Warner Bros, 1945
Starring Robert Alda, Joan Leslie, Alexis Smith, and Charles Coburn
Directed by Irving Rapper
Music by George Gerswin; Lyrics by Ira Gershwin and others
This week, we celebrate Warner Bros' hundredth anniversary with two of their biggest - in every sense of the word - musicals. Gershwin died in 1937, but his legacy burned brighter than ever, thanks to recordings, revivals of his most popular shows, and his film musicals. His story remained so popular and well-known that Warners made him the topic of their second big musical biopic after
Yankee Doodle Dandy. They recruited stage actor Alda to play Gershwin and got several big names, including Al Jolson and Gerswin's real-life friend Oscar Levant, to appear as themselves. How does this idealized version of Gershwin's life and career look nowadays? Let's begin on the streets of New York, as the young George Gershwin watches a piano being delivered to his family's tenement home...one that would change his life...and find out...
The Story: The piano was originally meant for George's older brother Ira (Herbert Rudley), but George takes to it like a duck takes to water. Music becomes George's (Alda) obsession and reason for living as he grows older. He tries playing the piano in vaudeville and for a song plugging business, but walks out both times. He meets sweet Julie Adams (Leslie) at the song plugging business, and is encouraged when she sings his song "Swanee." They manage to get his song to producer Max Drefus (Coburn), who finally publishes it.
Many more songs follow. George convinces Ira to add his witty lyrics in the early 20's. They first add songs to revues like The George White Scandals. George is excited to get his one-act opera featuring black characters, Blue Monday, in the Scandals, but the producers quickly drop it when it proves too dark for audiences. He has more luck getting his symphonic jazz piece "Rhapsody In Blue" played in concert with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra (themselves) and writing a concerto with cranky pianist Oscar Levant (himself).
On a trip to Paris, George meets attractive painter and socialite Christine Gilbert (Smith). They hit it off, and she encourages him to try painting. He loves her, but his first love will always be music. Christine returns to Paris when she realizes she can't compete with his work, and Julie turns him away. He finally throws himself into turning Blue Monday into the jazz opera Porgy and Bess. He's been having blinding headaches and smelling strange things for a long time, though, but he never dreams those terrible headaches might be fatal...
The Song and Dance: Alda's decent performance anchors this drama of a man who may dally with the ladies, but whose true love is music. Rosemary DeCamp and Morris Carnovsky also do well as his parents, her worried about her boys, him a dreamer who tinkers with gadgets he'll never patent. Levant has some funny moments as well, notably a line taken from real-life about George falling in love with himself. The cameos from Al Jolson, Whiteman, and Levant help give the film more of an anchor to a time and place than the decidedly modern costumes and sets do.
Favorite Number: Leslie (dubbed by Sally Sweetland) gets the first full number as she performs "Swanee" for George. Al Jolson gives it a much better hearing onstage in his own bombastic style. Leslie also joins in for a charming "S'Wonderful" with the chorus in lovely gowns and hats and parasols trimmed with sunflowers. Real-life vaudeville dancer Tom Patricola leads Leslie through "Somebody Loves Me" with the two of them dancing in bold stripes and short frilly skirts while in the middle of a giant Valentine heart. We get a montage of chorus numbers from the Scandals, including "Drifting Along with the Tide" and "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise," along with the title number from "Lady Be Good."
Blue Monday features dancers from the Ballet Russes performing two songs from the actual opera, "Has Anybody Here Seen Joe?" and "I'm Gonna See My Mother" in a crude if dramatic dance sequence. Gorgeous black singer and pianist Hazel Scott performs some of Gershwin's biggest hits in a Paris nightclub, including "I Got Rhythm," "Fascinating Rhythm," "Clap 'Yo Hands," and "The Yankee Doodle Blues." George (dubbed by Levant) plays "Bidin' My Time" on his return from Paris as his friends sing along. Alda and Levant have a hilarious duet to the domestic spoof "Mine" from the stage flop Let Them Eat Cake. Anne Brown, who originated the role of Bess in Porgy & Bess on Broadway, sings "Summertime" in the sequence representing that show. Leslie performs his early talkie hit "Delicious" at a nightclub later, when Gershwin seeks Julie out.
Three of George's biggest symphonic hits are played in their near-entirety. "Rhapsody In Blue" and "Cuban Overture" are just Gerswin playing with reactions from the audience and, in the case of "Cuban Overture," shots of the orchestra getting into the Latin rhythms. "An American In Paris" gives us a montage of daily life in Paris, from the Effel Tower to people enjoying lunch in sidewalk cafes. Levant, finally playing for himself, finishes things off with George's Piano Concerto In F before and after his death is announced.
Trivia: Yes, that was Levant dubbing Robert Alda's piano playing. It was stage actor Alda's film debut. Alda never really took to the movies and would return to the stage by 1949. In 1950, he originated the role of Sky Masterson in the first run of Guys & Dolls.
Rhapsody In Blue was actually filmed in 1943, but not released until 1945 so Warners could focus on putting out more patriotic musicals.
The paintings Christine admired were from Gershwin's actual collection of artwork, loaned to Warners by his family.
The Catfish Row set seen in the Porgy & Bess sequence is an exact duplicate of the one used in the original Broadway run of the show.
On one hand, the black makeup on the dancers in Blue Monday is disconcerting, to say the least, especially for audiences nowadays. On the other hand, this is historically accurate - the performers in the original opera apparently were in blackface makeup - and the makeup at least isn't as caricatured as black makeup on white performers usually is in older films. It's just body makeup, no white lips or gloves.
What I Don't Like: Considering George's eventful and colorful life, I really wish they had done a bit more original with it. While it was true that Gershwin never married, he certainly had many affairs and had no trouble with women. In fact, he was apparently a playboy and womanizer in real-life. Smith and Leslie play fictional love interests created for the film, and neither really have all that much to do. Smith is barely in the film. George's stern old music teacher who dies the night "Rhapsody In Blue" debuts was also fictional, though a composite of George's real teachers - and those real teachers actually encouraged him to write popular music first, then get into more elevated songs. "Swanee" originally debuted as a chorus number in another show before Jolson grabbed it and performed it in his own musical.
Unfortunately, like most of the musical biographies that came after it, you don't really get much of a sense of time passing. Once they get past the World War I era, it pretty much looks like 1943 for the entire film, without a drop of Roaring 20's or Depression-era flavor. You get far more history from the cameos than you do from the sets and costumes.
There's also this movie's length. It's over 2 1/2 hours, and it didn't need to be anywhere close to that. Some of the goofier musical numbers, especially early in the film, and more overt histrionics could have been trimmed with no one the wiser.
The Big Finale: Overlong, but there's enough great Gershwin music and decent performances to recommend this to fans of classic jazz, Gershwin, or the stately musical biopics of the 1940's and 50's.
Home Media: On streaming and DVD, the latter in a remastered edition from the Warner Archives.
