Birth of a Notion: Rodgers and Hammerstein

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Escaping to the State Fair

Margy (Jeanne Crain): I never want to see another fair.

Wayne (Dick Haymes): You can say that again!

"State Fair," which premiered 70 years ago today, was just the kind of movie that my grandmother really liked — a musical. It didn't just have occasional songs, either; the characters practically sang their dialogue. In fact, you could make a persuasive argument that there were times in the movie when they did exactly that. Yep, it was that kind of musical.

My grandmother probably saw it in the theater, too. She would have been in the middle of her life, and she enjoyed good health most of that life. From what she used to tell me, I gather she went to the movies a lot. There was a theater only a few blocks from her house, too. I know. It was still open when I was a child, and she took me to see movies there many times.

So it doesn't require much imagination for me to visualize her seeing "State Fair" there. It was one of the top grossing movies of 1945. Lots of folks saw it on the big screen. I don't know how she felt about the movie's stars, Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews, but I know how she felt about musicals.

Andrews had been around for awhile. I haven't seen all of his movies, but I don't recall ever seeing him in another musical — even though he had an ambition to become a singer when he was in his early 20s, an ambition that brought him to Los Angeles. He never found success as a singer, but he embarked on a film career about five years before he made "State Fair," and he was in some good ones — "The Ox–Bow Incident" and "Laura" before he made "State Fair," and "The Best Years of Our Lives" the year after.

I suppose my grandmother knew whether he could sing, but Crain was more of a mystery. She was only 20 years old and had made a handful of movies — including one in which she was uncredited — prior to starring in "State Fair." Her character did a fair amount of singing in that movie, but I don't know if it was generally known at the time that Crain did not do the singing. It was actually done by a woman named Louanne Hogan.

Well, lip syncing didn't really hurt Audrey Hepburn 20 years later when she appeared in "My Fair Lady" — and Marni Nixon did her singing for her — although I guess you could make the argument that it cost her a Best Actress nomination. Crain wasn't nominated for Best Actress, either — but I'm inclined to think that Crain didn't deserve one, and Hepburn probably did.

Actually, the acting overall in "State Fair" didn't deserve recognition, but the Rodgers and Hammerstein compositions did, and their song "It Might As Well Be Spring" beat 13 other nominees for Best Original Song. The movie's other nomination was for Best Musical Score, which it lost to "Anchors Aweigh."

The music in "State Fair" was catchy, but it was Rodgers and Hammerstein. Can you think of a time when a Rodgers and Hammerstein score was not catchy?

In fact, "State Fair" is the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that was written specifically for film, not for the stage.

Incidentally, "State Fair" seems to have been the starting point for a long and mostly successful movie partnership between Crain and Hogan. Crain was recognized for being able to ice skate rather well, but apparently she couldn't sing well, yet she did a lot of singing in her movies, and most of it was dubbed by Hogan.

There was a story of a second couple being told in "State Fair" — Crain's brother (Dick Haymes) and a singer (naturally) played by Vivian Blaine. Apparently, Blaine really was a singer. I have heard nothing to suggest that someone else did her singing for her.

See, a lot of the movie centered on these two rather random romances that blossomed at the state fair. To be sure, there were side stories about Ma in the mincemeat competition and Pa in the pig competition, but the romances were in the spotlight.

Crain and Andrews were the stars of the show, after all. And they were adequate — but certainly not Oscar worthy.

I thought it was a pretty routine story about a state fair. Actually, the scene reminded me of the county fairs I attended in Arkansas as a child, but it was more elaborate. The games and the food and the rides were certainly familiar, but I couldn't swear to the authenticity of the competitions, or some of the attractions — like harness races.

I don't think people ever came to our little county fair and camped there for days like they did in "State Fair." And, while it was supposedly set in Iowa, I heard accents that could only be described as distinctly New England. My family visited that part of the country several times when I was a child, and I know a New England accent when I hear one.

Well, I guess it did what it was expected to do. It provided some escapism for folks who were just plain worn out after nearly four years of involvement in World War II, which was about to end in the Pacific — and, consequently, the world.

Monday, March 02, 2015

A Milestone for 'The Sound of Music'

"After all, the wool from the black sheep is just as warm."

Sister Margaretta (Anna Lee)

"The Sound of Music," which premiered on this day in 1965, is one of the most vivid memories of my childhood.

Unless you are at least 40, you probably have no memory of a time when movies — even the blockbusters — spent more than a few weeks in theaters — and, for that matter, could not be seen at many locations in the same city. Those were the days when multiple–screen theaters were rare, and the so–called "big screen" really was a big screen. Theaters made exclusive — or almost exclusive — deals for movies. That was how you scooped the competition in those days.

Those were the days when it was a real coup for a theater to strike a deal to get the hottest movie, and, in those pre–home video days, that movie might stay at that theater for months as the theater owner tried to squeeze as much from that engagement as possible. If the movie was really hot, it could stay indefinitely.

And "The Sound of Music" was a moneymaker, that was for sure. It cost a little over $8 million to make, and, ultimately, it earned nearly $300 million. For awhile, it was the highest–grossing movie of all time.

It also won the Academy Award for Best Picture. That always helps at the box office.

Anyway, I tell you all this to set the stage. See, there was a theater a few blocks from my grandparents' home in Dallas, the place where my family stayed whenever we came to visit. And that theater had struck a deal for "The Sound of Music."

I don't know how old I was at the time — not very old, I'm sure — and I don't really know how long "The Sound of Music" was showing at that theater, but it was long enough that even I realized, whenever we were visiting my grandparents and my grandmother suggested that we all go see a movie, she was talking about "The Sound of Music." She really loved that movie, and, after all, it was just a few blocks away.

I must have seen that movie half a dozen times when I was little. And that was at a time when it wasn't nearly as easy to drive between Little Rock and Dallas as it is today.

And it was a good movie. But I remember that it was a nice — and unexpected — change when we all went to see something else. I don't remember what it was, only that it was a relief to be seeing something other than "The Sound of Music."

I recall that, while doing some research during my graduate school days, I read some of the reviews of "The Sound of Music" that I came across on microfilm. Many of the critics of the day seemed to dismiss it as corny and too saccharine, which it may have been, but the box office receipts indicate that the public didn't care. Maybe audiences of the mid–1960s craved something that was corny and saccharine. (I guess that describes my grandmother's taste in movies — she always was a sucker for musicals.)

My grandmother and my mother were fans of Julie Andrews, who made her big–screen debut the year before in "Mary Poppins." She won Best Actress for it, too, and got a nomination for Best Actress for "The Sound of Music" the year after that. In the mid–'60s, there were few actresses who were as popular as Andrews.

No doubt she was a big part of the popular appeal of the movie. But that doesn't account for all of it, nor does it account for the movie's enduring appeal. Half a century later, the anniversary has become something of a cottage industry. Books are being published about it. And USA Today reports that a special video package is being released as well as reissued recordings of the music; Turner Classic Movies will start its annual film festival later this month with a showing of a restored copy of the movie; presumably, the same restored version will be the one that will be shown at roughly 500 theaters across the country on two dates in April.

Part of the movie's appeal has to be the art direction, the cinematography, the costumes — all of which were recognized with Oscar nominations. And part of its appeal was the Rodgers and Hammerstein score.

But I think a lot of it has to do with a very simple formula that has served filmmakers for generations.

In "The Sound of Music," you knew who the good guys were, and you knew who the bad guys were. Instead of black hats, the bad guys were dressed in Nazi uniforms. Instead of white hats, the good guys wore matching outfits from their latest performance.

Most important, audiences really cared about the good guys. It's hard for an audience to become involved in a story if that audience doesn't care about the good guys.

But you couldn't help caring about Julie Andrews and the seven children who were her charges — even if there were parts of the story that really were ridiculous. I mean, the big problem that the nuns at the Austrian convent had with Andrews was that she missed morning prayers pretty regularly because she was dancing and singing about the hills being alive with the sound of music. So she was hired by Christopher Plummer to be the governess for his seven children, who had already run off several governesses. Winning them over was no small accomplishment.

The plot was so silly, though, that, as I understand, several prominent people in Hollywood were approached about either appearing in it or directing it and refused. Robert Wise directed it and won an Oscar for his work.

Not bad for a corny and saccharine project.