Words and Music
The Warner Archive’s latest MGM Technicolor bon-bon is this strained musical bio — Mickey Rooney as Lorenz Hart? — that nevertheless can boast an impressive revue lineup of performances: Judy Garland, Betty Garrett, Lena Horne, Mickey Rooney, Mel Tormé et al. The showstopper is one of Gene Kelly’s earliest ‘music ballet’ extravaganzas — he dances Apache with Vera-Ellen in the dynamic Hart-Rodgers composition Slaughter on 10th Avenue. It’s pretty exciting — ballet art masks some pretty erotic moves. With an excellent audio commentary by Richard Barrios.
Words and Music
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1948 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 121 min. / Available at Moviezyng / Street Date September 3, 2024 / 21.99
Starring Tom Drake as Richard Rodgers and Mickey Rooney as Lorenz Hart. Also Starring: June Allyson, Perry Como, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Ann Sothern, Cyd Charisse, Betty Garrett, Janet Leigh, Marshall Thompson, Mel Tormé, Vera-Ellen, Jeanette Nolan, Richard Quine, Clinton Sundberg, Emory Parnell, Gower Champion, Jeanne Coyne, Allyn Ann McLerie.
Art Directors: Cedric Gibbons, Jack Martin Smith
Costumes: Helen Rose, Valles
Film Editors: Albert Akst, Ferris Webster
Screenplay Written by Fred F. Finklehoffe story by Guy Bolton and Jean Holloway adaptation by Fred Feiner, Jr.
Produced by Arthur Freed
Musical numbers staged and directed by Robert Alton
‘Slaughter on Tenth Avenue’ ballet sequence choreographed and directed by Robert Alton and Gene Kelly
Directed by Norman Taurog
It’s another welcome item for fans of MGM musicals, the postwar Technicolor extravaganzas usually described as ‘Glorious!’ They were indeed popular, glittering marvels. Top talent sang and danced to music from some of the biggest talents of the century.
In 1947 and 1948 almost every movie made money, and some of MGM’s most popular Technicolor Tuners were not musical comedies or Broadway adaptations but variety shows disguised as biographies of popular composers and songwriters. 1948’s Words and Music is an expensive Arthur Freed production featuring a full roster of Metro musical talent. The only obvious name not present is Fred Astaire. “The Biggest Musical!” proclaims the poster banner, showing off seven star names as disembodied heads. MGM’s most accomplished producer of musicals, Arthur Freed, has his name on the show.
A couple of weeks back we enjoyed MGM’s musical bio Three Little Words, which actually stressed story elements over its songs. Words and Music follow more of a straight revue format, with disconnected songs from the dynamite songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. In between numbers we get a fabricated story of their Broadway team-up, played without apology by Tom Drake and overplayed to good effect by Mickey Rooney. But in Words and Music almost every song we hear is a timeless classic, with a melody that puts modern ‘power ballads’ to shame. All of the free-standing musical numbers in Words and Music play well, even when they’re just straight-on moving photographs of the talent crooning.
By this time America had been conditioned to accept as gospel whatever fairy tales MGM happened to be selling … for corroboration on that, just check out their ‘informational’ series Crime Does Not Pay. Documentary films as we now know them were not yet fully formed. But who took movies seriously? The counter-attitude would have been ‘Lighten up, it’s entertainment, not a coroner’s transcript.’ The musical biography format normally charts a star’s rise to fame and fortune, a progress interrupted by personal heartbreaks that only add to the poignancy of the great songs being created. As explained by author Richard Barrios, most of the music makers immortalized by MGM didn’t come from backgrounds of hardship, and their personal problems could often be adjusted to the ‘everything’s rosy’ requirement of the genre. Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers were incredibly talented, but even they wouldn’t have wanted their real lives to go up on a movie screen. Hart was a self-loathing gay man who drank himself to a tragic early death, while Rodgers cautiously guarded his private life. Words and Music invents an almost entirely bogus biography for each of them.
Thus we are given a snappy little storyline, digestible sketches sandwiched between the glossy musical numbers. Broadway hopefuls Richard Rodgers and Lorenz ‘Lorry’ Hart (Tom Drake & Mickey Rooney) initially encounter difficulty finding acceptance for their innovative songs. When finally launched as a composer-lyricist duo, success rains down on them both. But their personal relationships differ greatly. Richard is lucky in love and marries Dorothy Feiner (Janet Leigh), the sister of a friend. Lorry reels from bouts of depression and becomes an erratic collaborator, disappearing at odd times.
Several of the musical numbers in Words and Music are considered classics, but these connecting biographical segments are kitsch of the highest order. Tom Drake is a bland Richard Rodgers while Mickey Rooney as Lorenz Hart is, well, Mickey Rooney. When on a high Lorry is the life of the party; when in the doldrums he’s pitiful but never abusive of others. The large cast is drawn from the MGM acting stable, some of whom worked with Rodgers and Hart both in films and on Broadway. Gene Kelly, for instance, gained stardom in their musical play Pal Joey. This creates a bizarre situation in which some actors (Marshall Thompson, Cyd Charisse, Janet Leigh) are playing fictional characters, and some (Gene Kelly, June Allyson, Vera-Ellen) more or less play themselves. When Rooney and Garland are on screen together, they have to pretend that she’s herself but Mickey is somebody else. Meanwhile, Perry Como wanders through several songs as singer ‘Eddie Lorrison Anders,’ when we all know he’s Perry Como. (Even back then, columnists kidded about Perry Como being so laid-back that he seemed somnambulent.) Audiences would have been confused, had they bothered to worry about such problems. The musical genre was allowed to exist in a cloud of feel-good fantasy.
The songwriters’ career arc provides emotional cues for the film’s fourteen musical numbers, a parade of sparkling Rodgers and Hart hits. The list is dominated by songs from their Broadway hit Babes in Arms. The songs aren’t presented in the order they were written, and we don’t see original Broadway staging or choreography. The production numbers look more or less like generic 1940s MGM work with updated dancing. A ballet corps gathers to accompany Cyd Charisse for one number, and Gene Kelly turns a lyric-free Rodgers & Hart composition into his first major dance-narrative set piece.
A number of songs are associated with specific characters. Betty Garrett sings There’s a Small Hotel at a party; Rooney demos Hart’s lyrics for Manhattan at the piano. Rooney and Garland were known to entertain at legendary Hollywood parties, wowing attendees with intimate concerts. As ‘Hart and Garland’ they entertain a party with an impromptu rendition of I Wish I Were in Love Again. It’s a fine showcase for lyricist Hart’s elaborate interior rhymes.
Billed as himself but pretending to be a bandleader, Mel Tormé warbles Blue Moon to Lorry at the end of an all-night party. Most of the other numbers are on stage or in nightclubs: Mountain Greenery (Perry Como), Where’s that Rainbow (Ann Sothern) and Thou Swell (June Allyson). Lena Horne sings The Lady is a Tramp and Where or When in a stunning nightclub sequence purposely designed so that it could be cut out without harming the film’s continuity: many major theaters in Southern communities would not play movies with African-American performers.
For its semi-tragic ending Words and Music has a rather foolish-looking Mickey Rooney stumble from his hospital bed and rush to the theater. This at least has some resemblance to history — Hart did arrive at theaters drunk, although I’ve read nothing about him making embarrassing scenes. Before he died he was working toward a reunion with Rodgers.
The real climax, and the lasting reason for watching the movie, is Gene Kelly’s ballet Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,from the 1936 stage show On Your Toes. Ray Bolger is said to have performed it in more of a comedy mode. Kelly and Vera-Ellen dance a straight seven minutes of tour-de-force jazz ballet with some fairly strong erotic content. Audiences responded enthusiastically; Kelly proudly showcased the number whenever he made a ‘career highlights’ personal appearance. Automated moving scenery helps create slick segues between Kelly’s bedroom, a sleazy street corner and a step-down dive of a bar. There is a gangster picture about rackets and Unions from 1957 called Slaughter on 10th Avenue. It uses parts of Richard Rodgers music, but not to any particular effect.
The featured songs:
Manhattan 1925 from The Garrick Gaieties sung by Mickey Rooney, Tom Drake (dubbed by Bill Lee), Marshall Thompson
There’s a Small Hotel 1936 from On Your Toes sung by Betty Garrett
Way Out West 1937 from Babes in Arms sung by Betty Garrett
Where’s that Rainbow 1926 from Peggy-Ann sung by Ann Sothern + The Blackburn Twins
On Your Toes 1936 danced by Cyd Charisse
This Can’t Be Love 1938 from The Boys from Syracuse sung by Cyd Charisse, Dee Turnell
Blue Room 1926 from The Girl Friend sung by Perry Como, Cyd Charisse
Thou Swell 1927 from A Connecticut Yankee sung by June Allyson, Pete Roberts, Eugene Cox
With a Song in My Heart 1930 from Spring Is Here sung by Tom Drake (Bill Lee)
Where or When 1937 from Babes in Arms sung by Lena Horne
The Lady Is a Tramp 1937 from Babes in Arms sung by Lena Horne
I Wish I Were in Love Again 1937 from Babes in Arms sung by Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney
Johnny One Note 1937 from Babes in Arms sung by Judy Garland
Blue Moon 1934 sung by Mel Tormé
Slaughter on Tenth Avenue 1936 from On Your Toes danced by Gene Kelly, Vera-Ellen
With a Song In My Heart (end medley)
The Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray of Words and Music keeps the hits coming, as regards MGM’s (Glorious!) musical wonder movies. They made heavy use of Technicolor, and the big draw for these new Blu-rays are Warners’ painstaking digital remasters. Before recent years, older Technicolor movies on video were stuck with whatever composite film element had been made for post-Technicolor printing. They often had all kinds of flaws ‘baked in,’ especially color fringing from misaligned color elements. New digital techniques allow the 3 Technicolor film registers to be perfectly rejoined — and the result is color not seen for decades.
Thus we now have sparkling versions that renew interest in these pictures. It isn’t just musicals that benefit — the majestic Colorado scenery in the James Stewart western The Naked Spur is a revelation. We note that directing credit for the musical numbers is given to Robert Alton. Every time a song pops up, the film jumps from the work of director Norman Taurog, to Alton’s restrained but handsome staging.
As is the drill with musicals from The Warner Archive Collection, a separate menu allows one to skip to individual performances … that will come in handy when I want to show visitors the dazzling Slaughter on 10th Avenue.
The extras are repeated from MGM’s old 2007 DVD. An excellent commentator for classic musicals, Richard Barrios offers well-researched insights and a fair-minded attitude toward the film’s twisted back-story. Barrios describes the frustrations encountered by the real Rodgers and Hart when they worked in Hollywood, writing scores of songs that were poorly used. That experience explains why Rodgers later demanded artistic and business control over the film versions of his later Oscar Hammerstein hits, starting with Oklahoma! Barrios also explains the reasons behind certain continuity shifts in the film, as when Judy Garland’s dress and hair suddenly change between two songs in the same scene.
Richard Barrios also appears in the featurette A Life in Words and Music, which lets us see what the real Rodgers and Hart looked like. Mickey Rooney briefly describes his working relationship with Judy Garland. Musical outtakes show Perry Como singing two more ultra-relaxed songs, You’re Nearer and Lover. Another menu choice leads to a full gallery of audio outtakes. In addition to an original trailer, we’re given a short subject about Los Angeles firemen (directed by Gunther V. Fritsch of Curse of the Cat People) and the surreal Tex Avery cartoon The Cat that Hated People. The cartoon, the trailer and the Fritsch short subject have been upgraded to full HD.
MGM’s advertising in these years wasn’t all that attractive: when you control what plays at your own theaters, you’ve got a semi-captive audience. There are also very few quality color stills to be found online, and I’m pledged not to take new screen grabs. Here’s what we found, and none of it fairly represents the terrific colors found on the disc.
Words and Music
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Good +
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Audio commentary by Richard Barrios
Featurette: A Life in Words and Music
Unused musical sequences
Audio-only musical outtakes
MGM cartoon: The Cat that Hated People
MGM Short subject Going to Blazes!
Original Trailer.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: September 31, 2024
(7200word)
Final product for this review was provided free by The Warner Archive Collection.
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Text © Copyright 2024 Glenn Erickson
I see you made the same mistake the Blu-ray does: leaving the wonderful Mountain Greenery off the playlist.
Glenn, it’s Larry Hart, not Lorry.
To Cliff — yep, I followed what the disc said, to my utter shame. To Dave, I agreed with you, but the subs said different, and when looking to prove them wrong I saw Hart referred to as Lorry in a couple of other places as well. Once again, I am proven an unworthy, unschooled heelot when it comes to musical history. On the other hand, thank both of you for your fair corrections.