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| Joe Vitus |
 Posted: Sat Aug 24, 2013 6:26 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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LOL about the blueface. I guess in many ways Avatar was the ultimate Blue Man Group experience.
To be fair, I think the motives behind these movies are generally good. People recognize the value of another culture, they are outraged at the treatment of a people they admire, and they want to do something about it. It's just that as well meaning as all this is, the same sense of cultural superiority tends to shine through: "they haven't my strength/skill/intelligence, they are not capable of saving themselves."
And, to be honest, sometimes this is just simply accurate. How can an oppressed people successfully throw off their oppression without the support of at least some people in the dominant culture? Could blacks have truly escaped slavery in America if whites didn't help them, first with the Underground Railroad, and then with the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War? Could they really have done it on their own? Of course, there's no way to answer that question.
But I understand why these movies upset people and can seem demeaning, even when the movies have positive goals. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Aug 24, 2013 11:24 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| It's odd that people are vague about the year "The Music Man" takes place when the mayor explicitly says the holiday celebration takes place on July 4, 1912. Since the whole movie takes place in one summer, it must take place in 1912. This is consistent with the Elinor Glyn reference, since she'd written several books by then. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 5:40 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I've never been a fan of the movie version of The Music Man. It's largely because I saw the show on Broadway at least twice, with Barbara Cook as Marian the ilbrarian, and once you've experienced Cook, Shirley Jones will never ever do. Robert Preston was also better on stage; he was IMO a tad too large for the movies, though he certainly did okay. But on stage he was that old cliche, "a force of nature." The show was a great stage show; as a movie it's for me just a step or two above mediocre. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 9:11 am |
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| I liked The Music Man. I never saw the Broadway version of course, but I have to agree with Billy about Shirley Jones. The only time I ever liked her was in Elmer Gantry. I liked Preston, but i always did. It's been a very long time since I saw TMM. I may be mixing it up, but was that the movie where Preston hits the kid in the head with a baseball (by accident) and knocks him out. Maybe another movie. It is one of my favourite comic bits. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 4:43 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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I'll never understand the dislike around here for Shirley Jones. She's generally terrific in her movie musicals. She's the only performer who so impressed Rodgers and Hammerstein that they signed her to a personal contract.
Agree that the movie of The Music Man is basically mediocre. Not sure that doesn't have more to do with the basic material and/or Morton DaCosta's direction. Obviously I didn't see the original production (I wasn't born yet), but I've seen the show on both stage and screen, and it has never particularly impressed me. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 8:35 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I do wonder whether anybody ever actually said "Great Honk." |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 9:27 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Joe--Shirley Jones is no Barbara Cook, and she was at least partially responsible for the worst of all Broadway-to-film adaptations, Carousel.
That said, she's generally likeable and certainly inoffensive most of the time. But her singing voice is only pleasant, not memorable.
That also said, she's still working and doing it quite well. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 10:18 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I really like Shirley Jones's voice. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 10:56 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Syd wrote: I really like Shirley Jones's voice.
So did Rodgers and Hammerstein, so you're in great company. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 12:31 am |
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Location: Houston
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billyweeds wrote: she was at least partially responsible for the worst of all Broadway-to-film adaptations, Carousel.
No way, no way, no way, Billy. Don't lay any of the blame of the Carousel debacle on Jones. The movie is an abomination all right, but Jones is perfectly cast. With the possible exception of Gordon MacRae as Billy and Gene Lockhart as the Starkeeper/Dr. Seldon, none of the casting is at fault, and the performers aren't the ones who contribute to the failure: I mean, they are all lackluster, but all you have to do is look at their work elsewhere to see where the fault lies. It's all on Henry King's shitty direction, Phoebe and Henry Ephron's pathetic script, and choreographer Charles G. Clarke's lousy imitation-Michael Kidd choreography. (At least Agnes De Milles' ballet for Louise was retained--but she had to go to court to prevent Clarke from stealing the credit; and why is it confusedly turned into a dream sequence?) |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 6:33 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Okay, Joe, I cave on this one. But I stand firm on MacRae (who I have nothing against in anything else he ever did, including Oklahoma!) as being totally unready for the complexities of Billy, one of the most demanding musical leads.
You're on the money about King and the Ephrons. But Charles G. Clarke was not the choreographer (that was Rod Alexander). Clarke was to blame for the execrable cinematography.
I guess I still dream about the original actress targeted for Julie--Judy Garland. Sinatra (her proposed Billy) would have been as wrong in his way--too urban, too "cool"--as MacRae was in his.
We still presumably have to look forward to Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway as Billy and Julie. That might be gangbusters.
Sidelight: The other day I saw the trailer for Carousel on TCM, touting the wonders of CinemaScope 70 or 80 or something, and proudly proclaiming the presence in the cast of "Gordon MacRae as Billie." (I thought that was a teen comedy starring Patty Duke.) |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 8:48 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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| Lived in the same apartments as MacRae for a couple years. He seemed to spend all his spare time drinking, so I can't say I really "met" him. He seemed friendly, but was mostly concentrating on not falling down. I think there are scores of former residents of that complex who became teetotalers, thanks to GMac. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 8:54 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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"Gordon MacRae as Billie Holiday as Billy Bigelow." Well, yes, that would have been strange. But certainly more entertaining than the movie as it stands.
I thought it was Rod Alexander (but I thought his first name was "Ron"), but a lot of the sites I looked at to double check didn't even name the choreographer. I got Clarke from a fan site. And yes, the cinematography sucks.
Sinatra would have been strange. Garland...so hard to call that one. She was too old by then and too visibly worn to be believable as a young, inexperienced Julie. But what she might have done with that score and how emotionally appealing she might have been in another subject entirely.
Personally, I think it should have been Garland as Mama Rose in the movie of Gypsy. Obviously instead of Roz, but maybe even instead of Merman, who just didn't translate to film, even in stage roles she originated. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 9:24 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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bartist wrote: Lived in the same apartments as MacRae for a couple years. He seemed to spend all his spare time drinking, so I can't say I really "met" him. He seemed friendly, but was mostly concentrating on not falling down. I think there are scores of former residents of that complex who became teetotalers, thanks to GMac.
MacRae's drinking was notorious, and Gordon's daughter Heather (a friend of mine who has amended the spelling of her last name to Mac Rae with a space) replicated her father in her fiance Walter McGinn. McGinn was a great actor who I got to know pretty well, a very fine fellow (Broadway's That Championship Season and filmdom's The Parallax View) and a horrible drunk who died in a one-car auto crash in Los Angeles. The McGinn/Cazale Theatre in NYC is named after Walter and John (Godfather) Cazale, two amazing actors who died young.
Walter McGinn was Gordon MacRae redux. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 9:32 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Joe Vitus wrote: ...maybe even instead of Merman, who just didn't translate to film, even in stage roles she originated.
I am the world's greatest living Merman fanatic, but I agree with you. I think the fact that she didn't play Rose on film is a blessing in disguise. Her performance in Call Me Madam on film is virtually unwatchable even though I'm sure she was aces on stage in the same role. She's better in There's No Business Like Show Business, probably because it was conceived as a film in the first place, but she's still decidedly OTT.
Of course, she still would have been better than the hopelessly miscast and obnoxiously narcissistic Roz Russell, who was so OTT in her own inimitable way that she makes The Merm look like Simone Signoret. |
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