1951 - SHOWBOAT, MGM updates an old musical

In 1936, Universal Studios made a version of Showboat that was directed by James Whale.  This version apparently follows the stage musical fairly closely.  MGM remade and updated it in the 1950's with some significant changes.  

The screenwriter an old Hollywood veteran named John Lee Mahin changed almost all of the dialog and condensed the action to have the lovers reunited while they are young instead of 40 years later.  MGM filmed Showboat in Technicolor and clearly poured a lot of money into the production.  They kept the Jerome Kern songs and hired Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson to belt out the score with their  bombastic singing styles.

If you are looking for a version of Showboat as the ground breaking musical theater that it was in the 1920's this isn't it.  The racial issues that production addressed have been played down quite a bit and Julie the mixed racial tragic heroine is played by the very glamorous and very caucasian Ava Gardner,

Still the music is good, the film looks great and the score is well sung.  The dancing in the film is from the then husband and wife team Marge and Gower Champion.  Overall this is a slick piece of MGM film making.

107 minutes.

1953 - KISS ME KATE, a good musical

MGM and director George Sidney did a very good job filming this Cole Porter musical.  The songs are good, the dancing is great and the film has that overall MGM polish that they always gave their films.

The stars were Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson who were acting together for the third time in a musical.  Grayson was a soprano and Keel was a baritone.  Their bombastic style made them a pretty good match when it came to singing together.

Kiss Me Kate is noted for the dancing and beginning choreography of Bob Fosse.  Fosse did a little two minute bit where you can see the start of his finger snapping and strutting style.  But really all the dancers are  excellent particularly Ann Miller a very good tap dancer and Tommy Rall who was no slouch when it came to dancing.

The film was shot in the silly 3-D process then released flat as the bottom feel out of the 3-D market.  You can see the scenes where they are throwing stuff at the camera and other such nonsense but this doesn't distract from the quality of the film.

109 minutes, screenplay by Dorothy Kingsley.

1956 - THE EDDY DUCHIN STORY, biography of a Liberace like musician.

The director of Viva Las Vegas and the screenwriter of Vertigo bring you the story of some cocktail bar pianist named Eddy Duchin who was popular with the social elite of New York City around the 1930's and 40's.  The Eddy Duchin Story is about the biggest bunch of dramatic and musical mush ever inflicted on an audience. 

Tyrone Power plays Duchin and sad to say by the 1950's Power had lost his matinee idol looks.  Kim Novak plays his first wife who was a socialite and in this Hollywood version of Duchin's life she is "afraid of the wind" and dies giving birth on Christmas day.  Novak was a star created by Columbia pictures to keep Rita Hayworth in line.  Her death scene is one of those only in the movies bits where she gets more beautiful as she gets sicker. 

The Eddy Duchin Story was shot in Cinemascope by Harry Stradling one of MGM's great cinematographers and it looks good in widescreen.  The film also benefits from having a director like George Sidney.  Sidney had done plenty of musicals and was very familiar with the world of show business.  Sidney and Stradling make the musical scenes of Power playing the piano very entertaining with their imaginative approach to what could have been pretty boring scenes of a guy pounding on the piano. 

 

The Eddy Duchin Story is what it is, another phony Hollywood biography of a performer who had a pretty colorful life.  You only have to do a quick Internet search on Duchin to see his actual story.  This guy was a real skirt chaser.  In the film he comes off as Mr. Wonderful.

This film was apparently nominated for four academy awards and was very popular with audiences.   George Sidney deserves some respect for his ability to turn this tripe into an entertaining film, it's still tripe though.

123 minutes, written by Samuel Taylor.