kirk Douglas

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Quote of the Week

. . . a loose rhythmic saunter that looks as if it's, in a way, dancing. I remember Gershwin wrote music especially for that.

-Choreographer Hermes Pan, about the way Fred Astaire walked

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Book Review--The Astaires: Fred & Adele

The Astaires: Fred & Adele
By Kathleen Riley
Oxford University Press, 2012

Before Fred and Ginger, there was Fred and Adele. When I started reading The Astaires, I expected that phrase would best describe this tribute to the legendary sibling dance team. I was wrong.

The gist of it is really this: maybe Fred found more widespread fame, but his charismatic older sister was the spark in their brilliantly successful partnership. Adele’s popularity was such that when she retired from the stage to marry, there was some concern that Fred would be able to make it on his own. We all know that he somehow managed to soldier on.

From their days as child hoofers to their conquest of London’s west end, Fred and Adele Astaire excited audiences with an eccentric, but well-executed performance style. The word “Astairia” was coined to describe the rapturous effect they had on their audiences.

With signature moves like the wild runaround, where they would whip around the stage in circles before careening into the wings, they demonstrated a modern, lively flair for choreography, showmanship and complicated footwork. Partnerships with great composers, such as their good friend George Gershwin, also gave them a boost.

The Astaires details both the team’s remarkable professional partnership and the tight, and occasionally stifling, family bond that enveloped the siblings and their mother. Their father led a frustrating life of unrealized ambition. The early success of his children sunk him deeper into unhappiness and his marriage suffered. He essentially dropped out of the picture as the rest of his family went in search of success.

Determined to give her children every professional advantage, the Astaire’s mother was always present as a guardian and caretaker as they went on the road to perform. As a result, she strengthened her bond with them while increasing her dependence on her offspring.

Adele could also be possessive. When Fred met Phyllis Potter, his first wife and greatest love, he found she was not welcomed in the trio. Determined to find his own happiness, he nevertheless balanced himself carefully among the women in his life, trying to keep the peace.

Though she left the partnership for marriage herself, Adele never fully released her hold on Fred. An alcoholic husband and several miscarriages left her depressed and desperate for the attention of her brother. Providing aid to the troops during World War II lifted her spirits, but for the most part, there was a  steady decline for Adele once she left the stage.

The Astaires dances elegantly among these personal stories and professional anecdotes. It is rich with detail about the era in which Fred and Adele performed, with fascinating asides about the politics, culture and overall climate of the times.

The bits about Adele were especially intriguing. After reading about her universally adored wit, talent and goofball charm, I was deeply depressed that she decided not to pursue Hollywood stardom. In fact, there has never been footage filmed of the team dancing.

As disappointed as I am that I will never be able to see this charming team at work, The Astaires did help me to envision a bit of their magic. The real deal was a gift to lucky audiences in a distant past, a flash of brilliance that has lived on in legend.

Thank you to Oxford University Press for providing a copy of the book for review.

TV Tuesday: Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire for Western Airlines

How have I never heard of this commercial? What a find! Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire are charming in this 1985 ad for Western Airlines, though it is a shame they don't dance. I love how Astaire always wore those fancy scarves around his neck; he had such a relaxed, but sophisticated style. And check out those shoes!

Quote of the Week

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young

-Fred Astaire

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Rogers and Astaire: An Animated Homage

Watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers pop out of a pair of cigarette packages and dance together in this clip from the Warner Bros. cartoon, September in the Rain (1937). Now look at the clip below to see the original dance, which takes place in the last few minutes of The Gay Divorcee (1934), to see how similar the routines were, down to tiny details (look out for a step Rogers makes on the way up, but not on the way down). Skip to the 2:00 mark for the dancing: