Happy St. Patrick's Day! - Finian's Rainbow

Warner Bros, 1968
Starring Fred Astaire, Petula Clark, Tommy Steele, and Keenan Wynn
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Music by Burton Lane; Lyrics by E.Y Harburg

Top o' the evenin' to ye! We celebrate the most Irish of holidays tomorrow with a wee bit of blarney from the late 60's. This strange tale of leprechauns and magic originally debuted on Broadway in 1947, but was too odd and old-fashioned to make a dent in a changing Hollywood when it hit the big screen twenty years later. How does it hold up now? Let's head over that hill and stream to Rainbow Valley, near Fort Knox, and find out...

The Story: Finian (Astaire) and Sharon McLonergan (Clark) are Irish immigrants who just arrived in Rainbow Valley, a commune in the Deep South. The head of the commune is Woody (Don Francks), a happy-go-lucky fellow who does everything he can to try to get out of real work, including selling the mentholated tobacco his chemist friend Howard (Al Freeman Jr.) is working on. Finian has his own way to easy riches. He buries a pot of gold near Fort Knox, in the hope that it'll grow the way America's gold supply seems to have. Trouble is, the gold actually belongs to Og (Steele), a leprechaun who is rapidly becoming human - and horny - without it.

Og explains (with much wailing) that the gold grants three wishes to whomever stands near it. Sharon accidentally gets the first one when she wishes that bigoted Senator Rawlings (Wynn) would turn into a black man...and he unfortunately does and, ashamed, runs off. Now half the county thinks Sharon's a witch, and unless Og and Finian can find that pot of gold and wish everything back to normal, they're going to burn her at the stake!

The Song and Dance: Fred Astaire may have been at odds with Coppola's more modern directorial style, but they brought in some great results. Even the scenes that were obviously shot on a soundstage look terrific in the widescreen cinematography and glow with an incandescence that would make that rainbow in the song look pale. Astaire is a hoot as the grizzled Irishman who always thinks the next pot of gold is somewhere over the rainbow; Clark is even better as his exasperated but loving daughter.

Maybe it's a good thing they did wait twenty years to make this into a movie. Finian's Rainbow came out during the height of the Civil Rights Era in the US, and it openly discusses prejudice, bigotry, and stereotypes in a way they probably wouldn't have gotten away with even a decade before. There's also how Sharon and Woody's relationship is handled. "Old Devil Moon" is far hotter and more overtly sexual than most love scenes in musicals, and they're actually seen sleeping together in the finale, even before they technically get married.

Favorite Number: Astaire gets his last great solo in "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich"; he's as nimble as ever, making the whole sequence a real highlight. Steele and Clark have a grand time doing laundry outside with my favorite song from this score, "Something Sort of Grandish." There's also some nice chorus numbers, including "This Time of the Year" and "That Great Come and Get It Day." Clark has a lovely "Look to the Rainbow" over the credits; her "How are Things In Glocca Morra" is nicely-done as well.

Trivia: The original Broadway show did debut in 1947, but its themes of racial and economic equality scared quite a few people off, as did the fantasy aspects and lyricist E.Y Harburg's strong leftist politics. MGM wanted to do it in 1948, but Harburg wanted too much money. An animated version in the mid-50's and a live-action musical with Debbie Reynolds in the early 60's were eventually scrapped.

The stage version had occasional revivals in the 60's, but it was rarely seen after that until it turned up in a successful off-Broadway revival by the Irish Repertory Theater in 2004 (and would be done again by the company in 2016). A revival on Broadway in 2009 didn't do nearly as well, only running three months.

The song "Necessity" was cut from the film after the movie ran long in previews. No word on if the footage still exists, but the song is on the soundtrack LP and CD.

What I Don't Like: Rawlings comes off like every southern bigot stereotype that ever appeared in any epic about the South, and while Wynn's not bad, the character gets grating after a while. The blackface makeup he wears after his skin color changes is not only unconvincing, but will likely offend many folks today.

In fact, while the movie can be commended for dealing with the subject of bigotry at all, it makes for an awkward mix with the fantasy elements. It doesn't help that Steele's performance is too over-the-top, even for a mythical character, and wears one down after two hours. Coppola wanted everything to be real, but Astaire (and Warners) wanted old-fashioned fun...and trying to mix the two just makes a mess. The fact that a big portion of the plot hinges on tobacco and making it smoke doesn't look great nowadays, either. And yes, like most film musicals of its era, it's way too long at two hours. Several minutes, particularly towards the end, could have been trimmed.

The Big Finale: A real mixed bag, to say the least. Astaire, Clark, and some great music do help to offset the strange fantasy and occasionally iffy and dated plot. If you're a fan of either of them or want to check out a really unique fantasy tale, this is worth a look.

Home Media: I have the original DVD release from 2006, but it and the Blu-Ray are currently available via the Warner Archives. It's on a couple of streaming platforms as well.

DVD
Blu-Ray
Google Play