On the Town dvd movie.|
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List Price: $19.98 Our Price: $17.99 You Save: $1.99 Features • Closed-captioned • Color • DVD-Video • NTSC In Theaters : 30 December, 1949 DVD Release : 02 May, 2000 |
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On the Town description New York, New York--it's a helluva town; the Bronx is up and the Battery's down; the people ride in a hole in the ground.... Well, you get the idea. Those lyrics (by Betty Comden and Adolph Green), set to Leonard Bernstein's music, have made On the Town a permanent part of the psychological landscape of New York City. The story (inspired by Jerome Robbins's ballet Fancy Free) is pretty slight: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin play sailors with 24 hours' leave to take their bite out of the Big Apple. When they meet, and then lose, this month's Miss Turnstiles (Vera-Ellen), they scour the town in search of her, bumping into a lady anthropologist (Ann Miller) along the way. Shot mostly in the studio, but with location exteriors all over town, from Coney Island to the Statue of Liberty to Central Park, this 1949 gem was the first of three great musicals codirected by Kelly and Stanley Donen, followed by Singin' in the Rain (1952) and the underrated It's Always Fair Weather (1955). --Jim Emerson |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | Another botched musical! |
| "On the Town" tells the story of three sailors - Gabey, Ozzie and Chip - on 24-hour leave in wartime New York City. Gabey falls in love with a subway poster of Ivy Smith, "Miss Turnstiles" for the month of June. Gabey, aided by Ozzie, Chip and two of their gals, goes on a hunt for Ivy. After several adventures and a disappointing blind date with Hildy's roommate, Lucy Schmeeler, Gaby finds Ivy.
Let me say first that film version of "On the Town" is lively and entertaining, but no more so than many musicals of the 1940s, including "Anchors Aweigh," the very enjoyable 1945 movie starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly as two sailors on leave in Hollywood. The musical score of that film (by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne) is excellent. Sinatra's rendition of "I Fall in Love Too Easily" still leaves me with chills. But I'll leave it to others to argue over which is the better film. There are at least two ways to review "On the Town" or any other film of a Broadway musical: Take it for what it is, or express regrets over what it could have been. I fall into the latter camp. "On the Town" opened on Broadway in 1944 and ran for more than 460 performances - a healthy run for shows of the time. It was an "integrated" show, in which the book, songs and dances are tightly bound to advance the plot. Choreograper Jerome Robbins created innovative dances full of energy. The forerunner of "On the Town was the highly successful Leonard Bernstein-Robbins ballet "Fancy Free." The creation of the musical play was inspired by Robbins. In 1960 Columbia Records released "The First Full-Length Recording" of the show, which included members of the original cast: (Nancy Walker as Hildy the taxi driver, Betty Comden as Claire DeLoone (Claire Huddeson in the film) the anthropologist, Adolph Green (Ozzie) and Cris Alexander (Chip) as two of the sailors. John Battles as the other sailor (Gabey) is not heard on the album (John Reardon performs in his place. This is the REAL "On the Town." But producer Arthur Freed felt that the songs in the play were too sophisticated for film audiences, so most of the numbers in the play were dropped and second-rate composer Roger Edens filled out the score (I have to assume that Comden and Green were dragooned into writing the substandard lyrics that accompanied Edens' music). All of this confirms the saw that no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people. (Producers weren't entirely at fault. The Production Code Administration's censors were always on the lookout for anything that might violate its strict, moralistic code.) Even the two of the three songs that were retained in the movie, "New York New York" and "Come Up to My Place," were reduced to shadows of the original versions. Leonard Bernsteins's jazzy score was castrated by orchestrator Conrad Salinger and clever lyrics were dropped or altered. These factors changed the atmosphere and mood of the film. Among the songs that were omitted: "Lucky to Be Me," which has become a standard, sung by Gabey as he awaits his date; "I Can Cook Too," Hildy's witty mating song for Chip; "Carried Away," another funny number sung by Claire and Ozzie in the museum, in which they express a mutual weakness (the song was replaced by the silly "Primitive Man" number, which was only salvaged by Ann Miller's dancing; "Some Other Time," a poignant song, with a marvelous vocal arrangement, that acknowledges that the 24-hour leave is almost over (there are about two dozen versions of this song currently in print); "Ya Got Me," a propulsive, bouncy song with a Latin beat that the gang sings to Gabey to cheer him up (this was replaced in the film by an inferior, corny C&W song. For many successful musicals, MGM turned to established outside composers and lyricists. "Meet Me in St. Louis," "The Harvey Girls" and "It Happened in Brooklyn" are just three examples of this practice. Roger Edens is simply not in their league. So, I suggest that anyone who reads this review acquire or hear the 1960 Columbia album, or even the 1992 studio version that includes even more music. Your high opinion of the film may change significantly. |
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