Delayed

March has been (high)kicking my ass. The Musical of the Month series was meant to return in style tomorrow with Swing Time (1936) but will have to be delayed until Sunday March 22nd (I'm having queueing difficulties in addition to other obstacles). My apologies to anyone who had hoped for some black and white elegance and showtunes right here. I've had an awfully hard time getting this series stepping and pirouetting in time with the beat. But then Hollywood has a hard time getting their act together with movie musicals, too. They're tricky beasts.

'A Glorious Songburst of Gayety and Gladness!'

On March 13th, the Musical of the Month party returns with Fred & Ginger in tow.


I'll be writing about Swing Time that day and if you write about it on your blog, live journal or a sheet of paper on that particular day, I'll link up right here. Watch it before then: Netflix / GreenCine.

Personal Canon #74: Meet Me In St. Louis

This post is for my musical of the month party as well as the latest in my Personal Canon (100 favorite films). It's one of two entries in the countdown for Judy Garland, one of my top ten favorite actresses of all time

It's Summer 1903 in Missouri and the Smith family are buzzing about the World's Fair coming to their town the following spring. Teenage daughters Rose (Lucille Bremer) and Esther (Judy Garland) are dreaming about proposals from handsome men, the eldest son Lonnie (Henry H Daniels Jr) is off to college and the father Lon (Leon Ames), a junior partner at a law firm, is about to tell the family that they're all relocating to New York Ci -- oh, but let's stop there. For any plot summary of Meet Me in St. Louis does the movie a great disservice. This classic musical isn't plot driven at all so much as a series of three seasonal vignettes of family life: Summer, Autumn and Winter with the following Spring in 1904 serving as a coda. Almost all of what might be called "plot" in Meet Me In St. Louis is imagined. That is to say, that the story drivers are all in the future. One day the family will move to New York. One day Rose, Lonnie, and Esther will be married. One day St. Louis will catch the attention of the nation. In essence the movie is a lovingly rendered still life of a family (and town) on the brink of great changes rather than an animated portrait of the changes themselves.

St. Louis begins smartly in the kitchen, the heart of any home. Mrs. Anna Smith (Mary Astor) and her maid and cook Katie (Marjorie Main) are preparing ketchup. Katie thinks it's too sweet, Anna thinks her husband will like it that way. Various members of the cast scoot through the kitchen sharing their opinions, too. They can't seem to agree on the flavor: too sweet? too sour? too spicy? too watery? Vincente Minnelli the real gourmet cook in the director's chair doesn't have the same problem. He gets everything right.

READ THE REST...

All Personal Canon articles
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Meet Me In St. Louis

It's time for the "Musical of the Month" celebration. This month it's the Vincent Minelli/Judy Garland holiday spectacular Meet Me St. Louis (1944). Unfortunately something came up on my end so my article --incidentally another addition to my personal canon project-- won't be ready until tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime enjoy these Meet Me in St. Louis pieces from other MotM participants. I'll add more links if any come in...

• Gratuitous Violins sees this holiday classic for the first time and shares her thoughts (and a first name "Esther" with Judy's character. How nifty)
• Here and There and Everywhere CrazyCris loves Garland. What's not to love?
• Movies Kick Ass looks into the blossoming romance of Garland & Minelli behind the scenes. That led to Liza Minelli, so it's more than just a movie. It's an event.
  

Clang!Clang!Clang! Went the trolley...

Previous Musicals of the Month:
Velvet Goldmine, Cabin in the Sky, Little Shop of Horrors and Calamity Jane

Musical of the Month: Velvet Goldmine

It's Tuesday Top Ten AND November's musical of the month. When you overplan it's best to kill two birds with one stone. (Guess who overplans?)

Velvet Goldmine, auteur Todd Haynes' marvelous, sexy, agitated tribute to glam rock celebrates its 10th anniversary this month. A decade later it's still quite the queer jewel. It remains one of the sparkliest bits in the filmographies of all involved.

When I first announced this Velvet celebration I dropped the argumentative note that I think it's a better film than Haynes's recent and more acclaimed picture I'm Not There. The latter has a bolder attention-grabbing actorly gambit (multiple performers for one role ... sort of) but the films are close spiritual siblings in many other ways. They're like aggressively eccentric visual historians who share the same pet topics: fluid persona, rock star egotism and cultural youthquakes. So why do I think Velvet is better?

Ten Reasons Why Velvet Goldmine Trumps I'm Not There

10 Christian Bale appears in both of these Todd Haynes extravaganzas. In only one of them does he masturbate to a fold out album cover and newspaper clippings.

"It's a shameful fithy thing you're doing!"

09 Todd Haynes detractors point to his intellectualism as a fault. They say it renders his movies into theses. Mostly I say "what's wrong with that?" ... better to have something meaty to discuss than the alternative. And though I've often chalked this reaction up to lazy anti-intellectualism I see where they're coming from a bit with I'm Not There. Advantage Velvet Goldmine: It funnels its big ticket ideas through the painted lips of characters as unintellectual in nature as Mandy (Toni Collete --I kind of live for her "speeding up" monologue) as awkward as Arthur (Christian Bale) as silent as Jack Fairy (Micko Westmoreland) or as stoned as Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor) or as smugly pontificating as Brian (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). This filter makes it less 'thinky' somehow.

08 Put another way: Velvet Goldmine lives in its body as well as its head. I'm Not There stays entirely cerebral even though rock n' roll is often located in the groin. The sex scene between Mandy & Brian in particular is incisively shot through distorting glass, incisively echoing their fluidity and even the confusion of who is/will be doing what to whom in the long run. And that's not to mention the crude guitar fellatio or the orgy sequence.

"It's funny how people look when they're walking out the door"

07 Unlike many rock and roll films, Goldmine's reach is generous. It focuses not just on a performer (as I'm Not There and most traditional rock pictures do) but it allows for further contextualization by adding an equally weighted audience surrogate (Arthur). We end up experiencing the larger cultural shifts through both performers and audiences. As a result it far exceeds the familiar rise and fall narrative of famous movie musicians and paints an unusual portrait of the death of a particular peculiar moment in both the large and intimate sense and from both directions (performer/voyeur) at once. You have to love it.

06 The flights of fancy in I'm Not There: whale, giraffes, balloons, etcetera... are all (presumably) esoterica. Only Dylan fans might understand them. Velvet Goldmine's most fanciful flourishes such as spaceships, magic amulets, barbie doll kisses and Oscar Wilde, are more accessible. I knew precious little about the glam rock era before watching the movie and I never felt like I wasn't in on any joke.

"Baby's On Fire" and "the curve of your lips rewrite history"

05 Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Ewan McGregor are both way more believable as rock stars than anyone in I'm Not There... and more believeable as rock stars than many other people in many other rock movies. There are many people who think JRM is not much of an actor and to them I say 'ignore the other things you've seen him in an marvel at how perfectly he's cast and shot here and how well he embodies autoerotic androgynous callow celebrity.' He'll never top it but so what? If you have to peak early due it in service of a great film. As for McGregor... "TV Eye" has to be one of the most authentically live & dangerous rock numbers captured on film, doesn't it?


04 The Citizen Kane structure is endearing in its chutzpah. Not that I'm Not There doesn't have balls. But there's more film-appropriate youthful bravado in Goldmine. In short: it's more fun.

03 No sequence within Velvet Goldmine --not even the slightly mistifying Jack Fairy throughline -- is as headscratching or unsatisfying as one sixth of I'm Not There, the sixth being the Richard Gere section. Please note: This is not to take away from that lovely haunting musical bit "Goin' to Acapulco" even if it still makes no sense to me whatsoever.


02 Toni Collette does not appear in I'm Not There. Filmmakers take note: this is an automatic point deduction.

01 Velvet Goldmine gives the world's greatest costume designer Sandy Powell (absent from I'm Not There though she often works with Todd Haynes) a lot to do. When you give Sandy Powell room to play she returns to you entire playgrounds.


I know what you're saying I'm Not There lovers... You're saying...
...............okay okay I don't know what you're saying. I don't get you.

If you're on Team Dylan(s) speak up in the comments. Why were the reviews stronger? If you're on Team Goldmine rally 'round.

More Velvet Readings?
Try my Musical of the Month Pals
Movies Kick Ass "Citizen Slade"
Cinemavistaramascope "the curve of your lips..."
StinkyBits "an enthralling confounding fabulation"
Haiku'ed Viper Tetsu pays tribute in Japanese Meter

Next Musical
The classic Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) on December 6th. 'Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas' a little early.
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Fashionably Late

Today is the 10th anniversary of the release of Todd Haynes Velvet Goldmine. But, taking a cue from the ginormity of Sandy Powell's costuming contribution, I'm all about deciding what to wear. I'll be arriving fashionably late. So late in fact that it's more diva-late than fashionable.

We'll hold this Goldmine "Musical of the Month" party next Tuesday, November 11th @ 12:00 Noon, You have almost a whole extra week to prepare your thoughts however lengthy or brief. If you've been preparing a novel on Toni Collette's eyeshadow, a post on fluid identities, a visual tribute to gender bending, an ode to Ewan McGregor's rock god, a haiku for Christian Bale's sweaty awkward voyeurism or anything else under the glittered glam umbrella of this movie, you have a few extra days now.

My apologies to those who arrived early expecting a general admission stampede, but I'm swamped. Must postpone.

Ewan & Jonathan. K-I-S-S-I-N-G on November 6th

Velvet Goldmine 10th anniversary blog party on November 6th. The boys will be pretty. The girls will be fabulous. The music will be glam (rock). You're invited. R.S.V.P.

Delayed until November 11th (SORRY)

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October's Musical: Cabin in the Sky

It's the "Musical of the Month"

On the 6th of each month I'm writing about one hand-picked musical. Anybody who loves the genre is invited to join in by screening, commenting, or publishing their own take on it. I started the series with three goals in mind: reacquaint myself with films I haven't seen in a long time, promote rental ideas for readers, enjoy films I've never seen (there are many) from within my favorite genre. Cabin in the Sky (1943), Vincent Minelli's first full directorial effort and a rare all-black musical from Hollywood's early days, falls into the latter camp. I am so pleased that you chose it from the list offered. It's a delight.

The story of gambler Little Joe (Eddie "Rochester" Anderson) and his ever-praying wife Petunia (Ethel Waters) is a riff on the classic Faust tale. It's one in a long line of literary and filmed entertainments that deal with Heaven and Hell's eternal battle for our souls. Some are heavy dramas but often they're comedies. The premise lends itself to goofy sets, outre performances and good triumphs over evil uplifts. Early in the film Joe nearly dies and the forces of Heaven & Hell agree to give him six more months on earth: repentance and good behavior wins him that dreamy 'cabin in the sky', more of the same wicked lifestyle will trap him in "H-E-double toothpick" as me mum used to say.

The last movie I personally remember seeing with this out-of-fashion premise was that awful Olivia Newton-John & John Travolta flop from 1983 Two of a Kind though I know there've been others since then. Anyone remember that film? It gave the world Olivia Newton-John's last big hit "Twist of Fate" and not much else worth mentioning.


Anywayyyyy.... Little Joe is a sinner who can't resist the dice or one of the devil's favorite gals "Georgia Brown" (the legendary Lena Horne). His wife Petunia prays and prays and prays for him to change and renounce both gambling and Georgia. And then she prays some more. Early in the film, Joe is shot in the local club Jim Henry's Paradise by a ne'er do wells he owes money. As he lay dying, the battle-lines for his soul are drawn (that six month contest) between Lucifer Jr's squad and some rather uptight angels. While convalescing Joe expresses bewilderment that Petunia is so confident that he won't stray again.

Little Joe when you're good, something in here [*points to heart*] starts singing.

And the lord seems to say, 'All my angels are playing beautiful music because they feel so happy for you. Can you hear it down there?' And I listen and sho' nuff I hear it as plain as if I was up in heaven myself. They were teaching me their prettiest tunes. Then I realized that's the Lord's way of telling me to be happy.

She then sings Joe this musical's gorgeous title song, beaming with both romantic and spiritual love all the while. Ethel's voice is expressive, nuanced and mature. Here's the way I see it/hear it: Musicals make the world beautiful. I hear them as plain as if I was up in heaven myself. They've got the prettiest tunes. Musicals are the Cinema's way of telling me to be happy.

There's a lot to enjoy in the film: Ethel Waters voice and performance were rich, the songs --many of them famous -- were quite good and Eddie Anderson's comic timing and inimitable screech in the song "Consequence" provided much amusement as he tries to ward off the advances of Georgia Brown. Though the film was obviously difficult to finance due to its risky all-black status in a racist era (many theaters wouldn't show the film in the 40s), there's still a bit of variety and ingenuity in the limited sets that are utilized. I loved the freezer burn detail on the air conditioned devil's office. Funny. For a musical it's skimpy on costume changes as well, but once Georgia and Petunia face off at Jim Henry's Paradise it's a feathery, glittery event that you wish you could see in full color. For film buffs there's some amusement to be had in the recycling of cast members from Gone With the Wind (1939) and sets and special effects direct from The Wizard of Oz (1939).

Yes Cabin in the Sky made me happy despite the odd warning or "disclaimer" that ran before the movie started.


That warning indicates "films" as in this is a stamp that's been placed on other films too? But unless I missed something (which is possible as a white boy) there wasn't all that much to be offended by on the race front. More troubling was the sexism but you'd never see a warning placed on a film from this era about that, now would you? And, what's more, the kind of sexism that Cabin in the Sky trades in --very popular in 40s movies, especially noirs, with seductive women painted as dangerous destroyers -- isn't all that dated, cinematically speaking. Both of the female characters are blamed for Joe's sins. Georgia Brown is blamed for seducing him (Men have NO CHOICE about who they sleep with, don't you know?! He says sarcastically) And later even Joe's devout patient wife is blamed for his tailspin when she fails to 'stand by her man' at one crucial point. Little Joe somehow wins points for Petunia's good deeds but she loses some for his free fall??? Heaven Can Wait ...for feminism apparently.

I leave you with the lovely Lena Horne's cut song "Ain't it the truth" which was deemed too scandalous what with Lena singing gleefully whilst enveloped in a decadent bubble bath.



Isn't she a honey?

Musical of the Month'ers
Movies Kick Ass 'Heaven... I'm in Heaven'
StinkyBits - finds this movie "fascinating, strange, well worth watching."
Criticlasm thinks Ethel Waters rules the piece
StinkyLulu -profiles Lena Horne's famous role as "Georgia Brown"
If you write about it, send me the link...

Next Episodes
November 11th (delayed) -Nov 6th marks the exact 10th anniversary of the release of Todd Hayne's glam rock oddity Velvet Goldmine (1998). It was a big moment in the careers of Toni Collette, Ewan McGregor and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Lots of angles to be explored by any willing bloggers.
Dec 6th ~'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' with Judy Garland in the classic Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).

Coming October 6th: Cabin in the Sky (1943)

Your votes decided it. October 6th's "Musical of the Month" Event will focus on the groundbreaking Cabin in the Sky (1943) so put it on your rental queue, post haste --you know how time flies.

Here, I'll help you: Netflix and Blockbuster (strangely GreenCine doesn't have)

This famous production, which dared to use an all African American cast back in 1943 when many theaters refused to play such films (my how far we've come), has only been available on DVD for a couple of years now. I'm sure many of you, like me, haven't seen it.

Cabin comes from a legendary director of the musicals (this was Vincent Minnelli's first gig as lead director) and features genuine musical superstars (Lena Horne, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong!) as well as Ethel Waters and Butterfly McQueen... so give it a try. I'm hoping that the more adventurous blogs out there will join in on this one.

MotM Episodes 3 & 4

Hope you enjoyed those Musical of the Month Little Shop of Horrors memories from myself, Seeing I, Hayden, Jose, Brad and Stinky over the weekend. Who's next ...don't you want to join the kick line? And what's next?


On October 6th...
We'll be knee deep in new 2008 Oscar hopefuls so let's have a tuneful one day diversion back to the 1940s. I want to see something I've never seen so we're choosing between the following: Ethel Waters and Lena Horne in Vincent Minnelli's Cabin in the Sky (1943), Lucille Ball, Red Skelton and Gene Kelly in DuBarry Was a Lady (1943), Fred & Ginger in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) or Judy Garland In the Good Old Summertime (1949). I hope you'll be adventurous and enjoy the classic rhythms.

poll by twiigs.com

On November 6th 11th
We're revisiting Todd Haynes's Velvet Goldmine (1998) on the 10th anniversary of its theatrical release. As kaleidoscope musical bios go, it served as warm up to I'm Not There only it's, you know, better: Jonathan Rhys Meyers at his prettiest, Christian Bale at his gayest, Toni Collette at her most theatrical and Ewan McGregor in the altogether ...all of them sweating glitter. As they should be. It's a smorgasbord of cinematic delights and it'll be a huge glam rock blog ball ...provided you dress appropriately. You've got two months to work on your ensemble.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

It's the "Musical of the Month"!

One of the funniest sequences in Frank Oz's adaptation of the Off-Broadway hit Little Shop of Horrors is the introduction of the villain, Audrey II. At first Audrey II, a "strange and unusual plant" seems like a godsend for a struggling flower shop down on Skid Row. Tarty but kind Audrey (Ellen Greene) and mousy Seymour (Rick Moranis) have convinced their boss Mr Mutchnik (2-time Oscar nominee Vincent Gardenia) to display Audrey II in the window to drum up business. Immediately, to Mutchnik's disbelief, the pathetic trio are deluged with eager customers. The jokes fly fast, both visually and aurally, as huge handfuls of flowers are tossed about and overly expository dialogue is continually repeated in doorways, over registers and through windows.

Director Frank Oz was an inspired if obvious choice for transferring Little Shop from its stage pot into the larger garden of cinema with roots intact. The Audrey II would have to be a massive puppet villain and he knew from felt and foam. He provided the unforgettable voices of both Miss Piggy and Yoda and had previously directed the eye-popping puppet spectacle The Dark Crystal (1982). His filmography is wildly uneven but Little Shop proved the true jewel in his resume. It was, like the Audrey II, a strange and unusual movie for its time.

It's not really up for debate: the 1980s Musicals were Skid Row. The genre was the most undesirable of movie zip codes.

Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene belt out "Skid Row" with affecting desperation

Movie musicals were rare, and when they did arrive they were ill attended and relatively uninspired. Eventually filmmakers moved away. Maybe it was an unavoidable collapse, what with Bob Fosse's 70s masterpieces (Cabaret and All That Jazz) casting 'Can't top this!' shadows and MTV shrinking the taste for musical narratives into bite sized portions. Gentrification of the musical genre would start with the animated blockbusters of the 90s. Live-action musical would follow finally kicking up their heels again at the turn of the millenium. This is why I still cherish Little Shop of Horrors (1986). In the mid-80s it was rather like the Audrey II (prior to all the icky flesh eating!). For musical aficionados it was a strange and unusual sight but very welcome indeed.

I've always been fascinated with the decision making process involved in stage to screen transfers. Many movies based on plays are notoriously nervous about appearing "stagy". Little Shop of Horrors mostly avoids this awkwardness and seems delighted to be an odd hybrid of both traditions. The movie version never tries to present reality. The sets come with painted backdrops; pouring rain never once douses the trio of narrators (doo wop girls as Greek chorus = endlessly amusing) -- but it also takes obvious care to honor the "motion" in pictures. The camera is always moving, restlessly trying out new angles and there is a nifty depth of field to the production, even within small rooms. Little Shop acknowledges the diorama views provided by stage shows, but your eye is continually moving around and inside the prosceniums: up and down staircases, peeping through smudged windows and traveling through doorways. Frank Oz is taking you into every nook and cranny of Skid Row.

But the single most brilliant decision made in transfer was the retention of Ellen Greene for "Audrey" the role she created.

Audrey in a fog. Yet there isn't an out of focus moment in Greene's portrayal

Most movie musicals jettison their original stars, occasionally to their benefit (not all stage performers can kindle the same fire onscreen), but often to their detriment (the size of stardom superseding all else including vocal technique and general rightness for a role). Little Shop of Horrors provides us with the rare opportunity of seeing a star-making stage turn transferred in full with none of its magic diminished.

Greene's Audrey is a risky and unmovie-like creation (it's easy to imagine the same thing on stage -- which usually isn't a compliment), but her confidence and creativity are stunning. She so thoroughly owns the role that the performance transcends its origins. She'd performed Audrey hundreds of times but it's still vital and alive. She's Seymour's heart and the heart of the movie. To keep the blood of this production pumping she's got to swallow huge amounts of air. The oxygen only escapes her again in huge blasts, barely audible squeaks or quiet pockets of breathy tenderness. Greene's voice is a marvel both in song and spoken word. And so's her look: that impossible silhouette, round cartoon breasts, helmet hair, and tiny frame were surely visible from the back row in the theater and so, undoubtedly, was the performance. Yet for all of that she's still endearing in closeup.

I'd go so far as to nominate Ellen Greene for Best Actress for 1986. At the Oscars that year the nominee pool was a famously two-horse race (documented here before) between Marlee Matlin in Children of a Lesser God (working the disability hook that Oscar is often moved by), and Kathleen Turner in Peggy Sue Got Married who was inhabiting the more hit-n-miss terrain of the 'huge movie star whose time has (supposedly) come'. Here's a comparison chart:


I haven't seen any of these films recently, save Little Shop, so my nominees are subject to change (Farrow would be the first to drop but... for whom? Melanie Griffith in Something Wild? Jessica Lange in Crimes of the Heart? One of Oscar's choices?), but this is how I'm calling it today with Little Shop's soundtrack playing in my head. Forget "Somewhere That's Green", Ellen Greene was robbed of Something That's Gold in 1986. Marvel at this injustice: she wasn't even up for a Golden Globe for Comedy or Musical performance! Awards bodies were channeling her sadistic dentist boyfriend that year, weren't they? There weren't enough kindhearted Seymour's standing beside her.


Blogosphere of Horrors (MotM Participants)
Mondo Musicals has written about this movie extensively. It shows. His new piece is about the altered ending and the details surrounding it's release.

Warner Bros intended the film for the audience least likely to appreciate its genre-bending sensibility. For Little Shop was marketed not as a Halloween treat...but as a family-friendly Christmas picture.

Much Ado About Nothing on that great Greek Chorus
Movies Kick Ass Jose let's a train of thought carry him all sorts of places
Criticlasm remembers his first time with the movie and revisits to see if it remains as loveable
StinkyBits on his favorite bits and the most troubling one

...the plant becomes ever more like a manifestation of the vagina dentata, albeit with the voice of an urban black man. Two great castration anxiety tropes squished together in one giant puppet.

Monday morning, we'll round up the possibilities for October's Musical of the Month and reveal November's too!

In 8 Days... Seymour's Our Man

I snapped my fingers. Will you say 'sure'?
_______The "Musical of the Month" is Little Shop of Horrors. Participating blogs we'll be going down on skid row Saturday September 6th. Join us.

In 17 Days...

Better ourselves? Better ourselves?

Somewhere That's Green (I Dream We'll Go)

You chose it and we'll follow Audrey (I)'s deepest wishes. We're going "somewhere that's green" on September 6th for our Musical of the Month celebration.

UPDATE: THE TIME HAS ARRIVED


So prepare your articles / posts / oddities / deconstructions / attacks / tributes regarding Little Shop of Horrors (1986) for publication on Saturday, September 6th.

Whether you want to talk about that Mean Green Muuuther from Outer Space, life on Skid Row, 50s fantasies, sadomasochistic trips to the dentist's office, puppetry on film, doo-whop greek choruses, the rare subgenre of horror musicals, the 80s-ness of Rick Moranis, green thumbs, happy endings, film-to -stage- to-film peculiarities... Little Shop has something for each and everyone of us. It's a lonely oasis in the desert of musicals that was the 1980s. It'll provide you with juicy drops of blood to help your blog post grow.

Get tuned up, witty, carnivorous and creative but be there on September 6th for the virtual sing along. Do right by Ellen Greene after all she did for us here as Audrey and all she's doing for us again on Pushing Daisies. If you're planning to join in let me know.
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Musical. Your Choice

Since the first edition of Musical of the Month had tumbleweeds rolling through it, we haven't agreed on the film to cover for the Sept. 6th edition. So, you decide.


Your choices: Fred & Ginger's glide through Swing Time (1936), the non-stop possessed dancing of The Red Shoes (1948), Gene Kelly and friends exuberantly going On the Town (1949) early Bollywood classic Mother India(1957), Mean Green Mother and Off Broadway transfer Little Shop of Horrors (1986) or Christian Bale and David Moscow (the ex Mr. Kerry Washington) hoofin' it through Newsies (1992)

poll by twiigs.com

After voting... kick us two titles in the comments: 1, a big well known musical you'd like to relive in this series and 2, a less celebrated tuner you'd love to see celebrated. That'll give us ideas for future months.

Musical of the Month: Calamity Jane

Musicals always raise the spirits, don't they?

I mean musicals that don’t dramatize the slow creep of the Nazi party across Weimar era Germany. Or musicals that don't involve bloody racial conflicts on Manhattan’s West Side. Or musicals that don't torment blind single mothers on death row… Let's restate: Musicals are sometimes cheerful. I need a cheerful one right now.

See, it's been a tough week. Things haven’t been going well for me technologically speaking –this DVD player I use keeps freezing on me and refusing to play DVDs. What gives? It did this when I tried to review The Car, too -- and don't even mention "time management" to me. I’m apologizin’ straight away that this post is very short and open-ended (make sure to check out my musical pard'ners at other blogs below). Deadlines surround me. I had but three hours of sleep last night and back to the office I went.

Doris Day kicks off this month's featured movie singing with her fellow travellers on a horse driven carriage way back in the 1870-something. Flash forward 138 years and it's corporate America that's singing "whip crack away" to me. They ain't as cheerful about it as Ms. Doris Day.

Beautiful sky! A wonderful day!
Whip crack-away!, Whip crack-away!, Whip crack-away!

So thank god for musicals and their bright colors, catchy songs and high spirited dancing. I need them. From its first frames Calamity Jane conspires to put a smile on my face. It’s not content to just throw up a huge colorful title. This 1953 musical adds a chorus of swelling voices to sing that very title to me --just in case I'm illiterate like those Deadwood settlers. They sing her name like they're speeding over a hill in their own carriage. It's got a big rise and fall. Yes, phantom chorus, sing to me! Drug me up with that musical cheer. I'll join in as soon as we get to a number I recognize.

Alas, my DVD player isn't playing and I'm denied again. [Editor's note: This is the last scheduled posting that shall be ruined by said problem. I just need a free day to find a solution and I haven't had one in a couple of weeks.] The real reason I wanted to kick off this series with Calamity Jane was that I was dying to see it again. How foregrounded are the fascinating homo undercurrents I remember thinking about once I saw The Celluloid Closet in 1995. I'll have to read the other posts in this mini-celebration to find out. Doris Day was never a Judy Garland but Calamity Jane's most famous song "Secret Love" was understandably a major gay anthem back in its day, descriptive of and embraced by the GLBT community before there was really such a thing as being "out".

Now I shout it from the highest hills
I even told the golden daffodil.
At last my heart's an open door.
And my secret love's no secret anymore

Imagine how thrilling, how moving this fantasy wish fulfillment in a song must have been in the 1950s when the reality was almost always the closet?

Just a brief cursory "scene selection" tour through this Technicolor Deadwood has convinced me that what the world really needs is a gay remake or perhaps a meta drag version for the new millenium. The latter would be vaguely Victor/Victoria-esque only in this case it'd be a thinkier spin "a man pretending to be a woman who everyone thinks of as a man" rather than the fully comedic 82 version

"A woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman?!? Preposterous! No one will believe it."
"Exactly. That's why it will work!"

And whether this imaginary "Jane" is a 50s tomboy or an effeminate man playing a tomboy "she's" got an interesting thing for "Wild Bill", don'cha know. When we first see Bill Hickok, Calamity veritably shimmies at him despite her objections to immodest ladies of entertainment and sings enthusiastically about "his gun with 27 notches"

Jane after checking out Bill's gun: "I'm glad to say he's a
very good friend of mine." (hee)

I love their relationship. I never watched HBO's Deadwood but catching glimpses of Howard Keel and Doris Day's mostly platonic (brotherly?) romance in this musical makes me curious to see how other artists have treated this mythic pairing. Like Bonnie & Clyde, Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane have been mythologized for a long time. No one who can separate the fact from the fiction is still alive. What was going on there? It's ripe for multiple interpretations. Did they really have a child together as Jane later claimed? It's a complicated affair. The true details of this love (reciprocal or otherwise) are secret.

The golden daffodils aren't talking.

For more on Calamity Jane, say...

"Howdy Pardners!"
Movies Kick Ass gender roles & revisionist westerns in Calamity Jane & Johnny Guitar
Spartickes "That ain't all she ain't!"
StinkyLulu delivers a cheeky funny audiovisual meditation
Criticlasm "You make no sense at all, but you’re a rollicking good old time."
Stinky Bits unedited ramblings on the butch/femme lesbian romance within the film


Next time... Those few brave souls who participated in the first installment will be voting on the movie to be featured on September 6th. The options are: Fred & Ginger in Swing Time (1936), the non-stop dancing of The Red Shoes (1948), Gene Kelly's On the Town (1949), Bollywood classic Mother India (1957), Off Broadway transfer Little Shop of Horrors (1986) or Christian Bale hoofin' it through Newsies (1992). We'll announce the winner in a few days.

Don't Tell Me...

...you're not joining the 'Musical of the Month' club -- Aug 6th (and every 6th thereafter) right here @ The Film Experience and @ participating singing & dancing blogs. Even Madonna is excited to talk Doris Day in Calamity Jane.

Don't tell me to blog
---Tell me "Jane"'s not a dog
------Other blogs better show
----------Nathaniel said so, mmm-mm


I've been super pleased with the participation and the enthusiasm this season (easily the most successful TFE summer yet) and given that... I feel more excited about the upcoming Oscar season than I usually do. Unfortunately my funds have run dry so I return to corporate America today for at least a few weeks. I won't have as much time to write while I earn dollars doing less interesting work, so JA (My New Plaid Pants), Jonathan (Cinema Styles) and Robert (Country Fair and Circus) and have agreed to pitch in when inspiration hits them. Enjoy their upcoming posts in addition to mine. If you love TFE to stay as content filled and busy as it's been all summer (when I've devoted most of my time to it) please consider a small donation.

money = time ...and all that jazz. xoxo. Peace out.

Love Musicals?

Yippeeeee! It's the "Musical of the Month"

(Update: The celebration of CALAMITY JANE has arrived)

I miss group love-ins and I miss musicals (haven't watched one in too long). I was tired of blog-a-thons but a movie o' the month is like a mini-thon only more reg'lar like and therefore (theoretically) less planning / scheduling / brainstorming heavy. Horror fans have Final Girl's great "Film of the Month" party (I'm going to pipe in this month for The Car (1977) I think. Why not stretch?). But what do fans of song and dance get? Zip! So The Film Experience will be correcting that. On the 6th of every month, we'll cover one and link up to any musically inclined or stretching blogs who want to speak out on their "Secret Love" (i.e. musicals)

August 6th Calamity Jane (1953)
Why Calamity Jane? Why not?! I'm not that familiar with Doris Day and I didn't want to kick it off with a musical people still talk about consistently. Who knows... maybe we'll even get Deadwood fans participating' for contemporary comparison's sake.


If you'd like to join the Musical of the Month club shoot me an e-mail and I'll send you a reminder as we get closer. On the day of the 'big bonanza musical extravaganza', I'll link up to all participating blogs/sites. Just like a blog-a-thon which I'm pretending this isn't. So there. (If you plan to participate feel free to place any of these images or animated gifs on your blog or webpage to advertise your participation)

Otherwise... Yes I am aware that I still have a backlog of movies I promised to write about --namely Maurice, A Touch of Evil, Moulin Rouge!, Sweet Bird of Youth, Darling, Jeunet & Caro and Julia... My goal is to get to all of them before August 29th. Somehow. Then and only then can The Film Experience arise from the ashes of backlog like the glorious phoenix it wants and deserves to be.