Movies

Words and Music (1949) is, as they say, inspired by the lives of the composing team of Rodgers and Hart. Composer bio-fics are a good chance to see some swell musical numbers if you are willing to sit through a lot of faked up melodrama, but in this case they thoughtfully kept the wait between songs a lot shorter than, for example, the Kern (Til the Clouds Roll By) and Ruby/Kalmar (Three Little Words) films. There isn't a lot of excitement in two guys standing by a piano, and in the case of Lorenz Hart there was a lot of material they couldn't use - they had to invent a doomed youthful romance to explain why he lived with his mother and vanished on mysterious long-term binges of some sort. By the time it drags down to his ignominious and forcedly melodramatic end, it is more absurd than pathetic, and they made the final moment of his life purely laughable. Being played by Mickey Rooney doesn't help to take him seriously. A real shame. They dumped a truckload of money on each of the huge soundstage sets (there must be less than two minutes of the film shot outdoors) and it is nice to see a film made at the pinnacle of studio technicolor excess. They did their best to prove their claim that it was the BIGGEST musical. I completely enjoyed only about a third of the songs - the big stage productions were great and Garland's two songs are brightly delivered but ones I don't care for that much. For my money the best number is Betty Garrett's intimate rendition of A Small Hotel early in the film. Perry Como is the primary male singer here, unfortunately. I have always found his voice too blurred and mushy for my liking. Gene Kelly and Vera Ellen do a Slaughter on Tenth Avenue number that seemed way too familiar - possibly he did it or something very similar a couple of other times. I think the biggest challenge they had in the entire picture was making Janet Leigh look like an adult at the end. They did this by having her wear her hair up and dressing her in brown for the last third of the film. It didn't work. She looks 21 when she is supposed to be 18, and 18 when she is supposed to be 30+. Gowns by Helen Rose are a big plus - nobody ever did skirts the way she did, and here her focus is on multicolor layers of petticoats that push the skirt out into a swinging, swirling torrent and flash an intense contrast to the surface color, with a transparent veiling layer over a sharply delineated bustier type of thing above. I had never paid much attention to Rodgers and Hart because I attached the schlockiness of Rodgers and Hammerstein retroactively, but Hart's lyrics are every bit as snappy, playful and inventive as Gershwin or Porter, and Rodgers' melodies are more complex and sophisticated than I expected. Overall not a huge success for me, but it has its moments, mostly in the first half. 6/10