What price nostalgia? When I screened American Graffiti for some folk more than half my age, I found that they didn’t at all relate to the teen rites and rituals that seemed so absolutely correct for my generation. Well, the world depicted in Graffiti is now sixty years in the past, not eleven. When MGM revisited an early talkie musical comedy from a smash Broadway success, the time frame depicted was only twenty years old.
But the world changed enormously in those two decades, with the Great Depression and a World War placing the Roaring Twenties way back in the dark ages, relatively speaking. In the 1920s attending college was just becoming something that kids below upper Middle Class might reasonably aspire to do, if private college was mostly still for the genuinely entitled. What more success could a nation have, than making higher education available to more of its children? Broadway and the movies of course were quick to glamorize ‘College Life’ as a Utopia of healthy values — plus singing, dancing and illegal alcohol.
The 1927 stage hit Good News became an all talking / singing / dancing MGM musical in 1930. Almost forgotten now, the college musical subgenre was a mainstay of Hollywood filming even before sound came in. Although modern audiences are likely not to understand, college musicals were meant to be free-for-all parodies of themselves. The stock situations and rituals were rigidly observed: will the football hero pass a critical class, and be allowed to play in the big game? The liveliest examples arrived in the middle thirties, where one might find Joe E. Brown (of the BIG mouth) carrying on. Brown was still attending UCLA football games in the early 1970s, and clowning and waving in the bleachers. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz may have first met on an RKO college musical. One big star that came out of the craze was Martha Raye, an endearing loudmouthed ditz who sang and danced up a storm.
MGM’s revival of the musical Good News is big, loud and nostalgic. The original score by DeSylva, Brown and Henderson was augmented with three new songs including ‘Pass That Peace Pipe’ by Martin & Blaine, which ended up being nominated for an Oscar. The screenplay was rewritten by Comden and Green, their first assignment in a string of hits that would lead to Singin’ in the Rain five years later. It was also the first directorial job of Charles Walters, a dancer who worked his way through choreographer to dance director before being given this break by producer Arthur Freed.
We’re told that the Good News remake was originally prepared for Garland and Rooney, to be an extension of their unofficial series of backyard musicals. A synopsis is hardly necessary. Tait college co-ed Connie Lane (June Allyson) falls for football star Tommy Marlowe (Peter Lawford) while helping him pass his French class, in order to (sigh) play in The Big Game. Tommy’s outgoing main squeeze, the sultry Pat McClellan (Patricia Marshall), schemes to keep her man but is no match for Connie’s sweet puritan allure. With enough songs, dances and wholesome smiles, all turns out fine.
Good News was a big hit for MGM in 1947. That year was the apex of movie attendance, where there seemed to be no end to the hopes for postwar prosperity. This was the film that cemented June Allyson as an enduring star: bright & smiling with crinkly eyes and a husky voice, people thought she was the cutest thing in crinoline. She’d keep the iron virgin persona going for at least ten more years of successful movies — dramatic pictures, mostly, holding up the Cold-War front as the dutiful wife of James Stewart. Not a great singer but a reasonable dancer, Allyson survived by sheer personality. She tried for a comeback in a late ’50s musical, a remake of The Women called The Opposite Sex. But one year later what remained was mostly supporting roles and TV.
MGM’s wet mop prettyboy Peter Lawford also came out of the war years. He’s at his most charming here in the college hunk role, dancing equally as well as Allyson. Most everyone else is just campus context. Patricia Marshall has the definitive thankless role. Her Pat McClellan is a brunette to Allyson’s blonde, so never poses a competitive romantic threat. The fine singer Mel Tormé is in for a single song and reportedly gained a boost in popularity. Tormé appeared in movies for twenty years but even when he did reasonably well the timing and mood were never right to angle him toward film stardom.
A conviction that June Allyson is the cutest thing on earth is a big help when watching Good News. If anything the story development is a bit on the dull side, without many big laughs or really strong characters. Tait College is a magazine photo-layout fantasy where every girl is an MGM starlet in a perfect color-coded dress. The boys drive modest and shiny hot rods. Since everyone seems to be about 28 or so, it’s a wonder how the ‘youth’ of 1947 related to it unless colleges really were stuffed with older veterans on the G.I. Bill. There aren’t that many songs, and among them there are only two production numbers of any consequence — but those two are killers.
‘The Varsity Drag’ swings with a feeling of epic college spirit. The snappy delivery by Allyson (nice legs) make the song’s enthusiasm infectious, and we are won over long before the number grows into a hundred spinning dancers moving in tight patterns on the basketball court. We’re told to look for a couple of dance flubs during the trumpet break in the song, but I never seem to catch them — Robert Alton’s choreography is like a finely tuned dance machine. Although Allyson’s singing voice is an excellent match ( it has the same slight rasp) we’re told that singer Pat Hyatt was her uncredited singing double. Hyatt performed uncredited in a score of films, and reportedly sang for Allyson in her first film, Two Girls and a Sailor … perhaps Hyatt got involved to hit certain notes that Allyson couldn’t? I will risk to presume that Allyson sang ‘The Best Things in Life are Free’ for herself — and there’s no denying that she exudes positive personality.
Why am I so cautious about June Allyson? The co-ed brides of 1947 became the mothers of the daughters I dated twenty years later … and still had cheerleader spirit to go with their protective mama bear instincts. They often talked much more than my dates did, with prying games of twenty questions…
The second main dance number ‘Pass That Peace Pipe’ is even better, and one of this viewer’s favorite dance sequences of all time. It features Joan McCracken, who in the rest of the film mostly waits in the margins and offers occasional comedy relief. McCracken is the best thing in the picture and it’s a crying shame she didn’t work more. There’s real life in her eyes, which communicate an ‘I know what you’re thinking’ look better than even Bettie Page. James Agee thought Good News would have been better with the old 1930 song arrangements, but also fell into a spell over the film’s star dancer: “Joan McCracken makes me think of a libidinous peanut.” That’s a baroque compliment if ever there was one.
Anyway, for ‘Pass That Peace Pipe’ the live wire McCracken is at the frenetic center of at least thirty dancers, in a malt shoppe too small to hold half that many. The choreography constantly shifts into new patterns of movement syncopated to McCracken’s wild gyrations; it’s a delight to watch. The camera catches a riot of color and geometry — McCracken wears bright angled stripes & the floor is a checkerboard. During a drum solo a Power Truck down the soda fountain crackles as a new sundae is slammed onto the counter with every beat. Kicking, stretching and spinning, the dancers are in such a tight formation on the floor that it’s a wonder they aren’t putting each other’s eyes out. Savant doesn’t consider himself a fine connoiseur of music or dance, but this explosion of talent makes up for any deficiencies in the rest of the show.
The only drawback is that the ‘Indian’- based theme — lyrics, motions and funny tribal names — almost certainly make the song questionable in these PC days, maybe even cancellable. I sincerely hope not.
It’s hard to believe that Joan McCracken was only 5’1″ tall. I’m not given any explanation for the brevity of her screen career, but am told that she was married for a time to Bob Fosse. She died at the young age of 43 from medical issues that modern medicine might have easily managed. Some say that Jessica Lange’s character in Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz is based on McCracken.
