Hermes Pan Movies

The man who assembled the remarkable documentary George Stevens: A Filmaker's Journey had the benefit of knowing the subject intimately: the film was written, produced and directed by George Stevens Jr. Utilizing pristine-quality filmclips and interviews, Stevens Jr. details Stevens Sr.'s rise from silent-film cameraman to one of the top producer/directors in Hollywood. We are treated to snippets of Stevens' camerawork on the Laurel and Hardy films at Hal Roach Studios, then we are transported to his salad days as a feature director at RKO. Among the films highlighted from this first chapter of Stevens' directorial life are Alice Adams (1935), Swing Time (1936) and Gunga Din (1939) (one would like to have heard a bit more background info concerning Stevens' Wheeler and Woolsey comedies). Next we find Stevens as an autonomous entity at Columbia Pictures, producing and directing such classics as The More the Merrier (1943). The war years are thoroughly covered via Stevens' vivid color footage of the invasion of Europe. The last stages of Stevens' Hollywood career is traced through generous portions of A Place in the Sun (1951), Shane (1953), Giant (1956) and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). The many interviewees include Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Warren Beatty. As an added filip, A Filmmaker's Journey includes rare home-movie sequences showing George Stevens at home and at work--all filmed with as much care and professionalism as Stevens' "mainstream" pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

James Hilton's beloved fantasy novel about the land of Shangri-La was given an awkward musical treatment in this extravagantly produced flop. Larry Kramer's screenplay stays close to the 1937 Frank Capra original, as a plane fleeing China crashes in the Himalayas and a mixed group of survivors discovers the magical, peaceful land of Shangri-La. Here the film becomes a full-fledged musical, with songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David illustrating the distant realm's nature and the conflict that happiness causes amongst the survivors. Curiosity-seekers may be intrigued by the film's reputation as a notorious dud, but fans of the story would be better served by the classic original, despite a cast of well-respected names, including Peter Finch (in the Ronald Colman role), John Gielgud, Liv Ullmann, and Charles Boyer. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Nearly 20 years after it opened on Broadway, the E.Y. Harburg/Fred Saidy musical Finian's Rainbow was committed to film. Set in the mythical southern state of Missitucky, the story involves the whimsical Irishman Finian (Fred Astaire) and his daughter Sharon (Petula Clark) arriving in the community carrying a crock of gold, which they've stolen in the Auld Sod from Ogg the Leprechaun (Tommy Steele). Finian believes that if he buries the crock on American soil, it will grow into an even larger treasure--just as Fort Knox did (or so he thinks). Sharon falls in love with sharecropper Woody Mahoney (Don Francks), who like everyone else in the community is being threatened by the perfidy of Senator Rawkins (Keenan Wynn). While Finian haggles over three wishes with the tricky Ogg, Sharon runs afoul of the racially bigoted Rawkins. She wishes that Rawkins would turn black so that he could walk in someone else's shoes for a change--and this, thanks to Ogg, is exactly what happens. To rescue Sharon and Woody from being burned as witches, Ogg grants a last wish, which turns him into a human being; this is not an altogether bad thing, for Ogg has fallen in love with mysterious mountain gal Susan the Silent (Barbara Hancock). The racial tolerance subtext of Finian's Rainbow, considered radical in 1948, seemed rather antiquated in 1969, though it did allow for a hilarious scene in which a white associate of Judge Rawkins attempts to instruct young black botanist Al Freeman Jr. on the proper way to "act Negro". As Finian, Fred Astaire requested that the role be expanded to allow him to dance a little (as written, the character barely even sings). Most of the original score remains intact, including the hit song "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" Francis Ford Coppola seemed a curious choice to direct a musical, and indeed the production was a troubled one due to Coppola's inexperience in the genre. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

At one time the longest-running Broadway musical, My Fair Lady was adapted by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe from the George Bernard Shaw comedy Pygmalion. Outside Covent Garden on a rainy evening in 1912, dishevelled cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) meets linguistic expert Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison). After delivering a musical tirade against "verbal class distinction," Higgins tells his companion Colonel Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White) that, within six months, he could transform Eliza into a proper lady, simply by teaching her proper English. The next morning, face and hands freshly scrubbed, Eliza presents herself on Higgins' doorstep, offering to pay him to teach her to be a lady. "It's almost irresistable," clucks Higgins. "She's so deliciously low. So horribly dirty." He turns his mission into a sporting proposition, making a bet with Pickering that he can accomplish his six-month miracle to turn Eliza into a lady. This is one of the all-time great movie musicals, featuring classic songs and the legendary performances of Harrison, repeating his stage role after Cary Grant wisely turned down the movie job, and Stanley Holloway as Eliza's dustman father. Julie Andrews originated the role of Eliza on Broadway but producer Jack Warner felt that Andrews, at the time unknown beyond Broadway, wasn't bankable; Hepburn's singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who also dubbed Natalie Wood in West Side Story (1961). Andrews instead made Mary Poppins, for which she was given the Best Actress Oscar, beating out Hepburn. The movie, however, won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Harrison, and five other Oscars, and it remains one of the all-time best movie musicals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In 1963, this colossal and opulent $60 million spectacular was epic in every sense of the word -- an epic investment, an epic in the annals of Hollywood gossip, and, ultimately, an epic flop that nearly dragged 20th Century Fox down the Nile along with Cleopatra's barge. Handsomely mounted by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who replaced Rouben Mamoulian as director after six days of shooting), the drama follows the eighteen tumultuous years that led to the founding of the Roman Empire. Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor) meets up with Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison) and plans to lure Caesar to her boudoir in order to forge an alliance with Rome so that she may hold on to her Egyptian empire. When Caesar is stabbed to death in the Roman Senate, Cleopatra is left without an ally, and Egypt is up for grabs. When Roman general Mark Antony (Richard Burton) comes along, she seduces him in order to make him over into her new protector. But, under the charms of Cleopatra, Mark Antony is reduced from a an awesome and dominating general to a sniveling, drunken wimp. At the Battle of Actium, Mark Antony is defeated and Cleopatra withdraws her troops, dooming Mark Antony and his army. With Egypt in peril, Antony and Cleopatra, the doomed lovers, meet each other for the last time, as the enemy forces close in. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Based on a play by Samuel Taylor and Cornelia Otis Skinner, The Pleasure of His Company is an old-fashioned romantic comedy. Fred Astaire plays Biddeford "Pogo" Poole, the long-absent prodigal father of Jessica Poole (Debbie Reynolds), who is just about to be married. Much to the dismay of his ex-wife, Katharine (Lilli Palmer), and her new husband, James Dougherty (Gary Merrill), Pogo shows up at the wedding. To get back into the family circle, he puts on the old charm, but before film's end realizes that charm alone is no substitute for parental responsibility. Charlie Ruggles makes a wry turn as Pogo's former father-in-law. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

May Britt attempts to follow in the footsteps of Marlene Dietrich in this glossy Hollywood remake of the German classic. Professor Immanuel Rath (Curt Jurgens) is shocked to discover a number of his students have been frequenting a nightspot called the Blue Angel, where a scandalous entertainer named Lola (May Britt) performs. Rath attends the show one night in order to catch some of his boys in this den of wickedness, but he is soon drawn into Lola's sensual spell, and in time becomes involved in an obsessive romance with her that costs him his job, his savings and his dignity. Josef von Sternberg's original version of The Blue Angel was actually a good bit franker and more sensual than this version, which adds a happier ending, along with color and CinemaScope. A year after this film's release, star May Britt made headlines when she married entertainer Sammy Davis Jr.. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A stellar line-up of African-American actors and musical stars helped to bring DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin's classic operetta to this screen in this lavishly-produced adaptation. Porgy (Sidney Poitier) is a crippled man living in the shantytown of Catfish Row who has fallen in love with Bess (Dorothy Dandridge), a beautiful but troubled woman addicted to drugs. Bess is already being courted by several men, including Crown (Brock Peters), a muscular laborer, and Sportin' Life (Sammy Davis, Jr.), a sharp-suited hipster who deals narcotics. Crown gets in a fist fight with Robbins (Joel Fluellen) and ends up killing him; Crown goes on the lam, and Bess, needing companionship, takes up with Porgy. However, Crown soon returns, and Porgy kills him in a subsequent altercation, forcing him to hide from the police. Meanwhile, the fickle Bess follows Sportin' Life in search of the bright lights of New York City. Pearl Bailey, Diahann Carroll, Ivan Dixon, and Clarence Muse also highlight the cast; Robert McFerrin provided the singing voice of Porgy, and Adele Addison dubbed in Bess' musical numbers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Silk Stockings, a musical version of the 1939 Greta Garbo film Ninotchka, was adapted for the stage by George S. Kaufman, Leueen McGrath (the then-Mrs. Kaufman) and Abe Burrows, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The Broadway production, starring Hildegarde Neff and Don Ameche, ran 478 performances. The 1957 film version cast Fred Astaire as a movie producer and Cyd Charisse as dedicated communist functionary Ninotchka. In the original 1939 film, Ninotchka was sent from Mother Russia to Paris to check up on three commissars, who in turn had been ordered to retrieve a fortune in Czarist jewels. This time the commissar trio, played by Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin and Joseph Buloff, have been dispatched to Paris to reclaim defecting Soviet composer Wim Sonneveld. Since Astaire wants the composer to write the songs for his newest musical, he plies the commissars with wine, women and song, dissuading them from their mission. When Ninotchka shows up to retrieve the errant Russians, Astaire turns on the old charm with her as well. She gradually succumbs to the combined lures of romance and capitalism, but returns to Russia when she believes that Astaire has thrown her over for film-star Janis Paige (delivering a hilarious take-off of swimming star Esther Williams). But Astaire convinces her that he truly loves her, and all is well. Most of the Cold-War comedy in the Broadway production of Silk Stockings remains intact in the movie version (Soviet official George Tobias, seeking information on his predecessor, looks up the man's record in "Who's Still Who"). Also surviving virtually untouched is the Cole Porter score, including "All Of You," "A Chemical Reaction," "Without Love," "Satin and Silk," "The Red Blues," "Stereophonic Sound," and the rollicking "Siberia" (which offers the spectacle of a singing, dancing Peter Lorre!) Watch for Fred Astaire's future TV-special partner Barrie Chase as one of the dancers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Esther Williams' long association with MGM came to an abrupt end with Jupiter's Darling, which even she will admit was her silliest film. Based on Robert Sherwood's satirical play The Road to Rome, the film cast as Williams as Amytis, fiancee of vacillating Roman statesman Fabius Maximus (George Sanders). When it appears as though the forces of Hannibal (Howard Keel) will conquer Rome, Amytis takes it upon herself to halt the invasion. In the process, she and Hannibal embark upon a tempestuous romance, much to the consternation of the barbarian general's aide-de-camp Mago (William Demarest) and the bemusement of Hannibal's official chronicler Horatio (Richard Haydn). A subplot concerns the romance between Varius (Gower Champion), who tends Hannibal's fabled elephants, and spunky slave girl Meta (Marge Champion). Somewhere along the line Williams performs a water ballet with "living statues", and Varius and Meta come up with a herd of pink elephants. The Burton Lane-Harold Adamson songs are as forgettable as the film itself. Curiously, Jupiter's Darling opened to good reviews, but the film was killed by word of mouth. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Edmund Purdom plays Prince Karl, but Mario Lanza sings the bold tunes coming out of Purdom's mouth, in this MGM remake of the 1927 Ernst Lubitsch silent picture based on the renowned 1924 operetta by Sigmund Romberg and Dorothy Donnelly, which itself was based on the novel and play by Wilhelm Meyer-Foerster. Lanza was signed to play the German Prince of Heidelberg, but weight and temperament problems caused the director Richard Thorpe to use Purdom instead. Lanza's pre-recorded tenor tones come out of Purdom's lip-synching mouth in the many lusty tunes such as "Drink, Drink, Drink" and "Golden Days." Prince Karl's grandfather, the king (Louis Calhern), wants his sheltered grandson to see the world and sow a few wild oats before he returns to the marriage that has been pre-arranged with Princess Johanna (Betta St. John). The prince ends up in a tavern in Heidelberg and meets and falls in love with Kathie (Ann Blyth), the niece of the local innkeeper. But the King gets sick and dies, and Prince Karl must return to assume the throne. He can't have a peasant girl as his queen, so he must part with his secret lover. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate is a musical within a musical -- altogether appropriate, since its source material, Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, was a play within a play. Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson star as famous Broadway singing team who haven't worked together since their acrimonious divorce. Keel, collaborating with Cole Porter (played by Ron Randell), plans to star in a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew titled "Kiss Me Kate." Both he and Porter agree that only one actress should play the tempestuous Katherine, and that's Grayson. But she isn't buying, especially after discovering that Keel's latest paramour, Ann Miller, is going to be playing Bianca. Besides, Grayson is about to retire from showbiz to marry the "Ralph Bellamy character," played not by Bellamy, but by Willard Parker. A couple of gangsters (James Whitmore and Keenan Wynn) arrive on the scene, convinced Keel is heavily in debt to their boss; actually, a young hoofer in the chorus (Tommy Rall) owes the money, but signed Keel's name to an IOU. But since Grayson is having second thoughts about going on-stage, Keel plays along with the hoods, who force Grayson at gunpoint to co-star with her ex-husband so that they'll get paid off. Later the roles are reversed, and the gangsters are themselves finagled into appearing on-stage, Elizabethan costumes and all, though that scene is less of a comic success. This aside, Kiss Me Kate is a well-appointed (if bowdlerized) film adaptation of the Porter musical. Virtually all of the play's songs are retained for the screen version, notably "So in Love," "Wunderbar," "Faithful in My Fashion," "Too Darn Hot," "Why Can't You Behave?," "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" (a delightful duet delivered delightfully by Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore), and the title song. Additionally, Porter lifted a song from another play, Out of This World, and incorporated it in the movie version of Kiss Me Kate; as a result, "From This Moment On" has been included in all subsequent stagings of Kate. This MGM musical has the distinction of being filmed in 3-D, which is why Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson throw so many chairs, dishes, and pieces of fruit at the camera in their domestic battle scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Excuse My Dust is one of the few Red Skelton musicals in which Skelton is not obliged to share screen space with the likes of Eleanor Powell, Esther Williams or Fernando Lamas. Set in 1900, the film stars Red as zany inventor Joe Belden. Enchanted by the new-fangled horseless carriages, Belden vows to become the Henry Ford of his small community. The climax finds Joe competing in a cross-country auto race for a $5000 prize. Though light on slapstick, this closing sequences scores on the nostalgic value of the several genuine vintage autos pressed into service. Sally Forrest co-stars as Skelton's sweetheart, while MacDonald Carey plays his obnoxious rival. The songs for the most part are well-integrated into the story, save for one anachronistically modern production number (explained away as a "dream sequence" wherein Skelton imagines what life will be like in 1950!). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide