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Author Topic: For Me and My Gal: Mr. & Mrs. 1SOs Merry Musical Marathon  (Read 40286 times)

1SO

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Merry Musical Marathon - Summer Stock
« Reply #70 on: May 11, 2011, 12:23:12 AM »


Summer Stock

Summer Stock felt to me like the last hurrah of Judy Garland before the drugs and personal demons would finally consume her. Like in Easter Parade, she's noticeably bigger and happier. This might be her most relaxed performance to date. Again she's partnered with Gene Kelly, but this time he only out dances her during his solo numbers. They have a dance off during "Portland Fancy" and I'll be damned if Garland matches Kelly step for step. It was like a personal F.U. to me for saying her strength lies in her voice, which is a powerful as ever. The non-Garland musicals always get sleepy around the ballads, but she sings "Friendly Star" and it's one of the best parts of the film.

Gene Kelly practically fades into the ensemble, though he dances on the barn stage utilizing a squeaky board and a newspaper with amazing ingenuity. It's the kind of commanding, physical movement that's much closer to Jackie Chan than Fred Astaire. The finale is a nice compromise between the two with some decent numbers, including one where Garland dresses in a manner similar to Oz's Dorothy. And then Garland performs "Get Happy" (pictured above, shot one month and -25 pounds after the rest of the film wrapped). Talk about going out with a bang. It's not so much the singing or dancing, but with the outfit, the hat and Garland's attitude she totally owns the moment. It not only passes the "Trolly Song" test, emotionally it surpasses it. The song remains stuck in my head. She owns it, and in one final coup de grace stakes her spot among the brightest stars in the Hollywood sky.

I think the weak plot of all these musicals have worn me down to where I don't even pay attention to them anymore. This is practically a grown up version of Babes in Arms mixed with moments from every other rom-com musical. A lot of it doesn't work, but enough of it does to where I can say this is passable entertainment.
GRADE: ***


MRS. 1SO:
My wife's newfound appreciation of Judy Garland continues. She wasn't as enamored with "Get Happy", preferring the less known "(Howdy Neighbor) Happy Harvest" featuring Garland riding her new tractor as she sings joyfully to all the townfolk. The wife much prefers Astaire to Kelly, though she was also impressed by the Newspaper Dance. What destroyed Summer Stock beyond any appreciation was Phil Silvers, whom she'd never seen before and hopes to never see again. There's an interesting clash of styles between the 40s screwball comedy of Eddie Bracken and Silvers hepcat mugging. She compared Silvers to Pauly Shore and didn't understand why he had so much screen time. There's a gospel revival number with Silvers acting like a colored preacher. She said it was "more offensive than blackface." Overall, one great Judy Garland performance can't single-handedly overcome everything else.
GRADE: *1/2

sdedalus

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Re: For Me and My Gal: Mr. & Mrs. 1SOs Merry Musical Marathon
« Reply #71 on: May 11, 2011, 12:57:33 AM »
Summer Stock

Summer Stock felt to me like the last hurrah of Judy Garland before the drugs and personal demons would finally consume her.

I'd say it's A Star is Born, though she gives an Oscar-calibur performance in Judgement at Nuremberg.
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1SO

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Merry Musical Marathon - the Band Wagon
« Reply #72 on: May 14, 2011, 01:31:39 PM »


The Band Wagon

This isn't just another "let's put on a show" plot, it's Singin' in the Rain only set on Broadway. Let me cut to the chase, The Band Wagon was directed by Vincent Minnelli. Minnelli is great for taking really creative ideas and killing them with blatantly stupid decisions. Take for example the first preview. (And I'm telling you, if you've seen Singin', you can follow right along.) we see everyone go in all happy. The doors close. The smart creative decision is to reopen the doors as if time as passed and watch all the smiling faces march out in frowns. And Minnelli does exactly that. EXCEPT... in between the two beats there are three dissolves to pencil sketch concept drawings of the show. Kills the whole effect of the time cut and the images don't even fit in with the show we've been led to believe they're watching.

He makes very frustrating decisions. You wait for Fred Astaire to dance with Cyd Charisse and he doesn't just draw out the anticipation, he tries your patience. Two easy and obvious "they should dance here" moments pass by. It's a musical that feels like it's missing a bunch of songs. And what's here isn't all that great. The most well known is "That's Entertainment", which is a standard but one of my least favorite from the classic musical catalogue. "Louisiana Hayride" is fun and "Triplets" is known cause it features Astaire and a couple of others dressed up as babies and dancing on their knees.

The finale is Smooth Criminal a mean a film noir murder mystery in jazz. Again, some marvelous ideas, but while this predates The Red Shoes it also shows that Minnelli is no Powell/Pressburger. Some good moments among a lot of bad decisions. I felt bad for Astaire, who I think took the job just to dance with Charisse. He suffers a lot of barbed attacks at his fading career and they don't feel in jest, just kinda mean.
GRADE: *1/2


MRS. 1SO:
Boy did she hate this movie. Her biggest problem was that none of the supporting cast were the least bit interesting, and the egotistical actor/director and the husband writer were annoying. (I used the photo above because the shoe shiner, played by Leroy Daniels was her 2nd favorite performance). Very little was said except to wonder if it was over yet. Right now she's wishing we'd dug up some more stuff from the 30s and 40s. She thought I picked this one as a joke. Didn't like the songs. Wanted to see more tap dancing.
GRADE: 1/2

p.s. Mrs. 1SO has come to really love Betty Hutton and the songs from Annie Get Your Gun. She's forgotten a lot of what she didn't like about that one and finds it to be the most memorable of the marathon so far.



[tinypic isn't working so I'll have to properly upload these images later.]

sdedalus

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Re: For Me and My Gal: Mr. & Mrs. 1SOs Merry Musical Marathon
« Reply #73 on: May 14, 2011, 01:47:54 PM »
Gasp!
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smirnoff

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Re: For Me and My Gal: Mr. & Mrs. 1SOs Merry Musical Marathon
« Reply #74 on: May 14, 2011, 02:04:06 PM »
Is that out of 5 stars? My god, they've all be pretty lacking so far.

1SO

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Re: For Me and My Gal: Mr. & Mrs. 1SOs Merry Musical Marathon
« Reply #75 on: May 14, 2011, 02:57:07 PM »
Is that out of 5 stars? My god, they've all be pretty lacking so far.
My Star Ratings. What They Mean.

*****   = The Greatest Films Ever Made. (Only My Top 25 of All Time have earned a full 5 stars)
****     = A Must See
***1/2 = A Great Film
***       = A Good Film
**1/2   = Mixed
**         = Disappointed
*1/2    = Bad Film. Pretty Forgettable
*           = Laughably Bad
1/2      = So Bad it's Not Funny
0 stars = Insultingly or Offensively Bad

I'm hoping for a couple of ***1/2, but honestly with musicals you go in expecting a mixed bag. The stories are usually just excuses for the songs and not all of the songs will be winners. I'm just looking for moments that pass "The Trolley Song" test.

MartinTeller

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Re: For Me and My Gal: Mr. & Mrs. 1SOs Merry Musical Marathon
« Reply #76 on: May 14, 2011, 03:02:18 PM »
I didn't like The Band Wagon either.

Quote
Well, I have some problems with this. First of all, the show-within-in-a-show that they eventually put on makes no sense. There's no coherence whatsoever, I tried to figure out what kind of show could possibly have a hayride number, a top hat and a cane number, a baby triplets number, and a hard-boiled detective number. It just seemed like an excuse to throw together some extra bits left over from other productions. More egregious is the film's attitude. It seems to be saying that any kind of artistic or intellectual ambition is silly, and shows should never try to do anything but entertain. I'm as fond of entertainment as the next guy, but let's not take swipes at those who wish to aim for something else (I got the sense they had Orson Welles in mind). And if you are going to have this outlook, then what you produce had better be REALLY entertaining. And Band Wagon isn't. The "Shine On My Shoes" bit is spectacular, the detective ballet is very good, and you can't complain about Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, who light up the screen. But many of the routines are forgettable little nothings. Except for those few wonderful moments, the whole thing is thoroughly average. Rating: 6

1SO

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Re: For Me and My Gal: Mr. & Mrs. 1SOs Merry Musical Marathon
« Reply #77 on: May 14, 2011, 03:13:46 PM »
We definitely saw the same film on this one, except your overall grade was less harsh.

Sandy

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Re: For Me and My Gal: Mr. & Mrs. 1SOs Merry Musical Marathon
« Reply #78 on: May 14, 2011, 04:49:04 PM »
The Band Wagon= :P    I didn't want to make this statement until you had a chance to see it.

smirnoff

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Re: For Me and My Gal: Mr. & Mrs. 1SOs Merry Musical Marathon
« Reply #79 on: May 14, 2011, 05:30:29 PM »
I'm just looking for moments that pass "The Trolley Song" test.

Wow, yeah, what a scene! Just watched it.