Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber (36 page)

Show Boat
, 1936 film. The marriage of Magnolia (Irene Dunne) and Ravenal (Allan Jones) (left) with Cap’n Andy (Charles Winninger) and Parthy (Helen Westley). For a stage photo of this scene see p. 25.

Even the canonic and complex opening scene, which introduced no less than five couples, was subjected to considerable pruning in the film. In the 1988 McGlinn recording, which includes both dialogue and music for the entire scene, it runs twenty-nine minutes; in the film, this scene runs a little over eighteen minutes. We will look at these eighteen minutes in greater detail, starting with the opening of “Cotton Blossom,” which offers new words to the verse, B section, and the inversion of “Ol’ Man River,” all appearing over the credits.
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While the film charmingly (and cinematically) shows the universal effect on humans and animals generated by the arrival of the show boat, it leaves out some of the meaningful underscoring that characterized the stage version. Also missing from the stage are the choruses of town beaux and belles
and their counterpoint with the black chorus. During the opening conversation between Magnolia and Ravenal, for example, stage audiences heard the orchestra interrupt with Parthy’s theme (which had already clearly been associated with Parthy, Cap’n Andy Hawk’s grumpy spouse). We can presume that Magnolia heard her mother’s theme calling—that is what prompts her to say she has to leave. The absence of Parthy’s theme in the film at this same point in the conversation makes Magnolia’s sudden desire to interrupt the conversation inexplicable.

An even more dramatically significant effect of an underscoring omission occurs during the short scene in which Pete confronts Queenie about where she got her brooch (which we soon learn was a gift from Julie who rejected Pete’s gift). The conversation appears in both the stage and film versions. In the stage version the underscoring of “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” connects this song with Queenie and sets up its use in the next scene, where we learn that Julie somehow picked up a song closely associated with black culture. In the film, Pete’s confrontation with Queenie is accompanied, not by “Can’t Help Lovin,’” but by Magnolia’s piano theme. This important theme will not be associated with Magnolia until Ravenal asks her if she is a player.
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Although the 1936
Show Boat
certainly exhibits expert plotting and dramatic consolidation, it discards some of the dramatic connections that the music of the 1927 stage original provided.

The opening number contains substantial cuts, and much of “Cap’n Andy’s Bally-hoo” is either deleted or spoken. The next two songs in the scene contain significant omissions as well. Among the most drastic and dramatically significant reductions are those in Ravenal’s entrance and first song, “Where’s the Mate for Me?” Those familiar with the stage version here (discussed in
chapter 2
) may recall that Ravenal sings a melody in AABA form in which the B section, “Magnolia’s Piano Theme,” forms the inspiration of Ravenal’s B section. Ravenal asks where his mate might be. He hears Magnolia, her theme enters his consciousness and his music, and when he repeats the question, Magnolia herself appears to answer the question before Ravenal is able to finish it in song. After Ravenal almost finishes the second of the first two A sections in the film version he is interrupted as well, but not by Magnolia’s piano theme. The interruption is in the form of a short film cutting to a conversation in which Frank contradicts Ellie’s assumption that Ravenal must be an aristocrat by pointing out the cracks in his shoes (after which Ravenal, now discredited, proceeds to complete the song with the final phrase). Together, the song and the dialogue interjection occupy a not-so-grand total of thirty seconds.

Although it no longer begins as the interruption of a song, the ensuing dialogue between Magnolia and Ravenal follows the stage version closely (with
Parthy’s interrupting theme now absent). In the 1936 film, “Make Believe” is also deprived of its second section.
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With the time saved by the reductions of “Cotton Blossom,” “Where’s the Mate?,” and “Make Believe,” “Ol’ Man River,” sung by Paul Robeson accompanied by an inventive filmic montage of stevedores toting barges, lifting bales, Joe getting drunk and landing in jail, rolls along uninterrupted for more than four minutes to create a powerful conclusion to a magnificent if somewhat shorter scene. This change in emphasis surely reflects both Robeson’s star quality and the fact that since 1927, “Ol’ Man River” had become the signature song of the show and a deeply resonant reflection on American history. Indeed, in the MTV era, this filmic version of an iconic song can come across like a marvelous music video.

The 1936 film introduces to us a practice that becomes extremely common if not ubiquitous in films that discard significant amounts of musical material from the stage version. This is the practice of using fragments of abandoned songs as underscoring. Some examples include the appearance of the second section of “Make Believe” to underscore Julie’s departure, the use of “Till Good Luck Comes My Way” when Ravenal is seen gambling, and “Life on the Wicked Stage” when Frank and Ellie are seen together. “Why Do I Love You?” is also reduced to an orchestral fragment. Only if one knew the song would someone realize the significance of the words “Because I love you,” a lyric from this song and a line that appears in Ravenal’s farewell letter which Ellie reads out loud (or that the musical line that accompanies this lyric and the line in the letter are synchronized).

Since nearly every
Show Boat
ends differently, it should come as no surprise that major changes have transpired between the 1927 stage and 1936 screen versions. Due largely to the show’s excessive length, the role of Magnolia’s daughter Kim, a successful young singing and dancing star on the stage in the tradition of her mother, was removed during the tryouts along with her song, “It’s Getting Hotter in the North,” in which Magnolia’s piano theme is transformed into a jazzy ’20s tune in the general style of Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue
. Although the growing length of the film forced a curtailment of Kim’s transformation of her mother’s “Gallivantin’ Aroun’” (sung earlier in the film in blackface), film viewers see a lot of Kim in 1936 from birth to young adulthood. Audiences witness her birth in a scene taken from the novel, we meet Kim again when Ravenal sings “Make Believe” to her at her convent school before his disappearance, and the adult Kim appears in several later scenes, including the happy reunion of her parents after twenty years who conclude the film with a reprise of their duet, “You Are Love.” The film also fleshed out the role of Joe, not only by giving him the rare full version of a song, “Ol’ Man River” and a new song later in film, but in some new dialogue with Queenie. Audiences also gain a richer sense of
Joe’s character, when, in a demonstration of courage and resolve that belies Queenie’s accusations of laziness, Joe takes it upon himself to find a doctor in a hazardous storm so that Magnolia will give birth to Kim safely.

Even if one does not find the 1936 filmed
Show Boat
a dramatic improvement on the 1927 stage original (or other versions), the opportunity to see so many actors associated with this musical in one film will help give a new generation of film viewers a renewed appreciation of this show. The characters understand and believe in their material. Charles Winninger’s enactment of
The Parson’s Bride
, assuming all the roles when his cast was scared off the stage by a backwoodsman who thought the villain was real, may be reason enough to seek out this film, one of the great film adaptations of a stage classic.

Those who come to expect earlier musical film adaptations to abandon the original stage book and most of the songs will only be half mistaken when it comes to the first movie version of the 1930s hit show
Anything Goes
. For starters, viewers of the 1936 Paramount film will only hear about twenty seconds of the title song at the film’s beginning, albeit sung by Merman, followed by instrumental fragments of “All through the Night” and “Blow, Gabriel, Blow.” After that tantalizing morsel, the only Porter tunes from
Anything Goes
, or from any other Porter show for that matter in the film will be “I Get a Kick Out of You” sung by Merman, “There’ll Always Be a Lady Fair” sung by the Avalon Boys quartet, and “You’re the Top,” a duet for Merman and rising film star Bing Crosby. Due to the controversial nature of some of Porter’s lyrics, “sniffing cocaine” was not an option as a “kick” in “I Get a Kick Out of You,” replaced by “that perfume from Spain.” The new lyrics for “You’re the Top” were assigned to Ted Fetter. Joseph Breen, the new enforcer of the Hollywood Production Code, objected to suggestive lyrics such as “you and your love give me ecstasy,” which resulted in the total removal of the show’s central love ballad, “All through the Night.” The rousing “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” which might be interpreted as a slur on religion (and knowing Porter, perhaps also intended as a sexual double entendre), also bit the dust. If it was once shocking to catch a glimpse of a stocking (as the verse of “Anything Goes” went), when adapting a 1934 stage hit into a Hays Code–era Hollywood film in 1936, the phrase “anything goes” did not necessarily apply.

Anything Goes
, 1936 film. Billy Crocker (Bing Crosby, left), Reno Sweeney (Ethel Merman, upside down center), and Rev. Dr. Moon (Charles Ruggles, right).

The Paramount film does offer a lot to be thankful for. Although she’s confined in a slow-moving swing in a nightclub, it’s a treat to see and hear a young Merman convey the words and the rhythms of “I Get a Kick Out of You,” including the tricky half-note triplets that pervade the opening of each A section over a rumba beat.
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Even with the altered lyrics it’s also a delight to see and hear Merman and Crosby share “You’re the Top.” Crosby—replacing the original Billy Crocker, William Gaxton, who never enjoyed much of either a recording or film career, and displacing Merman as the star of the show—was a marvelous singer, a natural actor, and well suited for the part. The comic role of Public Enemy No. 13, originated onstage by the bumbling Victor Moore, was played in the film by comedian Charles Ruggles in the non-singing role of Reverend Dr. Moon (Moore got to “Sing like the Bluebird”).
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The Avalon Boys’ rendition of “There’ll Always Be a Lady Fair,” joined by Crosby in a reprise, is another highlight; performed at about half the speed of the John McGlinn reconstructed recording, the film rendition of this song belies the myth that 1930s tempos are always faster than modern ones, a valuable lesson in historical performance practice.

Since Crosby, not Merman, was the big screen star, he needed more material—new songs. Merman’s songs, “Anything Goes” and “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” were textually out of bounds as was Billy’s “All through the Night,”
while “Gypsy in Me,” sung in the Broadway show by his inamorata Hope Harcourt, was not the right song for Crosby. Lewis Milestone, who had previously directed the Academy Award–winning
All Quiet on the Western Front
(1930) but no musicals, brought in three interpolated songs expressly written for Crosby to sing in the film: “Sailor Beware” (Richard Whiting and Leo Robin), “My Heart and I” (Frederick Hollander and Robin), and “Moonburn” (Edward Heyman and Hoagy Carmichael). They may not have possessed the lyrical wit of “You’re the Top”—neither did the new and rewritten lyrics of this song in the film—but all three are top-tier songs, engagingly crooned by Crosby.

The 1936 Paramount
Anything Goes
may have less of Merman and significantly less of Porter than the stage original, but it does offer a book that, aside from a few twists here and there, is remarkably similar to the stage plot from two years earlier. Even more remarkably, despite a number of plot deviations that will go unmentioned here, the film retains a considerable portion of the original dialogue, including many of the corny jokes. That they go over as well as they do—even the silly misunderstanding of “in door” China for Indo-China—is due to Ruggles’s impeccable delivery. The “putting on the dog” joke is retained in the film script. So is the scene that leads to “calling all pants” that director Jerry Zaks found incomprehensible but kept in the 1987 Vivian Beaumont version because people still laughed. The 1936 film clears this matter up once and for all. During the strip poker game with the surprisingly adept Chinese missionaries, Billy bets his coat and Wang bets his pants. When Moon asks Billy if he calls pants, Billy calls pants, the missionaries call pants, and Moon calls pants. This exchange fully explains why Moon concludes the scene by shouting, “CALLING ALL PANTS.” Even though only the relatively ancient viewers of the film (or trivia buffs) would make the connection between calling all pants and
Calling All Cars
, a popular crime and police radio drama that ran from 1933 to 1939, it’s still a funny scene. Another surprise. The exchange between Moon and Mrs. Wentworth, the kind of stream-of-consciousness banter that Groucho and “straight man” Margaret Dumont excelled in (excerpted in
chapter 3
), can be found in the film between Ruggles as Groucho and the redoubtable Margaret Dumont as herself. By the way, Billy really does put on the dog, Mrs. Wentworth’s newly shaved Pomeranian. PETA watchdogs should take note.