papeetepatrick

I think that's exactly right, and of course, she didn't have the range of Katharine Hepburn that would extend to something like 'Long Day's Journey Into Night.' (the reverse, of course, is true. Garbo, though tough, does not seem bossy; what could have bombed more fully than Katharine Hepburn as 'Camille'???). But Ms. Hepburn I have seen a number of times and thought she was just as bad as her material, I like her before she got so pushy: She's exquisite in 'Morning Glory' and 'Alice Adams.'

I agree with the not handsome part, but not with the sexy part. My best friend, whose of British and Italian descent, once told me that he was British from the waist up and Italian from the waist down, and I think much of Astaire's appeal was the same. He had a mid-American face and his characters were often jerky smart alec's, and quite rude to his love object -- I don't think he was such a prize in most of his movies; at least his suave rivals were up front about it, although they were clearly foreign/foreign-influenced and not 'Merican -- but his upper body said one thing, especially with his facial expressions, and his lower body, with its rhythm and phrasing, made very different promises, and because he was such a dance genius, we want to believe that's the truth of his characters. This sort of thing is so subjective, it just ends up being about personal taste and 'what turns you on', which we had enough trouble with on the 'beautifully proportioned' male and female ballet dancers. I actually find Astaire handsome in a classy-gent way when he was very young, but no promise in the lower body. Gene Kelly, Irish, was also Italian from top to bottom, or even if he wasn't, you get the idea of the way I see that hunk. Now Katharine Hepburn, without any sex appeal that I can ever see herself, may not be the best to pronounce on the Fred/Ginger pairing, although people tend to agree with it: I don't, I don't find either of them to be the least bit sexy. Cyd Charisse was truly sexy, and although Eleanor Powell I don't find sexy, I don't see that 'she has no sexual allure'--she's athletic, and that can sometimes hold it's own 'promises.' But this is not ballet, and a big vaudeville-like turn is not that long past. It's vulgar and garish, but I don't think the vulgar and garish don't have their place--in the case of 'Rosalie', it brings a ridiculous, occasionally amusing but usually moribund bit of fluff to electric life. It is probably where we want to see them that we differ. I like the description Bart has given, however I like what he disparages--I find Ms. Powell's pyrotechnics are well-matched by her 'vaudeville cigarette girl' or 'cartoon French maid'. I wouldn't want to see this in 'Coppellia', but, as Peter Martins once said 'We are NOT Broadway', several years before contacting Susan Stroman for some business in the repertoire.

One of the greatest songs by Arlen, my personal favourite of all Broadway composers. I want to see 'The Sky's the Limit' now. This song is also superbly sung by Lena Horne, but I don't know if in a film. She's so elegant I can hardly believe it--am right now watching 'Panama Hattie', and she did 'Just One of Those Things' and will do another later. 'One for My Baby' is also sublime in Frank Sinatra's hands--as a lounge singer in 'Young at Heart.' (as is 'Just One of Those Things' in that film. His version probably surpasses Lena's in 'Panama Hattie', but not because she's not capable of it, more the way it was framed in the film.)

Mine, too, and also because Tchaikovsky's music for it is one of the lushest numbers he ever wrote. I didn't get to see Mme. Alonso do it, but I did see her do a number of things in 1979 with Ballet Nacional. I dislike that this is missing from Nureyev's version from way back even more than all that bordello-like rouge. Also 3rd Act Grand Pas, Sleeping Beauty, and "Diamonds" with Farrell which you can still see on the tape.

Thanks, Anthony, and give us recommendations, some of us are just getting to know some of those old things. Volcanohunter has got me ready to watch 'Lady Be Good', which I didn't know was Eleanor Parker. Have you seen 'Spring Awakening'? I plan to listen to it in week or two, at very least.

2 good Ethel CD's of Berlin, Porter and others that some may already know well: "Merman Sings Merman" and "Ethel Merman in Songs from Call Me Madam and Panama Hattie". First has a great "Alexanders' Ragtime Band" and "Everything's Coming Up Roses", the second a terrific "Hoste' with the Mostes'" and "Something to Dance About." I'll say little about "The Full Monty" cast album I just listened to, as it barely exists as far as I can tell. The 'lyric-song' simulations have titles like "You Walk With Me" and "You Rule My World" and "Breeze from the River", the latter seemed all right till you remembered "around the corner...and whistlin' down the river...', they all sounded like one would do as well with the Rite-Aid Muzak just standing in the Cold Cream section, if they'd put the dial on the Lite-FM station during some country-cheesey hour. The 'peppy songs' have titles like "Man," "Big Black Man", "Big Ass Rock", and "The Goods"; these are all full of male and female anatomy crudeness, and are a sort of soft-porn. Very dispiriting, yet another example of television cross-pollinating not only cinema by now, but theater as well. By David Yazbek, also known for 'Bombay Dreams' and 'Dirty Rotten Scroundrels'--a certain niche, I guess.

Oh, this is merely one of the greatest films ever made--moments with John Gilbert unlike anything I've ever experienced on film. Is it worth viewing? Well, one oughtn't to go through life without viewing it. As well as 'Grand Hotel' and 'Anna Christie' and 'Camille.' I think she's the greatest actress in Hollywood history, in the sense that she's never bad no matter how poor the material; I don't think I can say that about another star. In any case, this film is not perfect in the 'All About Eve' sense of impeccable, no-hair-out-of-place perfection, but then what American film is? There are FACES in this film: Unfortunately for Norma Desmond (who had one) they sometimes continued in the talkies.

Now that that's clear, I tend to agree with the 'brash' myself, but not quite the 'androgynous'--because I find Marlene Dietrich to be the prototype of 'androgynous' (more than Garbo). As for 'no feminine yielding in the persona', I don't see that in Powell either, but rather in Joan Crawford.. Some of the ones I thought were somewhat 'butch' still had the 'feminine yielding', whereas Ms. Crawford is neither butch nor yielding, as I see it. I find her mostly sad.

Are you sure you're not thinking of Jane Powell? although maybe you were like me and dirac (but in reverse) who had though Betty Hutton had been dead since the late 70s, because I'm sure you know the dancer Eleanor Powell--but she died in 1982, I remember it rather vividly. I kept the obituary, which touched me, as she'd been a particularly lovely person.

No, I can't. I just think she is phenomenal. I agree with dirac (from thread this derives from) that she's a touch butch, but although this is not something I highly prize in women generally, if I find them or their work beautiful, I don't object and even think 'the more the merrier' if they can make it appealing--Garbo was a certain kind of butch. Ethel Merman is definitely butch, much more so than Powell. I think it may be a matter of taste just as with Sylvie Guillem, of whom I am thus far not very fond, although I do not consider her butch. Anyway, what you perceive as 'driving energy and not much more' is to me just brilliance at a kind of dancing that is so extroverted to begin with that the brighter the better. I admit this is more attractive to me, as in 'Rosalie', when Powell is dancing alone and can just let all that ability celebrate itself. So it's just a matter of taste. I think the best tap dancer should be virtuosic and extroverted, and I think Powell delivers this better than any other I know of from musical films.

I used to be in favour of this late announcement of casting, although now that it's brought up, I realize I never applied it to myself. I always got tickets for specific performances once I knew who was dancing. I thought that it probably had the desired effect, though, because most would have to cooperate with not knowing who the casts were and this gave a special aura to the company--but more in the past than now. I don't even think it adds anything to the experience at this point. That aura and mystery are just not there in the same way, and I would be just as happy if they announced exactly as ABT does by now.

Here's one for our Musical Comedy Department--ROSALIE, which I've almost finished watching. Elephantine thing, and not great, except for Eleanor Powell's amazing dancing, as well as a couple of good Cole Porter songs. But does anyone know if there has ever been a Gershwin/Romberg Broadway show, or even just a Gershwin one, that was then turned into a Hollywood musical with songs by Cole Porter--and yet with the same story? This must be a singular occurrence. In any case, you can see the songs from the original 1927 show here: http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=10548 Then click 'Songs in this Production.' The wiki entry is very good for this strange development of a show(s). Weirder than what happened to Strike Up the Band, which kept one of the songs and changed the whole story. The wiki article describes how the one famous song from the Gershwin Rosalie, How Long Has This Been Going On?, had been originally written for Funny Face. A friend told me today that the song was restored to the film version, and he was right. I haven't seen Funny Face for many years, so the song list for that indicates Audrey Hepburn sang it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalie Here's the NYT review from 1937 by Frank Nugent. Pretty accurate, but these giant things age rather well in a certain sense--we end up valuing them for those very over-spendings that were disparaged at the time. That was the theme of much criticism of the film of Hello, Dolly! and look how well that has aged: It still looks brand-new. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res...9649D946694D6CF I wouldn't say I thought Rosalie was a good film, but we do get In the Still of the Night from it (it was introduced there, and is one in Porter's 'square vein', which always surprise me after the extreme urbanity I usually associate with his best songs), and for once, I was even able to enjoy Nelson Eddy well enough. But Ms. Powell's dancing just knocks me out--including when she does it in the dorm in the satin pajamas. She was truly magnificent atop those drums, I daresay.

That's kind of sad isn't it? It certainly makes the career choices of someone like Helen Mirren, who trained in theater and went back-and-forth between stage and screen, seem both self-preservatory and sensible. I don't think it's that much of a problem for a really major star as in past eras. There's always something for them to do. Shirley MacLaine 'made the transition' into mothers, etc., and many of the big names are still around as they go into their 50s or 60s. The main ones who seem to show signs of being eclipsed have been those who have had some substance problems or other personal trauma, or who lost interest. Ann-Margret has not been used well, but always works. Liz Taylor didn't continue for many reasons, probably including not wanting to do that kind of concentration. Catherine DeNeuve has never worked in the theater, and she is the ultimate example of aging well on the screen--much more so than MacLaine, who has become somewhat a caricature of herself, which Deneuve has not. Michelle Pfeiffer is 49 or 50 and shows no sign of literally slowing down, even if she went a couple of years without making a film. There are dozens more, help me remember them. Whether they really improve with age may be the more pertinent concern in this historic period. I think that the days when stars faded based on their beauty and glamour have pretty much passed. Any thoughts on that? this is pretty general and rough, I haven't thought it through that deeply. Just thought of Streisand. She can't get literally anything she most wants as she once could, but she can get a lot of it. Close and Streep and are still major actresses, Goldie still pops up sometimes.. etc., etc., I think anyway.. One thing that did interest me about 'My Best Friend's Wedding' was that Roberts already seemed an 'aging star' in it. The role was weird and it then felt strange when she 'went back' to 'romantic leading ladies'. However, I really wasn't paying all that much attention, after they did that shtick with 'I Say a Little Prayer for You'.

Carbro, thanks. That's a marvelous site. Now it's even more complicated, but they describe how the score was softened for the New York 1930 version after the 1927 production closed out of town. IBDb was therefore only showing songs from 1930. The Encores! version then did use both 'The Man I Love' from the first show and 'Soon' from the second show, and sounds like it would have been a real pleasure. Wonderful photos of Fred and Adele in 'Lady Be Good!' That site is an invaluable resource for these shows, and some of the other creators will have big sites as well that I'll remember to look up as they come up again. Interesting that Kaufman, one of the creators of the original and two other satires with the Gershwins, may have been referring to this one when he said 'Satire is what closes on Saturday night!' Also that from 1927 to 1930, that cheese was converted to chocolate, which may or may not have had to do with the Depression, but although now something of a hit, the 1930 score is considered much inferior to the original. I'm going to try to get hold of a recording of the show's real score(s) now. I wonder if 'The Man I Love' had not become a standard by the time of the film, although the film clearly now has almost nothing to with the original, mainly just appropriating the hit title song and making a 'let's put on a show' movie for Judy and Mickey (who did look better in makeup, I thought.) Having just also watched 'Good News', it was amusing to see that Mickey Rooney broke a date with Judy Garland in the library just as had Peter Lawford done to June Allyson, for another girl temporarily thought more racy or sizzling or something.

STRIKE UP THE BAND--another Garland/Rooney vehicle, and one I had not seen. Very entertaining, not great like 'Girl Crazy' though: These are the most important songs from the film: 1. Strike Up the Band (1940) (performer: "Strike up the Band" (1927), "Our Love Affair" (1939), "Do the Conga" (1939), "Nobody" (1939), "The Gay Nineties", "Nell of New Rochelle" (1939), "A Man Was the Cause of It All" (1939), "Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl" (1909), "Come Home, Father" (1864)) ("Our Love Affair" (1939), "Drummer Boy" (1939)) Much more detailed and exemplary list of every tune in the movie can be found herehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033110/soundtrack Only the title song retained from the original. Several songs by Roger Edens: Songs from the original 1927 show: (sorry formatting is not neat) Fletcher's American Chocolate Choral Society ....................................... Timothy Harper, Richard K. Sloane and Horace J. Fletcher I Mean to Say ....................................... Timothy Harper and Anne Draper Typical Self-Made American ....................................... Horace J. Fletcher, Jim Townsend and Yes-Men Soon ....................................... Joan Fletcher and Jim Townsend A Man of High Degree ....................................... Entire Company The Unofficial Spokesman ....................................... Colonel Holmes and Company Three Cheers for the Union ....................................... Company This Could Go On For Years ....................................... Company If I Became President ....................................... Colonel Holmes and Mrs. Grace Draper Soon (Reprise) ....................................... Joan Fletcher and Jim Townsend (What's the Use of) Hanging Around with You? ....................................... Timothy Harper and Anne Draper He Knows Milk ....................................... Jim Townsend, Joan Fletcher, Richard K. Sloane, Horace J. Fletcher and Ensemble Strike Up the Band ....................................... Jim Townsend, Entire Company and Red Nichols and His Band Act 2 In the Rattle of the Battle ....................................... Company Military Dancing Drill ....................................... Company Mademoiselle from New Rochelle ....................................... Colonel Holmes, Gideon and Swiss Girls I've Got a Crush on You ....................................... Timothy Harper and Anne Draper (How About a Boy) Like Me? ....................................... Mrs. Grace Draper, Colonel Holmes, Gideon and Horace J. Fletcher Official Resume ....................................... Ensemble Ring a Ding Dong Bell (Ding Dong) ....................................... Bridesmaids and Company Brief summary of movie, with difference from show shown: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/47385/Stri...e-Band/overview Review of Encores! Revival of show gives more information on what the original show would have been like: http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/tr...d=1077011431588 The Encores review mentions 'The Man I Love', so I don't know whether that was originally meant for the show or not.

was.....Peter Martins a legend or a Legend? when, all of a sudden I turned over the cover of the New Yorker in the early 80s to find him dripping with fur? (carbro will hate this, but I couldn't resist. I myself wasn't quite sure that had been totally appropriate. Someone said, by way of explanation: 'The money...')

Yes, there's a certain kind of 'total fan' who goes for this aspect. It's allowed at a certain tipping point of thralldom, so that a few performers like Nureyev and Garbo can pull this off after they've first applied the total joy of their own narcissism to themselves. After they have proved it to themselves, they can then use it as part of their public persona. I see this as perfectly normal if you can do it, or if it isn't normal, that's irrelevant. Some of the writing about these superstars is maybe a little embarassing, but that's because it's a few steps removed from the actual nakedness that only the most adept narcissist can deliver. Much better to go all the way with super-style like that, than part of the way like certain American politicians who think 'mild continental style' will make them look something other than weak.

I agree about the lazy, and John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion take her to task like nobody's business in various essays--the matter being that she doesn't know what decisions were made in this collaborative medium, essentially they are insiders and she's not. This is condescending, but accurate: She does not know what happened in the big messes of making Hollywood movies the way they do, the points that certain stars have in a picture, the percentage the director commands, etc. She might even know about all these phenomena fairly well, but she wouldn't know how they applied to particular films--so Didion even writes that she doesn't know 'why anybody would want to do it except for a little careerism' in 'The White Album', a most amusing thing to say... not that I don't think there aren't a few places where she made compromises herself. Didion, while accurate, is also being purposely unfair, because such a lack of knowledge would not thereby make other kinds of reviewing so innacurate, as reviews of the works of auteurs, and reviews are necessary for disseminating information even if they aren't perfect. The 'careerism' is funny, because that is the kind of thing, like finances, that is often not supposed to be mentioned, and cronyism, while everybody knows it, is the same. It's funny because so 'bottom line', we all know that people get jobs due to figuring out ways to get into them that are not always purely due to shining brilliance. I don't see why Kael, Kaufman, and Simon shouldn't be 'careerists', but the essay was good because it does give you an understanding of why movie reviewing cannot be nearly as accurate (usually) even when knowledgeable, as can reviewing of live performance, books, etc. You can't know exactly what was the director, and you especially can't know what writing was done, because that was often determined by the director, producer and often the stars. They are saying that the Deep Film Studies types refuse to see that moviemaking is essentially a business, and Dunne talks about this in his piece on their involvement with 'A Star is Born' and how they finally got out of it. This is still not quite fair--if it is only seen as a business, it won't get any audience buying the sense of fantasy that sells the business. I think they were talking about movie critics needing to be something more 'lofty' than they actually can be--or refusing to allow them the loftiness they claimed to achieve. John Simon seemed to like to think of himself as something of an artist, but I think the Dunnes are right: Movie critics are not artists. However, the New York Review of Books is itself hardly free of clubbishness. Did she really say 'whorey'? Most of the time it's 'whorish'. Oh well, that's a general sort of thing. Princess Michael of Kent, when doing her art history lectures on old royalty, always loves to talk about 'whoe-azz' endlessly, it's somewhat amusing.

Yes, that's right, it was the only show he did without Adele. I just noticed that 'The Continental' was the first Best Song... the movie with Garland singing 'Singin' in the Rain' is 'Little Nelly Kelly', which I don't think I've seen.

She is herself a guilty pleasure, because when I look back at what I used to venerate in her, it's mostly about her vulgar and pushy writing style, not what her insights were on most films. She said totally over-the-top things--I think 'Intolerance' is one of the greatest films ever made too, but I don't think I'd pick out one, as Ms. Kael did this one, as 'THE greatest.' The thing I most enjoyed that I ever read of hers was after I had the (mis)fortune to attend a press showing of 'Song of Norway', and the following week in the New Yorker, she was so beyond normal words, she simply wrote 'the movie is of an unbelievable badness.' I totally agree, and think only 'Carrie' and 'Eyes of Laura Mars' and one other one I can't remember right now are that bad. Enjoyably bad, I think she meant, and did write, referred to things like 'Rebel without a Cause' and 'Casablanca', although I don't think the latter is bad in any important sense. When they're deeply horrible, we actually detest them, as both she and I did 'Song of Norway.'

[there's something wrong with this thread, it keeps popping up to the top as 'last posted remark' with Paul's post from yesterday. I keep thinking it is another one, but I've never seen a post/thread do this here.]

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...hl=fred+astaire Here's the one I remember, from the Everything Else Forum, but first I looked on the Other Arts Forum, and there are several there. Interested parties should look through these, despite the fact that it begins with this very thread: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...%2Bfred+astaire

I don't know, I finally really thought she was impressive in 'Erin Brockovich', and the movie deserves credit even if it does nothing more than tell an important story well. That's the only one, though, and I was very surprised (only saw it recently.) I especially loathe things like 'My Best Friend's Wedding' and she also hasn't much of an ear--which her failed Irish accent in 'Michael Collins' proved.' Found this old thread on 'the Best of Everything' while looking for that Astaire thread, which I'll find and link to in a minute. I thought Suzy Parker okay and when she falls out the fire escape it is truly a little mini-Psycho moment, if you saw it as a child as I did. Least interesting is Diane Baker, who never was, hard to understand how her weird small-town coldness ever got as many parts as it did. Joan Crawford hilarious in the part, when I used to do New York office-temp work, we used to call her type a 'personnel broad', the term having been first told to me by one who was herself one! according to her. Trash movie, I think better of this period kind of soaper were things with Kim Novak like 'Strangers When We Meet', with Kirk Douglas. I can never resist that dusky voice.

Possible, but probably not too likely, dirac or sidwich will know. It's also probable that some Astaire movies did have songs from an earlier day, that had not been written for the particular movie--but that nobody has fully refined Astaire's IMDb page yet. I had been thinking when I wrote the long post that this interests me, in particular, because I, like many, started with the book musicals of Rodgers & Hammerstein and Lerner & Lowe, where all the songs cannot be sung elsewhere and no songs from old shows are inserted; I then progressed to the older shows, most of which are a mishmash of songs, including songs from other shows by the same composer/lyricist ('Fascinatin' Rhythm' is included in the film version of 'Girl Crazy') and other songs by different composer/lyricists (as in 'The Gay Divorcee'). But when I first saw these shows, I always thought everything was written expressly for them, and that if they were Broadway adaptations, even if songs were cut, I thought the songs retained were always from the original show. Not so, as I've been seeing with these first few researches. These links show a famous example from MGM, although it may not be representative, since it is directly derived from the old movie musicals in part. Thanks for getting me to look up the wiki link of the 'Singin' in the Rain' movie, since I had no idea it would have the songs listed and when they first appeared on screen. There's no minimizing the importance of NACIO HERB BROWN! We love him, and I didn't know that 'Broadway Melody of 1929' and 'Hollywood Revue of 1929' were definitely the first screen appearances of these songs--or rather, they'd have to be since there had only recently come sound, but I think some may have been introduced publicly prior to these movies (1927 for one of them). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singin'_in_the_Rain_(song) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Were_Mean...%281929_song%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singin'_in_the_Rain_(film) This is probably sometimes true too, so he introduced 'Night and Day' in 'The Gay Divorcee', although none of the other songs were kept. Did the composers have that much say about what went into the film versions as had gone into the stage versions? I doubt it, but don't know. Someone will. Here's an example of the kind of show that would obviously have needed songs before it's time, unless a vast new book musical was going to be undertaken for the screen, and that never happened, certainly not then. Although it looks as though some were definitely written for this film: Ziegfeld Girl (1941) ("You Never Looked So Beautiful" (1936) (uncredited), "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" (1918), "Laugh? I Thought I'd Split My Sides" (1941) (uncredited), "Ziegfeld Girls" (1941) (uncredited), "You Gotta Pull Strings" (1936) (uncredited)) ("Minnie from Trinidad" (1941), "We Must Have Music" (1941) (uncredited)) 'I'm Always Chasing Rainbows' is also in 'The Dolly Sisters', but I have no idea if the character Harry, Jenny's beau, is supposed to have been based on the originator of the song (not Chopin). Edited to add: Just looked him up--yes, it was a Harry Carroll who first put this bit of schmaltz together, but wiki only mentions marriage to a Rockette and 2 children.

Thanks, dirac, I also looked at Fred Astaire's, and some of his old movies have the songs listed, but i years are given, they are all in the same year. What is interesting about the Garland page is seeing that songs were used 20 or 40 years after they were first introduced, and we always know that they were used in many other ways in the intervening years if they are standards. Here are some new listens and views of some older shows: 1) Girl Crazy update. Sidwich mentioned that there may be nobody still alive who knows exactly how the original B’way show’s tunes existed, were placed. But here is what the IBDb shows, and I had not till now discovered that they have a link for all musicals to ‘Songs for this Production’ and that they—marvelously, at least in this case—have the names of the characters who sang them. The “Goldfarb” song may be the only one that is not familiar in either movie or studio recording. You can see the cast here for characters below: http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=11231 Act 1 Bidin' My Time ....................................... The Foursome The Lonesome Cowboy ....................................... Cow Punchers Could You Use Me ....................................... Molly Gray and Danny Churchill Bronco Busters ....................................... Dundeens and Cowboys Barbary Coast ....................................... Molly Gray, Tess Parker, Flora James and Chorus Embraceable You ....................................... Molly Gray and Danny Churchill Goldfarb, That's I'm! ....................................... Gieber Goldfarb, Slick Fothergill and Ensemble Embraceable You (Reprise) ....................................... Kate Fothergill and Danny Churchill Sam and Delilah ....................................... Kate Fothergill I Got Rhythm ....................................... Kate Fothergill and Chorus Act 2 Land of the Gay Caballero ....................................... Ensemble But Not for Me ....................................... Molly Gray and Gieber Goldfarb Treat Me Rough ....................................... Slick Fothergill and Chorus Boy! What Love Has Done to Me ....................................... Kate Fothergill (When It's) Cactus Time in Arizona ....................................... Molly Gray and Chorus --which studio recording with Mary Martin , Eddie Chappell, and Louise Carlyle I listened to this morning. I see little to recommend here, especially after seeing the film again. There’s not one song that doesn’t sound better with Garland’s voice, although Martin sounds good sometimes in ‘But Not For Me’, and there is a reprise of this. The CD has listed Ted Royal as doing the ‘Orchestrations for Miss Martin’, ‘Orchestra and chorus conducted by Lehman Engel, 'vocal arrangements by Johnny Lesko', and ‘Other orchestrations by Carol Huxley’. The worst is perhaps this slurry lounge-like version of ‘Bidin’ My Time’, but ‘I Got Rhythm’ sounds dreadful too, and has a cheap-sounding arrangement. I can see that my appreciation for Mary Martin’s vocal style is extremely limited, and that I really only appreciate her in the single thing I also saw her in—‘Peter Pan’, where I thoroughly adored her and it. Elsewhere, I do not find her voice beautiful enough to stand alone on recordings; the rest of her charming personality is needed for it to work for me. This is from 1952. I haven't made much of a survey of studio recordings by people who weren't in the actual shows, although I do know the Kiri TeKanawa/Jose Carreras 'South Pacific', and I somehow intuited that she would get 'A Cockeyed Optimist' exactly right, and she did--but not a single other song comes across as distinguished at all. I want to get to the 'West Side Story', although friends don't like it. 2) Re-watched the old glory ‘The Gay Divorcee’ last night, with its two magnificent Astaire/Rogers pieces, ‘Night and Day’ and ‘The Continental’. ‘Night and Day’ was the only song kept from the Broadway ‘Gay Divorce’, which was Astaire’s last Broadway show with his sister Adele(1932). Otherwise, Mack Gordon and Harry Revel contributed two songs ‘Don’t Let It Bother You’ and ‘Let’s Knock Knees’, and Con Conrad and Herb Magidson are the writers of ‘A Needle in a Haystack’ and ‘The Continental’. Here’s the IBDb of the Cole Porter songs from the 1932 show; I don’t think I know a one of them other than Night and Day. Act 1 After You, Who? ....................................... Guy Why Marry Them? ....................................... Barbara and Girls Salt Air ....................................... Teddy, Barbara and Girls I Still Love the Red, White and Blue ....................................... Hortense After You, Who? (Reprise) ....................................... Guy Night and Day ....................................... Guy and Mimi How's Your Romance? ....................................... Tonetti and Girls Act 2 What Will Become of Our England? ....................................... Waiter and Girls I've Got You on My Mind ....................................... Guy and Mimi Mr. and Mrs. Fitch ....................................... Hortense You're in Love ....................................... Guy, Mimi and Tonetti 3)The Dolly Sisters—movie. This is entertaining, colorful, glossy and has little to do with these quite tragic vaudeville sisters from Budapest. They are listed as performing in the 1911 and 1912 Ziegfeld Follies in IBDb. Jenny committed suicide and Rosie, while pluckier in many ways, also made one suicide attempt. The movie was mainly of use to me to find out about this unusual and exotic couple of little vaudevillians and there mostly tragic lives. It’s a musical in a loose sense, and June Haver and Betty Grable are both very lovely, and do look like dolly-like sisters in the lead roles. Of course, it's in many ways a terrible movie, but at least it's there. 4)Up in Central Park/Arms and the Girl CD. Romberg/Fields score for the former is quite lovely, and I don’t remember the film having the song ‘I’d Like to Show You My Currier and Ives', although there is a Currier and Ives scene. Two original cast members—Wilbur Evans and Betty Bruce—are here, and the soprano songs done by Deanna Durbin in the film are here sung beautifully by Eileen Farrell. It is interesting that Romberg came much closer to American-style shows after his original successes doing songs to Schubert tunes, etc. I remember that Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Joy of Music’ has him making a difference between musical comedy and operetta that seemed convincing long ago, but now seems less so. He wanted to call some of the more exotic things 'operettas', even like ‘South Pacific’, and those that were ‘more realistic’ American things he considered to be the real ‘musical comedies’, although I believe he therefore thought of ‘Oklahoma!’ as a musical comedy as well. I don’t think we see it so much that way anymore, thinking ‘South Pacific’ is also a musical comedy, and things like ‘Rose Marie’ and ‘The Chocolate Soldier’ are more properly called operettas. But ‘Up in Central Park’ does seem to be more of a musical comedy by a composer mostly known for real operettas. I like the movie better than the New York Times critic of the day did. I’d never heard of ‘Arms and the Girl’ and didn’t even know it was anything other than more of ‘Central Park’ when all of a sudden there was this unmistakable voice coming through—Pearl Bailey in her second show after ‘St.Louis Woman’ (a wonderful score by Harold Arlen, which I have on 78’s bought in a stoop sale in 2003). Also good work on there by Nanette Fabray, one of my all-time favourite comedienne/showgirls. Georges Guetary is the male lead. This is by Morton Gould, who is rarely heard of any more, and I didn’t know he wrote any Broadway scores. Both shows have lyrics by Dorothy Fields, who I’ve always associated purely with Cy Coleman, especially for ‘Sweet Charity’, a terrific score. 5) Operettas are definitely Gilbert and Sullivan, although I’m not a big fan. I did check out The Pirates of Penzance from the 1980 Delacorte production and also the movie, which had all the same cast except Patricia Routledge was replaced by Angela Lansbury. I thought the singing by the principles—Kevin Kline, Linda Ronstadt, and Rex Smith—was adequate, but never really pretty. Good voices, but not ever sweet enough, maybe Smith's was the best.