Author Topic: Merry Music of May 2018  (Read 15401 times)

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Merry Music of May 2018
« Reply #10 on: May 01, 2018, 12:40:45 PM »

Why do men who should know better
Gape at a well filled sweater
What's there about it that keeps them craning their necks
The answer is...

The Opposite Sex (1956)

Often despised musical remake of 1939's The Woman. Maybe it's because I'm not a fan of the source material, maybe it's because I love most of this cast, but this is a pretty decent movie. It's too long like most MGM Musicals, unable to tell between a great musical number, a deadly one and pure filler. The sexual politics are quaint and I don't appreciate Joan Collins one bit. I don't even like to hate her. She comes off as an actress I'd least like to have met in person.

On the other end of that list, the film stars June Allyson (The Glenn Miller Story), someone with a scratchy speaking voice that would make you think she wouldn't be a good singer, but she's a great one and a really good dancer too. Both of the Musical highlights belong to her, a firecracker version of "Young Man With a Horn" and "Now Baby Now" (identified incorrectly below.)


I posted the video for that one because I love the staging, the way Allyson sits inside the bass and eventually gets moved around like a Debbie Reynolds football. Best of all is the moment at 1:15 when two men behind Allyson walk up ladders without using their hands.

Back to the cast. The story is told by Ann Sheridan, in Color (always a plus,) Joan Blondell pops in every now and then and the second half is energized by a visit to a divorce ranch in Reno with Agnes Moorehead and Ann Miller. Perhaps someday I'll watch The Women again and realize my mistake. That's what other opinions would have me believe. For now, this isn't bad.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ - Okay

Sandy

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 12075
  • "The life we build, we never stop creating.”
    • Sandy's Cinematic Musings
Re: Merry Music of May 2018
« Reply #11 on: May 01, 2018, 03:06:37 PM »
Fun! Though I can't see the caustic The Women as a musical!


When I think of June Allyson, this is what pops into my head every time. It was on a CD of songs from MGM musicals I owned from long ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHmmS6XquYA

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Merry Music of May 2018
« Reply #12 on: May 01, 2018, 11:23:18 PM »

The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)

This two-hour variety show featuring MGM's biggest stars at the time won't mean much today. Even, I only recognized Emcee Jack Benny, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Joan Crawford and Lionel Barrymore. Everything is filmed facing the stage, like a concert without an audience. I settled in, hoping for some highlights. And I got some.

Benny is good for a couple of corny laughs. There's a sketch where an actress emerges from his coat pocket. Her foot gets stuck on a twenty and Benny remarks, "This can't be my coat."

The most inspired scene is a performance of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, updating the dialogue for a modern audience. ("Now listen boyfriend, you have a nice line of patter but how do I know you care for me in a big way?")

Laurel and Hardy deliver some good laughs. Unfortunately Keaton stiffly relies on old material.

The biggest surprise is a singer named Cliff Edwards performing "Singin' in the Rain" with his ukulele. You can tell this was their planned highlight. It breaks out into a lavish group song and dance and even gets reprised for the Finale.
Rating: ★ ★

Junior

  • Bert Macklin, FBI
  • Global Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28709
  • What's the rumpus?
    • Benefits of a Classical Education
Re: Merry Music of May 2018
« Reply #13 on: May 02, 2018, 11:10:17 AM »
I forgot to check Filmstruck when I made my list of movies to watch, so I went through and added about 20 to my watchlist. I won't get to all of them, of course, but it's good to have options! Anyway, here's two from there.

A Mighty Wind

I think this might be my second favorite Christopher Guest movie (after Spinal Tap, obviously). It is a lot like Spinal Tap in some ways. A Mighty Wind is also a look at a specific subculture focused on the delusions and illusions that the offbeat characters have about themselves and their place in the world. A Mighty Wind, though, expands the scope and the cast list to get a more full picture of the folk music scene of the 60s 40 years later. Because the movie focuses on 9ish musicians across 3 bands, there's both a greater focus on seeing different sides of the industry (we've got a romantic duo, a trio of dudes, and a big 9 piece band, plus managers and peripheral characters for each and the family at the center of all of them putting on a show to remember their father) and a little less space for the characters to become as fully developed as they are in a movie like Spinal Tap (though there are a few exceptions to that broad statement. So even though the movie feels full of caricatures rather than characters, they're still all quite funny and that's the primary goal here.

I like but don't have a deep love for folk music of the era being lampooned here, so there are probably deeper references that I'm missing, but I still had a heck of a good time with these characters. I think this was the first time that I felt something other than general positive feelings towards a Christopehr Guest movie. The Eugene Levy character is surprisingly complex and indeed quite sad. I guess I never found him particularly funny, but he and his relationship with the Catherine O'Hara character form the emotional center of the film and I found it to be quite moving. I never thought I'd write that about one of these movies, but there you have it. It's really good, and the music is pretty good at aping the sound it's supposed to ape, though it's not quite as funny as the songs in Spinal Tap.

Best songs: "A Mighty Wind" is the only one performed in full, so it takes the cake. I do like the "Eat at Joes" song too, mostly because it feels like Harry Shearer's character keeps getting a kick out of the punchline.

A-


Brigadoon

Ok, so the opening song here is just the bee's knees. You've got two guys lost in the Scottish countryside and one of them is Gene Kelly and the other is Van Johnson and they're wearing these absurd suits and everything is obviously a set but that doesn't take you out of it because the next thing that happens is a light pierces through the fog that lifts and reveals the setting's sett-iness even more but also makes everything super magical so that you're already brought into this world where anything can happen if the love is strong enough. How wonderful. The next scene is the small town of Brigadoon coming to life, bright, bold life and the townsfolk singing about how awesome their market square is and you think this might be set in Oz or during one of those ballet fantasies from Singin' in the Rain or An American in Paris and it turns out that you're not wrong. The whole movie operates under this kind of fairy tale/dream logic and there are pointy beards and beautiful dresses and amazing dancing and I found it impossible to resist. Van Johnson is there to remind you of the real world, skeptic that he is, but even he gets caught up in everything. How could you not?

You can trace the whole movie in Cyd Charisse's dresses. During her first number about how she's waiting for love even at the ripe old age of 25, her plain beige dress matches her sensibility. Her sisters are all in these bright costumes but she's still relatively plain. By the time she goes off to gather some heather with Kelly, she starts throwing her legs around and shows off the bright red-orange under-dress (apologies for not knowing the proper terminology) that matches her growing love for him. At her sister's wedding she's in this amazing red dress with a yellow shawl and she's just the picture of love incarnate. No need for shades of gray here, the love is immediate and deep. Which makes Kelly's eventual departure and her acceptance so heartbreaking. The movie's conclusion is breathtaking in it's use of light and shadow, expressionistic and transporting.

Best songs: I didn't really love much of the songs for their lyrical content here, other than "Almost Like Being In Love." But "The Heather on the Hill" is a beautiful dance number and "I'll Go Home With Bonnie Jean" does that Gene Kelly tap thing really well. The score is lush and perfect, too, especially in that last scene.

A-
Check out my blog of many topics

“I’m not a quitter, Kimmy! I watched Interstellar all the way to the end!”

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Merry Music of May 2018
« Reply #14 on: May 02, 2018, 12:56:14 PM »
"I'll Go Home With Bonnie Jean" was my favorite moment from Brigadoon. Very peppy.



My Love Came Back (1940)

I'll watch Olivia de Havilland anytime, anywhere. In this romantic drama she plays a classical violinist who fuses her style with a swing band to make some money. There's some great cast at the top here: Jane Wyman, S.Z. Sakall, Grant Mitchell, Spring Byington, Charles Winninger and Eddie Albert. The story is more fitting to a cast of unknowns. More unclear than it has any right to be, never really funny or dramatic. Blandy bland bland.
Rating: ★ ★

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Merry Music of May 2018
« Reply #15 on: May 02, 2018, 01:22:59 PM »
I forgot to check Filmstruck when I made my list of movies to watch, so I went through and added about 20 to my watchlist. I won't get to all of them, of course, but it's good to have options!

I thought I'd be scraping bottom by now, but my Watchlist keeps growing as I find more lists recommending titles. I'm going to crack into Shirley Temple this month with Little Miss Marker and The Littlest Rebel. I also have many returning favorites like Deanna Durbin, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Jane Wyman. June Allyson and Jack Lemmon in a musical remake of It Happened One Night (You Can't Run Away From It), my final James Cagney musical (Never Steal Anything Small) and rewatches of my newly purchased DVDs 1776 and Victor/Victoria.

Junior

  • Bert Macklin, FBI
  • Global Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28709
  • What's the rumpus?
    • Benefits of a Classical Education
Re: Merry Music of May 2018
« Reply #16 on: May 02, 2018, 03:04:21 PM »
"I'll Go Home With Bonnie Jean" doesn't have quite the verve of "I Got Rhythm" from AAIP but it's pretty close. I'm impressed that they thought to go hunting with tap shoes on!

As I was watching Brigadoon I was thinking of how fertile it could be for a remake. You could change everything but the core conceit (and probably romance) and I think it'd still work, with some doing. You could do a Reconstruction era all-black town and then have modern black characters visit it. I liked the cultural criticism of the interlude back in NY, and it could be updated to be even more relevant.

I forgot to check Filmstruck when I made my list of movies to watch, so I went through and added about 20 to my watchlist. I won't get to all of them, of course, but it's good to have options!

I thought I'd be scraping bottom by now, but my Watchlist keeps growing as I find more lists recommending titles. I'm going to crack into Shirley Temple this month with Little Miss Marker and The Littlest Rebel. I also have many returning favorites like Deanna Durbin, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Jane Wyman. June Allyson and Jack Lemmon in a musical remake of It Happened One Night (You Can't Run Away From It), my final James Cagney musical (Never Steal Anything Small) and rewatches of my newly purchased DVDs 1776 and Victor/Victoria.

Added to my watchlist from Filmstruck:

The Music Man
The Band Wagon
Guys and Dolls
Gold Diggers of 33-37
Gigi
Easter Parade
Dames
Carefree
Cabin in the Sky
Black Orpheus
Bells are Ringing
A Hard Days Night (rewatch)
The Lure
The Tales of Hoffmann
(Bergman's) The Magic Flute

Plus I have Cabaret and The Muppet Movie coming on Blu tomorrow, will probably rewatch those.
« Last Edit: May 02, 2018, 03:13:09 PM by Junior »
Check out my blog of many topics

“I’m not a quitter, Kimmy! I watched Interstellar all the way to the end!”

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Merry Music of May 2018
« Reply #17 on: May 02, 2018, 03:22:29 PM »
Gold Diggers of 33-37
While decidedly mixed as individual movies, they work great as a bunch with some supreme highlights.

Junior

  • Bert Macklin, FBI
  • Global Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28709
  • What's the rumpus?
    • Benefits of a Classical Education
Re: Merry Music of May 2018
« Reply #18 on: May 02, 2018, 03:26:07 PM »
Cool. I added them because I thought I remembered you liking something about them previously. They aren't my top priorities, but I think they're somewhere around the middle.
Check out my blog of many topics

“I’m not a quitter, Kimmy! I watched Interstellar all the way to the end!”

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Merry Music of May 2018
« Reply #19 on: May 02, 2018, 10:34:38 PM »

Never Steal Anything Small (1959)
"No rough stuff. Wouldn't work.
This has gotta be strictly Charmsville."


For years I hoped for a DVD release of my final Cagney musical that would preserve the cinemascope aspect ratio. I finally gave up and watched the VHS release. It's a difficult movie on many levels. Cagney plays a former gangster who, along with his gang, muscles and cons his way into being President... of the local dockworkers Union. The main story has him trying to break up his lawyer's marriage so he can seduce the man's wife, who is 25 years younger than him. (Actually, 59-year-old Cagney had 35 years on Shirley Jones.) This is our hero. We're supposed to root for him. While the character isn't likable, Cagney can't stop being Cagney. So I enjoyed watching him while despising his character.

The film is such a reluctant Musical, I thought maybe the songs were added at the last minute to match the goofy tone. (Guys and Dolls takes mobsters more seriously.) Truth is, most of the songs were removed, along with a lot of the dancing choreographed by Hermes Pan. It took me by surprise when a character started singing, that's how little there is. Still, there is one very merry highlight. Cagney offers to buy a female accomplice (Cara Williams) an inexpensive car and she sings "I'm Sorry, I Want A Ferrari". I wish I could find this on YouTube.

If you wanna be friends
Don't mention a Mercedes Benz
Or even a beautiful Alfa Romeo
I'm Sorry, I Want A Ferrari

The scene climaxes with the duo dancing on a conveyer belt alongside the car. Cagney does his horse-step walk dancing. A great scene in a not-so-great movie.
Rating: ★ ★