Star-Struck: Showboat

Ev'rybody's Sure to Go!

It must be admitted that I had a really hard time choosing between Show Boat and Seven Brides for the number 1 spot.  They are both the peak of their forms: Show Boat as a beautiful tearjerker and Brides as a raucous comedy.  Picking one basically says one style is better than the other, and my preference changes with the hour.  So, since this series is qualified as the best Howard Keel films, I'm going to reserve no. 1 for my favorite performance by Howard Keel.  And that, my dears, you will have to wait for until next time.  

Showboat went through several incarnations before the 1951 version I am reviewing, starting with a novel by Edna Ferber.  It's a bit of an epic tragedy spanning decades and following the fortunes of a family-run show boat business on the titular Cotton Blossom, especially the beautiful and talented Magnolia "Nolie"Hawks.  By the time we get to our film, a lot of the "harsher" themes had been dramatically softened or straight-up removed: racism, miscegenation, poverty, and the ending was brightened considerably.  Sometimes it is hardly noticable and at other points it completely screws the plot.  The biggest case is the casting of Julie LaVerne with a white Ava Gardner over the black Lena Horne and removing many strong hints to her genetic background when the studio balked.  Ironically, the segment pointing out the injustices of miscegenation (interracial marriage) was sanitized to the point of making no sense for fear of.... showing an interracial couple on film.

None of that to say that Ava Gardner did not portray her part well.  In fact, she was the best performance of the film.  I grew up not ten miles from Smithfield, NC: her birth and final resting place.  I am no small fan of Ava, and she was heart-wrenchingly captivating from the beginning to the final frame.  Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson team up for the first time here, him as the charming, roving gambler and her as the helplessly naive and smitten Nolie, who serves as a somewhat more successful foil to the spiraling shambles of Julie when both woman are eventually abandoned.  Keel is true to form as the dashing sly fox- the man who swoops in and tempts you to run away even though you know its not going end well.  

Of course, the real show-stealer is the song Ol Man River, performed here by William Warfield.  The whole sequence, panning down the "Mississippi" as the Cotton Blossom takes off is just completely beautiful.  Best part of the film, hands down.  Can't help Loving Dat Man, is, of course, a classic.  I've hear Ava Gardner's original recording of her songs, and while she might not have been as technically proficient as Annette Warren, her dub, I like her version.  The staging of pretty much all the numbers is more cinematic than the 1936 version and I am glad a lot of the extraneous songs were clipped.  Even so, there are still nearly enough songs to weary you out; it teeters right on the edge.  Making Ellie and Frank a Fred 'n Ginger style team rather than a couple of hoofers was also a nice touch for the screen and their numbers are so well done I don't mind that they kinda drag the pacing down a bit.

Showboat is a marvelous film in just about every way possible.  The lush Technicolor cinematography, aided in the best way by wildly fabulous costumes, the beautiful score and amazing showpiece song, and the cast (looking only like Golden-era actors could look) gave thoroughly solid performances all around. I think it is the better than the 1936 version, it feels more like a cinematic experience, not so much a recording of the play.  The numbers are rearranged and tailored to suit a better pacing and scenes are shot so that I don't constantly feel like it's just a stage I am looking at.  It's an achingly beautiful film that begs you to smile through your tears when life seems hopeless, because there might be something better waiting for you 'round the next bend.

My Rating:
10/10**********

Star-Struck: Calamity Jane

When I Get Home, I'm Fixin' to Stay!

I originally planned on doing 5 films for this Star-Struck, including Annie Get Your Gun in the last position, but in my review it became more and more apparent I couldn't really list it as a greatest.  Now there are certainly reasons to see it, being Keel's first lead role, having the wonderful sparring duet I Can Do Without You and I do give props to Betty Hutton for doing her best with a tumultuous casting.  However, the metamessages of "ain't those injuns just so quaint and dumb" and " you can't expect your man to love you if you put your personal strengths ahead of his pride" plus the general backstage nastiness behind the production really sours my viewing.  This story was done almost identically 3 years later in Calamity Jane, and better, so that is the only one I shall review.  'Nuff said.


Calamity Jane was written for Doris Day by the brothers Warner to appease their box-office sweetheart after she was passed over for the title role in AGYG.  The movie is unabashedly similar to Annie from the basis on a historical female sharpshooter down to the appearance of Howard Keel.  However, Calamity takes the nasty-minded edge off Annie's themes and gives them a much-appreciated softening.  Here the "Injun" mentality is not as embarrassingly in-your-face, if only because their caricatures are largely brushed to the side as a casual fact of life outside the bigger storyline.  The main focus is the love quadrangle with Day as Calamity, hopelessly smitten with Lt. Danny, a man everyone cannot help but notice has no interest whatsoever in Calamity.  Both Danny and Calamity's old chum, Bill Hickok, fall for showgirl Katie Brown (Allyn McLerie) who comes to town looking for a chance at stardom.  While there are still some disparaging references to "female thinking," Calamity vastly improves on Annie because that the obvious reason Calamity and Danny can't be together is not because she is too manly to be loved, but that Danny is a superficial douche.  Sure, Howard Keel's character appreciates Calamity's makeovers, but he never asks her to give up any essential part of herself, and seems to fit best with her because of it.


I like Doris Day.  I like her voice, her on-screen cheeriness and the game way she went for her character.  Calamity isn't the glamorous role in the film you would expect a 50's starlet to be campaigning for, but it is the most interesting.  Bill Hickok is the most agreeable of Keel's film characters.  Often his charisma and charm must overcome his douchiness, the man you love in spite of yourself.  But here more than anywhere else he is the guy you really want the girl to go for, the guy that we ask why there can't be more of, and it suits him.  The supporting roles do well enough, I especially loved Dick Wesson doing his Francis Fryer routine.  Because a movie can always use a good drag number to liven things up.


The numbers are all quite good- Secret Love being the big Oscar-winning hit and a huge success for Doris Day.  The Deadwood Stage and The Windy City are catchy, although I will concede the one place Annie outperforms Calamity is in the feuding song: I Can do Without You, a bald copy of Anything You Can Do, cannot hold a patch on it's predecessor.  


Calamity Jane can borderline on silly at times with its 50's era sensibilities, but that doesn't stop it from being an absolutely enjoyable film.  For Howard Keel fans, I'd say this is his most likable character.  And it's a Doris Day western.  That kind of thing shore don't come 'round ev'ry day. : )


My Rating:
8/10 ********

Star-Struck: Kiss Me Kate

It's Time to Brush Up Your Shakespeare

We kick off our Keel countdown with Kiss Me Kate, a film version of the Broadway show, itself a musical adaption of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew.  And let it be known far and wide, my love for all things Shakespeare- within reason.  I'm thinking my next list will be on Shakespearean adaptions.  And despite the moral bone a contemporary audience can pick with the play, it is undeniably clever in the sparring, often bitter spewings of a certain not-so-kissable Kate.  The tale is of two actors whose lives for the evening merge and somewhat mirror the main thrust of the play they are performing.  Fred (Keel) and Lilli (Kathryn Grayson) have ended their defunct marriage and will be giving one last performance together before she moves on to the greener pastures of a millionaire rancher.  As the show progresses, they reveal they are not as over one another as it may seem, though a series of mishaps involving costar Lois (Ann Miller) and her indebted gambling boyfriend (Tommy Rall) constantly get in the way.  All in all, it's a reasonably fun story, leaning a bit heavily on the "you must learn to obey your lord and master" side of things, but that is not to say that the Lilli/Kate character does not hold her own in a refreshing, for the 50's anywho, way.

Now, I must shamefully admit that I believed the 3D craze was a somewhat contemporary (sometime in the 90s-00s) thing.  I had absolutely no idea it went back in waves all the way to the 50s.  It puzzled me for the entire movie why actors were constantly throwing junk at the camera.  It was kind of surreal, like breaking the 4th wall in a way.  Now, I will never see this film in 3D, so I have no idea how successful it would have been, but it irks me to have that curtain of suspended reality somewhat raised.  But it is interesting, what with all the Avatar and 3D this and that, to know that they aren't such novel ideas after all.  Technicolor is hands-down the most beautiful way to shoot film in the history of cinema.  There is nothing more gorgeous, more lush than a film done well in technicolor.  Kiss Me Kate certainly takes advantage of the tool by having an outrageously saturated palette, in fact it often hurts during the stage sequences.  The overwhelming abundance of vivid colors, especially red, was on the garish side.  Kathryn Grayson looked beautiful as a blonde, perhaps even better than her natural brunette, but she was absolutely a fright in the hideous reddish wig they gave her Kate character.  I have never seen an actress with hair color less suited to her complexion or costumes.

Although I know it's a Broadway musical, I cannot help but be wearied by the sheer number of songs in the film.  The story could have been vastly lightened by the removal of some, where it would feel less like introduce a character- and sing about it!  Introduce a plot point- and sing about it!  Change scene- and sing about it!  I know I sound like the Emperor form Amadeus saying - cut a few, any few will do, but I am a big supporter of wanting songs to advance plot, not rehash and stall it.  Too Darn Hot, Why Can't You Behave, Brush Up Your Shakespeare and From This Moment On are the best of the 17 or 18 songs, though two I single out mostly for their dance routines.  From This Moment On is the best showcase of talent, a wonderful nod to the efforts of the dancers who don't always make it to the leading roles.

Speaking of, Ann Miller is saucy as ever and a wonderful dancer, one of the best tap dancers in Hollywood period as evidenced in Too Darn Hot.  Tommy Rall was just so talented- we'll be seeing him again shortly in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.  Kathryn Grayson, she was alright.  I enjoyed the feistiness of her character, though I believe Jane Powell capitalized on the type better.  Though her voice is lovely, it can be so operatic and trilly I have difficulty following everything she sings, plus her style just doesn't mesh with the Broadway score or the styles of the other singers, except Keel, who could make a horse sound spectacular.  And then there's Howard Keel.  His character on script is a total douchebag: of all the characters on this list, this is the least likeable and the one with the shallowest arc.  But somehow when it's Howard Keel up there being all smarmy and whatnot, it's ok.  His charm and swagger are so powerful, all other senses are dulled while I quietly drool, knowing deep inside nothing he does could make it possible to despise him.  And I can't.  I simply cannot hate him.  Especially in guyliner.  Curses!

So over all, Kiss Me Kate is worth viewing, and viewing again.  Come on, it's Howard Keel doing Shakespeare while singing in a dead-sexy voice.  How can you not love it?

My Rating:

7/10*******

Star-Struck: Howard Keel

Ladies man and leading man, if there is one person that is a perfect example of old-school Hollywood charm, it is the legendary Howard Keel.  From his dead-sexy voice to unmistakable swagger and unbridled charisma, he was the ultimate showman.  I cannot think of anyone who gave more magnetic performances, and despite his tendency to play the douche, he compelled leading ladies and audiences alike to love him more than they could be enraged.  I'll run reviews of the cream of his musicals, working my way up to what I think is the best:

4.  Kiss Me Kate
3.  Calamity Jane
2.  Showboat
1.  Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

The original guyliner- more please!