'40s kitsch with Jade and Judy, not to mention Carmen !

Sometimes its hard to get one's head around the fact that in the last desperate years of World War II while dreadful things were happening in Europe and the Far East, Hollywood was still turning out those dream factory products like MRS MINIVER, RANDOM HARVEST, MEET ME IN ST LOUIS and this piece of oriental make-believe, made in 1944. (The MINIVER film though was designed to showcase the plucky Brits and gets Americans involved, like Anna Neagle's I LIVE IN GROSVENOR SQUARE). It must have seemed a good idea at the time to get Katharine Hepburn to play Chinese - after all, Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young did in THE HATCHET MAN in '32; along here with that cast including Walter Huston, Agnes Moorehead, Akim Tamiroff and Turhan Bey. Kate is Jade, a pre-feminist Chinese woman who struggles with her family for survival when the Japanese invade. Presumably audiences of the time did not mind that other races were played by well-known actors. The film made while atrocities against the Chinese were being carried out reflects the American thinking at the time, as depicted through the keen expert eyes novelist Pearl S. Buck, author of THE GOOD EARTH. It also reflects what was available to Hollywood film-makers at that desperate moment. Given the time and the circumstances, the movie does quite an adequate job. Hepburn's name on theater marquees also ensured that many more people would see the film than otherwise (like Bette Davis in WATCH ON THE RHINE). Hollywood was of course also courting the South American audience, as their films were not available in wartorn Europe, with all those Carmen Miranda films set DOWN ARGENTINE WAY...

The plot here is: Ling Tang and his family live on his prosperous farm in rural Southern China and have not yet felt the impact of the Japanese invasion in the North. Tang's two oldest sons, Lao Ta Tan and Lao Er Tan are married and hard working while youngest son Lao San Tan remains a free spirit. Er's wife Jade is also willfully unconventional and desires to exercises her literacy skills by reading books, a most unfeminine practice in 1930's China. Tang's only daughter is married to Wu Lien, a city merchant who profits from selling Japanese goods. When the dreaded invasion reaches their village, the family is scattered as the sons join the resistance while Wu Lien survives by collaborating with the enemy.
Hepburn, thankfully, is less mannered and less on display than usual - her idea of being Chinese amuses now - and as a wartime drama it holds the attention. An interesting curiosity now then.

The later 40s shows the dream factory in full force with those favourites like A LETTER TO 3 WIVES, ROADHOUSE, THE HEIRESS etc and now A DATE WITH JUDY in 1948. Another 40s dreamworld where the middle-classes have roomy comfy homes and domestic help - yes its a coloured maid here, as Jane Powell as the perky teen Judy sings at the local high school, is friends with Carol - Elizabeth Taylor, the local rich girl, and worries about her parents' marriage as it seems father (Wallace Beery) is having an affair with a woman at his office. She though is Carmen Miranda who is teaching him how to rhumba to Xaviar Cugat's music at his wedding anniversary! Carmen is a bit subdued here but adds some sparkle, Jane Powell trills some songs like "Its a Most Unusual Day"; young Robert Stack is the new guy in town working in the drugstore whom both girls have their eyes on. 16 year old Elizabeth Taylor is marvellous here, patenting her future roles as the nice rich girl with some steel when it comes to getting her man. A Joe Pasternak production directed by Richard Thorpe, it is a pleasing discovery now. Perfect late 40s entertainment, particularly when Wallace Beery shows off his rhumba skills and the girls get their beaus, and of course with Leon Ames as another paterfamilias who learns the importance of his family. And of course teens then were just younger versions of their parents until the '50s when teenagers were suddenly invented and got their own culture as rock'n'roll arrived!

Absolutely delicious ....

The new AB FAB and that Christmas GLEE ....

Above is Jeanne Durand the famous glacial French movie star who has deigned to appear in the new tv series of ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS, the BBC's long-running series of comedies by Jennifer Saunders with her and Joanna Lumley as Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone - the fashion, PR and media stars. [That episode "The End" with Patsy in New York and that flashforward to them just as disgraceful 25 years later is my particular standout favourite, it always creases me up...].

In order to impress her daughter Saffy, Edina decides to take on Jeanne as her new client and books her a concert at the Albert Hall - then it turns out that Durand can't sing! This is of course blissfully funny, and the campest thing you will see on tv this new year! It is fleshed out with all the usual AB FAB trimmings, Jane Horrocks as Bubbles, June Whitfield as mother, and guest stars Lulu and Emma Bunton - and yes, its "champagne for Lulu" once again! There are 3 new episodes of AB FAB and they are well up the quality of the previous.

Jeanne is of course wickedly played by Lindsay Duncan, that esteemed British actress who turns up everywhere: DR WHO, MERLIN, ROME, SPOOKS (she was stunning in that), and of course LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES with Alan Rickman, her breakthrough theatre role in '87. She plays 2 roles in the 1999 MANSFIELD PARK, which I saw over the holidays, as per review below, and was Isherwood's icy mother in CHRISTOPHER AND HIS KIND (gay interest label). Here (below) she channels the Jeanne Moreau of BAY OF ANGELS, latterday Deneuve or maybe Dunaway doing Dietrich. Its slyly wickedly funny. I will be seeing her on stage in a month or so in a new production here in London of Coward's HAY FEVER where she will be playing Edith Evans's old role as Judith Bliss, with Jeremy Northam.

Incidentally, Duncan also played a stunning Margaret Thatcher in a BBC play: MARGARET in 2009 - so Meryl is not the first IRON LADY ! Duncan's was a deadly serious look at Thatcher's divisive reign and policies and the bids to topple her and shows how disliked she was. Stirring stuff!

On a different tack, the Christmas episode of this season's GLEE was a madly camp delight too as Klaine (Kurt and Blaine - how about "Blurt"...) had their "Let It Snow" number done as a perfect recreation of an early 60s black and white tv show such as those Judy Garland shows circa '63 (below). They are joined too by Mercedes and Rachel and swop gifts. It is a delightful parody or recreation of that time. Internet comment though on the boys has been fascinating. I watch GLEE without liking it too much, as rock anthems like the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" are steamrolled and homogenised into teen musak, but hey, it sells - and there is always characters like Sue Sylvester to keep things humming, as well as guest stars like Gwynneth Paltrow! So it is at least always watchable - but I agree, their singing "Do They Know Its Christmas?" while feeding the homeless at the shelter was a tad too condescending and smugly self-satisfied.

Comments include:
"The happiest and highest-profile gay couple on television has a new video, and in fitting holiday form it's for the song "Let It Snow." Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Blaine (Darren Criss) from Glee, a.k.a. "Klaine" as the kids on Twitter and fan sites call them, are featured in a magical video that resembles a grand old MGM musical number. The two young men are slick, sophisticated and super cute in their performance.

I applaud Glee for highlighting a gay couple as happy, healthy, and absolutely adorable. I found that this episode most definitely showed that they were together.
Adding close friends Rachel (Lea Michele) and Mercedes (Amber Riley) for "My Favorite Things" is smart, because it feels comfortable, and the grouping is totally believable.

And "Do They Know it's Christmas?" comes off as extremely condescending when sang to homeless people's faces. Why are the less fortunate enjoying this? They live in America! Of course they know it's Christmas!

The same goes for this video. It's just Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire to me and if seen by someone unaware of Klaine they would have no idea this scenario is that these two young men are 'living together' in this fabulous 50's house and having a fabulous singing/dancing Christmas get-together (I don't want to say party because it never came off as a party...)
it could just as easily be Rock Hudson and Tony Randall singing about their lonesome holiday not two seconds before Doris Day and her perrenially toasted housekeeper walk in from the cold. Charming but dated. Where is the real gay romance?

Creating prancing, limp-wristed, lisping Gays for entertainment is just as horrifying as having black-faced entertainers."

So, lots of varied opinion there then! - and Rachel gets to sing a bit of Joni Mitchells "River" too ... well it is a classic Christmas lyric: "Its coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees, singing songs of joy and peace ...."

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 ...

1955 musicals: Tony & Janet, Ella, Peggy Lee, Jayne + Eileen and Lola Diamond !

Two rarities from 1955: IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER may be my favourite musical from that year (as per post on it recently), I had not seen PETE KELLY'S BLUES before but its a fascinating oddity now, not a musical as such as its a gangster drama about a jazz band with musical interludes, nice that it captures Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerland at their '50s peak - Peggy actually is very effective as the gangster's moll who sinks into alcohol and mental illness. Janet Leigh is somewhat wasted as the rich flapper who inexplicably falls for band leader Pete - Jack Webb at his most mono-syllabic. I never saw his DRAGNET series but he plays it so impassive and deadpan here, his directing is interesting too - dialogue scenes are long takes with no cutting or editing to closeups, so the actors have long scenes to get right.



The 20s atmosphere is nicely evoked and the drama is provided by racketeer Edmond O'Brien wanting a take of the band's money and imposing his singing girlfriend on them - but boy can she sing! Pete (Webb) has a nice insult to the gangster - that he had rubber pockets so he could steal soup! Lee Marvin is also in the band and plays a nice guy for once, one is glad when he returns and Martin Milner is the young hothead whom one knows will end up in a hail of bullets in the rain! There is a terrific shootout at the end in a deserted dance hall where the glitterball plays a major role!
Interestingly, the next year 1956 saw O'Brien sending up his gangster persona as another hood with a blonde girlfriend he wants to turn into a singer, she is Jeri Jordan (Jayne Mansfield) in Tashlin's riot THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT - Jayne also has a small part here as the (brunette) cigarette girl ... but hardly registers here. Great Warner Bros production values too.


SO THIS IS PARIS: Janet next went on to another favourite musical of that year: MY SISTER EILEEN (musicals label) so she and husband Tony Curtis were both singing and dancing that year! One hardly thinks of Curtis as a song and dance man but his brash enthusiasm is admirable in SO THIS IS PARIS - a studio bound musical from Universal and it comes across now as ON THE TOWN for simpletons as its a grotesquely simple-minded show about 3 sailors on the loose, also with touches of AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (cue cute kids...) Tony, in his bio, says it was made in 21 days!

Tony, Gene Nelson and Paul Gilbert (the Jules Munchin role here) are the three gobs who dock at Le Havre (a quaint little village here) and after wrecking a taxi end up in a studio Paris, where Tony falls for chanteuse Gloria De Haven and Gene for playgirl Corrine Calvet, while Mara Corday takes care of whatshisname. Nelson also choreographs and hoofs in the style of that other Gene ... its all simple-minded fun as Tony ascended the ladder to TRAPEZE, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS etc. Janet of course is totally enchanting in MY SISTER EILEEN where Bob Fosse and Tommy Rall fight over her - directed too by Richard Quine, also also directs this PARIS farrago before going on to the likes of BELL BOOK AND CANDLE with his muse Kim Novak.

A question: what do the 3 sailors dancing in their underwear/shorts by the pool wear underneath to hide any suggestion of genitalia - its like everything must have been strapped down (ditto Randolph Scott in MY FAVOURITE WIFE), as a jockstrap would suggest a bulge.... and of course there is no chest hair, just like Holden had to shave his for PICNIC! (and of course navels were not allowed either - all those gals like Joan Collins, Anita Ekberg etc had to have a jewel glued on down there. That's the '50s - a decade later it would all be hanging out!

and Lola:

thanks to my pal Jerry for reminding me that Paul Gilbert (the third sailor) re-appeared as that terrifying butch drag queen Lola Diamond in the 1965 opus SYLVIA - one of Joe Levine's trash classics ....(review at Carroll Baker/Trash labels).

Its too darn hot !

KISS ME KATE. I have enthused here about key musicals for me [musicals label] - A STAR IS BORN, THE BANDWAGON, ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER, LES GIRLS, LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT etc - so here is another addition. Sharing the acclaim with THE BANDWAGON for 1953s's most inventive musical is George Sidney's marvellous version of KISS ME KATE. No matter how many times one has seen it, and I have seen it quite a few, there is always something new going on, and the lyrics and performances still spellbind.

From that fabulous opening where Cole Porter (Ron Randall) has written a new score for a musical version of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" and those two egotistical now divorced (from each other) stars Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson arrive for a run-through of the songs. Then Ann-Miller turns up with her combo to deliver her knockout "Its Too Darn Hot", probably the best staged for the camera number ever, as she advances on the audience dancing all over the room. This was initially shot in 3D so objects keep being thrown at the camera. Lily (Grayson) fumes but decides to star in the production, as rehersals get underway.



Ann though is now seeing dancer Tommy Rall - marvellous to see her with someone who can dance and sing as well as she can, he is only one of the greatest dancers ever (as shown in SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, MY SISTER EILEEN, where he and Fosse also dance up a storm, and his comedy cameo in FUNNY GIRL) - their numbers like "Why Can't You Behave" and "Always True To You In My Fashion" sparkle and are full of inventive moments. Then there's Ann's number "From This Moment On" with that fabulous trio of Rall, Bob Fosse and Bobby Van, and speciality dancers Carol Haney (whose "Steam Heat" by Fosse in THE PYJAMA GAME deserves a post of its own) and Jeanne Coyne (who went on to marry Gene Kelly).



Among the backstage incidents are the arrival of two comic gangsters Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore who have to collect an IOU signed by Keel, but actually done by Rall faking Keel's signature, its beyond hilarious when they have to appear on stage to prevent Lily leaving, as her cattle baron beau also turns up, and they sing "Brush Up Your Shakespeare". Keel's swagger is perfectly utilised in his numbers, with those amazing costumes, like "Where Is The Life That Late I Led", while Grayson's solo "I Hate Men!" amuses. Miller as Bianca the younger sister has to choose between her 3 beaus in "Tom Harry or Dick" as the boys in tights dance up a storm. Sheer delirium! So, maybe Porter's best and wittiest score, endlessly inventive numbers, a cast of sheer perfection - what's not to love! It is as marvellous as ON THE TOWN. Chalk up another success to MGM.