Lucy Schmeeler: "She's a grand girl"!

Let's end the year by picking up some sailors, going on the town and celebrating a great comic talent. Happy New Year !

Lucy Schmeeler (Alice Pearce) is the super-plain room-mate of Brunhilde Esterhazy (Betty Garrett) in the 1949 MGM musical ON THE TOWN, a perennial favourite I can enjoy anytime. I do not know Leonard Bernstein's original but it seems some of the songs were junked for the movie (but doesn't that always happen, as in FUNNY GIRL or CABARET?).

We enjoy following our 3 sailors on shore leave in late 40s New York, and the real locations help. Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munchin zoom around the city and the underground train system, Gabe (Gene) sees and falls for "Miss Turnstiles" (a monthly pin-up) whom he imagines is a celebrity, while she (Vera-Ellen at her loveliest) turns out to be from the same small town as his! Jules gets entangled with ritzy Ann Miller who has a thing about "Prehistoric men" and Jules' face fits just right, as they cause havoc at the museum and the dinosaur (or Dinah Shore!) collapses! Frank teams up with taxi driver Brunhilde - Betty Garrett who woos him back to "my place" - where Lucy Schmeeler ["she's a grand girl" says Betty with vitriolic sweetness...] is staying in with a cold. Betty finally gets to her leave so she can get close to Frank. They are supposed to be looking for the elusive Miss Turnstiles, but Gabe finds her at the rehearsal halls and they do that lovely dance to "Main Street" ....

Later they all team up at the top of the Empire State Building and head off "On The Town", this sequence is bliss as they visit one crowded nightclub after another where the revue girls always sing "thats all there is folks, and goodnight to you, we hope your enjoyed our .... revue" as the last girl always shoves her rear end in their faces... Miss Turnstiles has to flee though to her late night job as a coochie dancer at Coney Island, after Gabe gets stuck with Lucy Schmeeler who joins them for a riot of a number and some other sailors from the ship mistake her for Gabe's girl, so they will have a lot to tell the other guys back on the boat ... Gabe takes Lucy home and has to let her down gently as he is in love with Vera --- poor Lucy is back to her laundry lists and won't wash for a week after Gabe kisses her! Her plain character is being patronised of course but its part of the fun here.



Things work out ok at Coney Island and the 3 girls see off the 3 gobs back on their boat, as another flock of sailors disembark to explore "New York New York its a wonderful town"!. That's it in a nutshell, but it is so infectious and a sheer delight from start to finish [screenplay by Comden & Green] - a key musical then with Kelly and Stanley Donen co-directing, paving the way for all those 50s musicals ... including SINGING IN THE RAIN and IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER (see post at musicals label) where their partnership broke up!



Alice Pearce's Lucy is a scream - Alice was a terrific comedienne, she was also Olga the "Jungle Red" manicurist spreading all the gossip in THE OPPOSITE SEX in 1956, [Dolores Gray label], that delicious musical remake of THE WOMEN, which I like so much. She was highly regarded also on tv, appearing in the BEWITCHED series, but she died aged only 48 in 1966. She also played Lucy Schmeeler in the original Broadway production of ON THE TOWN.
That iconic shot of Donen (below) with Kelly & Sinatra ...

"The Throb of Manhattan"

ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER, 1955, may well be my very favourite musical (after A STAR IS BORN and THE BANDWAGON of course) - it and those sophisticated musicals from 1957 [LES GIRLS, FUNNY FACE, SILK STOCKINGS, THE PYJAMA GAME, bits of PAL JOEY] are my perennial favourites, ever since I saw them as a child at Sunday afternoon matinees - BRIGADOON was another but it it not quite in that league, but I prefer them to the over-hyped SINGING IN THE RAIN or AN AMERICAN IN PARIS both of which show Kelly at his most grating (of course, as per Musicals label, I also love ON THE TOWN, MY SISTER EILEEN, KISS ME KATE, SWINGTIME, GYPSY, LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT among others...)

Good to see that ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER is being revived by the London National Film Theatre in their season on MGM musicals - it cries out to be seen on widescreen, using as it does, multiple images when our 3 wartime buddies reflect on their lives now. It seems to have been a troubled shoot, co-directors Kelly and Stanley Donen fell out, Kelly and Charisse don't have any number together, she has one marvellous dance number "Baby You Knock Me Out" at the gym (where, as Pauline Kael put it, "Cyd Charisse is benumbed until she unhinges those legs") wearing that terrific Helen Rose ensemble, and Gene has the very inventive roller-skate number and of course when the 3 guys dance with the dustbin lids, so it is all very innovative, just as original musicals were dying, it was mainly films of Broadway shows after this.

It is the perfect mid-century story of 3 wartime buddies meeting up 10 years later in 1955 and realising that they don't like each other much now, and indeed Kelly and Dailey don't much like themselves either. Gene is mixing with hoods and managing a dumb boxer, while Dan Dailey has risen to "Executive Vice-President" level in advertising and is sick of the advertising game as he lets rip in his terrific solo number "Advertising-wise". Cyd Charisse is the television researcher who stumbles across the 3 wartime buddies and realises their reunion is ideal for her television show "Midnight with Madeline" for "The Throb of Manhattan" spot where saccharine stories are featured. This is the early days of live television and the movie is a splendid satire on those artificial tv hostesses like Madeline and her diva tantrums. Dolores Gray is stupendous here, and has one of the best numbers ever "Thanks a lot but no thanks" which is a delirious treat with that ritzy gown and that killer line:"I've got a man who's Clifton Webb and Marlon Brando combined"!. Then hood Jay C Flippen and his goons invade the studio where the live broadcast is being made, as they are after Gene who has thrown the fight once he realised his boxer has been bribed to lose it. Cyd gets the hoods to confess on live air, Madeline has a hit show, the 3 buddies realise they are still friends after all. It's a perfect conclusion as Cyd joins Gene and the the guys back at the bar where they vowed to meet up 10 years previously.



Choreographer Michael Kidd is ideal as the family man, Dailey has one of his best roles (apart from his father in THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS), Cyd and Gene sparkle as they spar with each other, and Dolores steals the show. What's not to love? It is a dark, sometimes bitter take on ON THE TOWN a decade later as the 3 buddies meet again - by 1955 though Sinatra had gone on to solo projects and was "difficult" and Jules Munchin was not a name enough. Produced of course by Arthur Freed, with songs by Andre Previn, script by Comden and Green; perfect entertainment then, but see the widescreen version, not panned and scanned! The DVD includes a fascinating 'Making-Of' chronicling the fallout between Kelly and Donen, and several out-takes including a terrific inventive (that word again) deleted number between Kelly and Charisse "Love is Nothing But a Racket" which has been unseen for far too long, and Michael Kidd's solo spot with some kids, but Gene did not want that included, after his number with kids in AN AMERICAN IN PARIS! Essential stuff then.

I met Gene at a recording of an interview of his for the BBC in 1975 - Donen of course went on to direct several of my enduing favourites: those Audrey Hepburn films like TWO FOR THE ROAD and CHARADE, Kendall in ONCE MORE WITH FEELING, Peck and Sophia ideal in ARABESQUE, and the marvellous BEDAZZLED with Pete and Dud and Eleanor Bron in 1967. We won't mention STAIRCASE or LUCKY LADY!

Movies I love: Minnelli's Designing Debutante

"Watch out for the ravioli, Greg"!

I have written here previously [as per labels below] on those terrific '50s treats like Cukor's LES GIRLS, or Minnelli's DESIGNING WOMAN, THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE and the like. We did not have television when I was growing up in Ireland in the '50s (it did not arrive until the early '60s) so from 1957 onwards (when I was 11) we just had the cinema for our doses of glamorous people wearing great clothes and doing exciting glamorous things ....
here are some nice new images of Greg and Lauren and Dolores (just before she tips the ravioli into his lap) in that swellegant '57 treat DESIGNING WOMAN, and Rex and Kay (those Balmain gowns!) and Angela in '58 THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE (Angela was also great that year in THE LONG HOT SUMMER with Orson, Paul & Joanne, Lee Remick & Tony Francoisa) - and Kirk and Cyd in 1962's TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN.

Fantasy double bill: Designing Woman / The Long Long Trailer

A Vincente Minnelli double-bill ....



One of my '50s favourites and what must have been the height of chic back then, when I was about 11, is Minnelli's 1957 DESIGNING WOMAN - sort of a retread of WOMAN OF THE YEAR. Here its sports writer Gregory Peck who falls for and marries fashion designer Marilla (Lauren Bacall at her most) and their misunderstandings trying to fit in with each other's lives back in New York. Add in his ex, the Broadway star Dolores Gray who gets to wear some fabulous frocks and sing a song or two, who gets a few bitchy scenes with Bacall (who is working on her show), some boxers trying to fix a fight, and the choreographer friend of Marilla's who seems to be gay but proves to be the tough family guy in the final free for all. Is Vincente playing with gender stereotypes here? - whatever, its great fun. I love the scene where Greg meets Dolores in the restaurant to tell her he has just got married, which she takes quite well apart from tipping the plate of ravioli into his lap. Great '50s fashions and interiors too ... very Minnelli. It's got the look MAD MEN aspires to. Peck and Bacall are a perfect pair, but then Greg was perfect with so many: Audrey, Ava, Jean, Deborah, Ingrid, Sophia, Susan.



More droll fun in Minnelli's 1954 THE LONG LONG TRAILER which must be one of the first movies I was taken to as a kid. We did not have television in Ireland until the early 60s so I grew up without seeing Lucy and Desi - so this was our first exposure to them. Its a pleasant ambling tale of Tacy (Ball) coaxing husband Desi to invest in the very long 3-ton trailer and the mishaps that follow on their honeymoon. Its at once a hymn to the delights of '50s America and the wide open spaces, so very 1953 or 54, and maybe also a glimpse of the nightmare of what suburban life can be (or maybe thats a modern interpretation). Minnelli breezily directs with a nice colour palette - lots of his trademark yellows (the car, the trailer) and the two leads are fun. Marjorie Main (a trailer park neighbour) and Keenan Wynn (a traffic cop) just have a scene each. There are some laugh out loud moments: Lucy falling into the mud, Desi trying to reverse the long long trailer into the family parking space and best of all, her trying to make the Caesar salad back in the trailer while he drives, a sequence that gets more and more delirious - then there is the tense sequence of them driving up the mountain incline with all her hidden rocks and cans stashed away in the trailer! There is a nice ending too - and its all delightfully fifties.

Showpeople (4): "first you're another sloe-eyed vamp" ...

Just a trio of those troupers who belted out Sondheim's "I'm Still Here" from "Follies":

Eartha does it her way - I saw Eartha Kitt in a 90's London revivial, she stopped the show every night !



Much as I love Dolores Gray (and I do, check my label on her) she is frankly too old and matronly here, from a Royal Variety Show...


Very surprised by Yvonne De Carlo - the original Carlotta - she is sensational here on a David Frost show - she plays it perfectly and gets the dynamics of the lyrics - wish I had seen her then !

The clips (and probably other versions) are on YouTube.

People We Like: Dolores Gray

Broadway star Dolores Gray was a tall, blonde, shapely actress-singer with a big contralto voice who appeared in just a handful of movies at MGM in the mid-50s but they certainly are collector's choices! She also appeared on radio and television and in nightclubs, and, in addition to her original cast and soundtrack recordings, recorded for two major labels and scored a handful of chart entries. I loved ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER when I saw it at a matinee in 1955 (being all of 9 or 10) - not only Gene and Cyd Charisse (and Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd also being terrific) but the movie is stolen by the star turn of Dolores as Madeline the spoiled star of the tv show "Throb of Manhattan" - Dolores is at her most artificial here exploiting the 3 guys on their reunion and she sings that knockout number "Thanks A Lot But No Thanks" in that ritzy red dress.


(right: DESIGNING WOMAN - the look MAD MEN aspires to) She does not have much to do in Minnelli's KISMET but is better used in his 1957 stylish DESIGNING WOMAN as the ex- (a Broadway star naturally) of Gregory Peck who has gone off and married Lauren Bacall - that restaurant scene where she tips the plate of ravioli into Greg's lap is endlessly amusing. She also gets to don some 50s fancy dresses and sing too of course.

Comedywise her best role is in that 1956 remake of THE WOMEN, THE OPPOSITE SEX which I like a lot, as I did back then. Dolores is fab as Sylvia Fowler out to wreck nice June Allyson's marriage by telling her that husband Leslie Nielson is seeing homewrecker Crystal Allen, who is Joan Collins here. Its a great collection of '50s gals in those '50s dresses - watch out for Ann Miller, Ann Sheridan, Agnes Moorehead, Carolyn Jones, Charlotte Greenwood, Joan Blondell and Alice Pearce (Lucy Schmeeler from ON THE TOWN!) as the "Jungle Red" saleslady! See Dolores/Sylvia and Joan/Crystal tangle over that Buck Winston !

Dolores also starred in the London original production of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, and died in 2002. Pity I did not see her in that revival of FOLLIES - I saw the Eartha Kitt version - but I have just discovered there is an album of hers "Warm Brandy" which I have just ordered on Amazon, and there there are lots of her songs on iTunes! My ipod will be much more glamorous now...