ON THE TOWN: Blu-ray (MGM 1949) Warner Home Video
During the
1940's, producer, Arthur Freed embarked upon an ambitious slate of Broadway to
Hollywood musical acquisitions. While Hollywood generally did very well with
its own home grown product – particularly where musicals were concerned, Freed
also endeavored to bring the very best from the Great White Way to the big
screen: Babes in Arms, For Me and My Gal, Cabin in the Sky and Best
Foot Forward among his ambitious contributions to expand the artistry of
the Hollywood musical in new directions. It was a heady time at MGM; the dream
factory churning out entertainment with a capital ‘E’, thanks, in part to
Freed’s zeal for big and glossy mind candy; also, L.B. Mayer’s affinity for
cultivating great personalities in his ever-expanding roster of musical stars.
If one could sustain more than two musical notes in succession and illustrate
the ability to master a basic time step, Mayer afforded that aspiring hopeful
every luxury to professionally train as a singer and dancer. The results of his
company’s expert tutelage can be seen in stars like Lana Turner, Esther
Williams and Peter Lawford. Certainly, none was in the same league as, say, a
Judy Garland, Jane Powell or Howard Keel. But very often, each appeared as
competent ‘second string’ in A-list musicals made throughout the mid to late
1940’s.
In retrospect,
the Freed Unit at MGM provided Hollywood with its only legitimate ‘stock
company’ of musical performers; Mayer offering his go-getting producer a steady
stream of impossible to top creative talent both in front of and behind the
camera. Other studios, most notably 2oth Century-Fox. tried to compete. But
only MGM had the immense resources to consistently yield peerless quality. The
MGM studio orchestra, as example, under the baton of Johnny Green, and later,
André Previn, could rival any symphony orchestra with ease. Musical arrangers
did not come any finer than Roger Edens or Kay Thompson. Freed’s repertory
company would remain the best in the business throughout the 1940’s; the proof
– the musicals made from 1939-59. Occasionally, however, Freed set his sights a
tad too high – or, perhaps, he simply lost focus – buying up Broadway hits, only to toss out
virtually most of their plots and a good deal of their scores.
Herein, it
bears mentioning what works on the stage is rarely as effective on film.
Musical stagecraft often inserts numbers and/or scenes as transitional pieces
meant to bide time and keep the audience amused while a small army of
decorators and prop men hurriedly scramble to redress the main stage area
behind the curtain for the next act. Narratively, a musical on the stage has
two distinct acts, usually interrupted by an intermission. Generally, film
functions with a three act partition, or rather – arc – without the benefit of
a split down the middle to punctuate the action. Freed, of course, understood
these basic conventions. He also trusted his entourage of artists to fulfill
his criteria for a newly proposed project on his ‘to do’ roster. Interestingly, On
the Town (1949) should not have been one of them. After encouraging L.B. Mayer on a blind
commitment to buy the stage show sight unseen for $250,000 – even before a bar
of music had been written by Leonard Bernstein – Freed, along with Mayer and a
small troop of MGM exec’s went to see On
the Town in New York and were summarily unimpressed. Bernstein’s score was too recherché for movie
audiences.
Indeed, On the Town could not have come to the
studio’s attention at a more inopportune time. Following the war, L.B. Mayer
had naturally assumed a return to form and hike in audience attendance. Alas,
the war had hardened the public’s appetite for grittier human dramas, making
Metro’s lighter-than-air confections even less palpable and more out of touch
with prevailing tastes. Loewe’s Incorporated President, Nicholas Schenck
encouraged Mayer to find ‘a new Thalberg’
– a V.P. who could balance Mayer’s gemütlich charm with more contemporary
stories to satisfy movie patrons and keep MGM in the black – made at roughly
one third of the already sky-rocketing costs necessary to produce big and
glossy musical extravaganzas. Mayer would have preferred Schenk keep to the
business of counting his pennies and leave the daily creative management of
MGM’s west coast assets in his competent hands. But Mayer’s thirst for running
MGM as his undisputed kingdom had run its course. During the old Irving G.
Thalberg regime, part of Mayer’s verve had derived from his daily conflicts
with Thalberg. Deprived of a nemesis, even one as ingenious as Thalberg, left
Mayer contented to let the studio gradually slump into a level of
self-governing obedience, while he pursued other passions on the side like
horse-racing and socialite, Lorena Danker.
Enter Dore
Schary – arguably, the right man for the wrong studio. Schary was well aware of two criteria upon
his appointment as Vice President in Charge of Production: first, his own
passion for gritty B-budget noir thrillers with nondescript actors in the leads
severely clashed with the studio’s ensconced top-heavy star system, dedicated
to superficial glamor and peerless production values, and second; a good many
of Metro’s top exec’s and creatives alike regarded his liberalism as akin to
being a communist sympathizer. On his
first day’s arrival, Mayer gave Schary a singular piece of advice – actually,
more of a command: steer clear of Arthur Freed’s musical unit. To his credit,
Schary gracious complied. He would continue to allow Freed to make his
extravaganzas throughout the 1950’s, even after Mayer was ousted from power by
Schenk, leaving Schary’s autocratic rule unchallenged.
Meanwhile, On the Town was green lit for
production; hardly a simple translation from stage to screen, but principally
given Freed’s own aversion to the Leonard Bernstein score. Betty Comden and
Adolph Green’s early elation, as Broadway’s On the Town had been their baby, would turn to gloomy consternation
after Freed explained how only a handful of Bernstein’s original songs would
make it into the movie. In fact, only four survived, eventually supplemented by
seven new songs written by Comden/Green and Roger Edens. Even more
disheartening for Comden and Green; Freed wanted the entire premise revised.
From the outset, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin were slated as the
male leads, despite Sinatra’s apprehensions to do another picture in sailor’s
garb. Sinatra’s disdain of Metro’s concocted persona for him, as the scrawny
‘less than’ always cringing in the shadow of Kelly’s more athletically robust
masculinity, had irked ever since their pairing in Anchors Aweigh (1945). On Broadway, the three sailors on shore
leave in Manhattan adopted a sort of ‘babes
in the wood’ leitmotif; pure innocents thrust into a cosmopolitan metropolis. However, with Kelly as the film’s star, the
entire structure of the story had to be reconceived.
While Kelly
and his behind-the-scenes collaborator, Stanley Donen began putting Sinatra and
Munshin through the paces of a rigorous dance rehearsal, Freed concentrated on
securing the necessary civic permits to shoot a portion of On the Town in Manhattan.
Mayer was not a fan of location work. After all, what was there that his
brilliant artisans in the property department could not recreate entirely from
scratch on a sound stage: The Statue of Liberty for one; Rockefeller Plaza for
another. Very reluctantly, Mayer acquiesced to send a second unit to photograph
process plates; also granting Freed a very limited release of Donen and Kelly
to stage the movie’s opening showstopper, ‘New
York, New York’ at various locations in Manhattan. The logistics in pulling
off this montage proved something of a minor nightmare, with the playback of
Kelly, Munshin and Sinatra blaring over loud speakers; the sight of two major
film stars and a small army of behind-the-camera crew cluttering up the streets
with their technical accoutrements, attracting scores of onlookers wherever
they shot. Meanwhile, back in Hollywood, Freed encountered his own brouhaha
with the censors. They objected to New York being referred to as ‘a helluva town’; also to a line in the
song ‘Prehistoric Man’, Ann Miller’s
sultry anthropologist claiming, ‘lots of
guys are ‘hot’ for me’…’beating on their tom-toms’. Mmm, yes. Their
tom-tom’s indeed!
In hindsight,
the plot to On the Town is not
particularly inspired; the sailors on shore leave scenario fattened by an
obvious homage – nee rip off – of Howard Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby (1938); the collapse of a fossilized tyrannosaurus
rex, presumably on display inside the Museum of Natural History. In Hawks’ movie, the madcap Susan (played by
Katherine Hepburn) inadvertently discombobulates our hero (Cary Grant) by
dismembering this petrified beast in one fell swoop. In On the Town a similar disaster ensues after the removal of a
supporting ‘bone’ topples the giant. The movie’s plot is essentially a girl
hunt initiated by Gabey (Gene Kelly) after catching a glimpse of Ivy Smith
(Vera-Ellen) on a poster hanging in the New York subway. She is June’s Miss
Turnstiles. Unaware of the minor celebrity this title holds, Gabey re-envisions
Ivy as a rich debutante. In reality, she is little more than an aspiring
actress, working as a seedy hooch dancer and indentured to the stern, Mme.
Dilyovska (Florence Bates) to pay for her dancing lessons.
Gabey
convinces his two ship-to-shore buddies, Chip (Frank Sinatra) and Ozzie (Jules
Munshin) to partake in his search for Ivy.
On the way, they encounter man-crazy cabbie, Brunhilde Esterhazy (Betty
Garrett) and stud-hungry anthropologist, Claire Huddesen (Ann Miller). Each,
predictably, takes a respective romantic interest in Chip and Ozzie. Now, this
quintet goes in search of Ivy; Gabey eventually discovering her in a rehearsal
hall, applying her craft with dreams of becoming a big star. The girls agree to
keep Ivy’s secret, making a grand fuss over her position as Miss
Turnstiles. Now, a sextet – everyone
goes clubbing for a night ‘on the town’, culminating in a rooftop rendezvous at
the Empire State Building. Ivy must slink off for a late night performance at
the carnival, causing Gabey to search for her. Upon discovering the truth,
Gabey is unmoved. After all, Ivy is a good girl who actually hails from the same
small Midwestern town. More importantly, she also happens to be deeply in love
with him. Having broken their ship’s curfew, Gabey, Ozzie and Chip are arrested
after a spirited police chase through Greenwich Village, taken back on board
their ship at the crack of dawn; Ivy, Claire and Brunhilde waving goodbye to
their men who vow to be true to until when next their ship docks in port.
The pièce de
résistance in On the Town is the ‘A Day In New York’ ballet; rearranged by
Leonard Bernstein, who agreed to work closely with Gene Kelly on
re-conceptualizing it for the movie screen. Producer, Saul Chaplin was to add
his own ingredient into their creative mix, borrowing on Agnes de Mille’s
choreography for Broadway’s Oklahoma!,
substituting more accomplished dancers for the principles, except Gene Kelly
and Vera-Ellen; who were, after all, already in a class apart as dancers
themselves. In essence, the ballet is a recap of the film’s plot, done in
pantomime, slightly reconstituted through Gabey’s eyes and thought process. ‘A Day in New York’ would set both a
standard and a style for impressionist dance on film, later mimicked and expanded
upon in Freed’s own An American in Paris
(1951) and Singin’ in the Rain (1952),
also repurposed by de Mille for the film version of Oklahoma! (1955). In retrospect, On the Town’s musical sequences are exemplars of the MGM style, in
no small way etched into history by Kelly’s collaborative efforts with Stanley
Donen. Upon screening the rough cut assembly of numbers for On the Town, Arthur Freed was over the
moon with praise, comparing their work to Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger,
adding “(they) can’t shine your
shoes…red, white or blue. Much love from your proud producer.”
Evidently, the
public agreed. Two premieres at the Bay Theatre and Loew’s 72nd met
with ebullient plaudits and overwhelming critical praise. The line of eager
ticket buyers outside Radio City numbered over 10,000. Despite Mayer’s initial
premonition it would flop, On the Town
eventually went on to gross more than $4 million at the box office – a sizable
hit. Mayer, who along with several top executives, had dismissed the stage show
as ‘abysmal’, was begrudgingly forced
to concede the picture’s success to Arthur Freed, as was rival producer, Joe
Pasternak, overheard grumbling as Freed and his entourage passed him in the
commissary, “There goes the royal
family!”
It is perhaps
one of Hollywood’s ironies On the Town
does not hold up nearly as well today as some of the other Gene Kelly movies
from its vintage. Comden and Green’s screenplay is serviceable, though
arguably, the most pedestrian they ever committed to musical comedy. True
enough, the best musicals have rarely gone beyond the ‘boy meets girl’ hodge-podge. Yet, On the Town never strains or deviates from this ensconced template.
It revels in the mechanical artifice to the point of borderline tedium,
preventing the whole show from evolving further. Kelly’s Gabey may not be the
naïve fop of the stage hit, but he isn’t the savvy wolf from Anchors Aweigh (1945) or even Thousands Cheer (1943). His congenial
able-bodied seaman is soft in the head for a girl he has never met - and won’t,
at least for a considerable amount of the film’s runtime; the ‘cute meet’ between Gabey and Ivy further
delayed when Esterhazy tries to lull his expectations by introducing Gabey to
her homely spinster roommate, Lucy Schmeeler (the dimpled comedian, Alice
Pearce).
More dampening
to the overall impact and spirit of the movie is the jarring disconnect between
the brief portions so obviously shot on location in Manhattan and those more
garishly on display in all their plywood backing, recreated at Culver City,
mostly on soundstages. MGM’s art department has done a supreme job crafting a
credible facsimile of the Empire State’s observation deck, elevated several
feet off the ground and surrounded by a 360 degree cyclorama, moodily lit with
neon signage and tiny pin pricks of light to simulate the New York skyline. But
there is no mistaking any of it for New York itself, particularly since we’ve
already seen the real thing from the Bronx to the Battery in the film’s
enthusiastic opener. The outdoorsy flavor so emblematically captured during ‘New York, New York’ is pretty much
absent from the rest of the picture; the sheer size of Manhattan cleverly
camouflaged by Kelly and Donen’s co-directed zeal for tight shots of the sextet
as they ebulliently declare they’re ‘going
on the town’; strutting past a series of made up ‘storefronts’ on MGM’s
backlot ‘New York’ street.
There is no
atmosphere to these moments, or rather, none of the Greenwich Village type that
ought to have endeared the audience to this particular locale. MGM would
continue to keep very tight reins on shooting movies – particularly musicals –
inside its studio walls. One can argue the pros and cons of this steadfast
and/or shortsighted decision. Intermittently, it had both positive and negative
effects; Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
(1954) surviving the crisis, despite its claustrophobic confinement to massive
soundstages; Brigadoon (also 1954)
painfully succumbing to a paralytic artificiality; the very real heather
arranged on paper mache hilltops, withering under hot klieg lights and daily
having to be replaced. At least in both aforementioned movies, MGM chose to
maintain such inauthenticity from start to finish; as Freed would do for his
Oscar-winning An American in Paris
and Show Boat (both released in
1951). But attempting to mix the concreteness of Manhattan with these more
fanciful re-interpretations does not serve On
the Town well at all. In hindsight, the picture waffles from moments of
verisimilitude into respites of sheer fancy; queerly, without the usual
daydream quality of a Metro musical.
I will confess
a certain appreciation for the original Broadway cast album in place of the
movie’s score. In hindsight, the film version of On the Town lacks sophistication. In spots it retains a bright and
breezy air for the fluff stuff. But it leaves virtually all the introspective
love ballads on the cutting room floor. This is a mistake; one from which the
movie never entirely recovers. Only in hindsight, does the ole Donen/Kelly
magic appear to have evaporated; Roger Edens’ claim, that On the Town was a happy experience for all, virtually ignoring
Sinatra's reticence on the project – partly, for having to don the sailor suit
again, playing the scrawny Kelly-not, relentlessly pursued by Garrett’s ravenous
man trap. Also, Sinatra had never much cared for Bernstein’s lyrics. He disliked
the film's revamped repertoire even more, perhaps because it provided virtually
no solo opportunities for his silken smooth vocalizations to distinguish
themselves.
Undeniably, On the Town has merit: the opener, with
Kelly, Sinatra and Munshin breezing in and out of a Cook’s Tour of New York’s
most easily recognizable cultural and historic landmarks – remains its’ most
celebrated and readily revived showstopper. Alas, the rest of the movie never
quite matches or surpasses these initial expectations. Instead, we are treated
to expertly choreographed ballets - both dream sequences; admirable for their
terpsichorean skill, yet somehow lacking the imaginative spark of intangible
excitement to make the spirit soar. The comedy is congenial, if occasionally
rambunctious. Ann Miller is a delicious vixen and Betty Garrett sporadically
reveals her truer calling as a glib comedian. But these gals are more
appendages than central to the plot; the entire mobile of activity circling
around Ivy’s burgeoning romance with Gabey. Herein, the fault is Vera-Ellen’s
to bear; an impossibly perfect dancer, later to find a middle ground that could
marginally sustain her limited acting abilities. But in On the Town she miserably fails to make a splash except when her
feet are twirling and whirling in unison with Kelly’s. She’s too rigid for
comedy, yet not serious enough to play drama, making her both unfunny and yet,
not terribly serious; decidedly, a very weak love interest for Kelly’s fawning
sailor.
Comden and
Green’s oversimplification of the Ivy/Gabey romantic dilemma, resolved merely
because Gabey does not care whether Ivy is a famous glamor gal or just the girl
next door, is so arbitrary a conclusion, it mitigates the sheer joy of seeing
these two people so utterly ‘right’
for one another, rise above these artificially imposed barriers of class
distinction to find common law contentment in each other’s arms. What’s here is formulaic and contrived,
transgressing against the permissible boundaries of musical artifice. In the
final analysis, and despite the fact it broke new ground in terms of shooting
on location, On the Town is not one
of MGM’s top-tier musicals. It may even rank as the worst Broadway to Hollywood
hybrid, given most of what stage audiences saw never made it into the movie.
Still, there are worse musicals out there. And no musical with Kelly and
Sinatra is ever a complete waste of time. But On the Town is a letdown. It doesn’t shimmer like other Metro
musicals. It merely shows off. Technically, it is impressive. Artistically, it
remains quite uneven and strangely, unsatisfying.
Warner Home
Video delivers the goods on Blu-ray. On
the Town has always looked awful on home video. So prepare to be amazed,
because Warner has given this catalog title the badly needed upgrade it
deserves. Colors are rich and fully saturated. The Technicolor mis-registration
that plagued the DVD has been eradicated. A light smattering of grain seems indigenous
to its source and contrast levels are bang on. Age-related artifacts that were prevalent
on the DVD have been cleaned up. The image is smooth, consistent and
satisfying. Honestly, there’s nothing to complain about here.
The audio is
still suspect, sounding thinner than expected and, in spots, without any middle
tonality to speak of. On the Town
has always sounded like this and I am not entirely certain as per the reasons
why. But, Warner has done the utmost to preserve and remaster what’s here. You
will surely not be disappointed with the results. I know I wasn’t. Finally, Warner has added its usual assortment
of short subjects and newsreels, plus a trailer to fatten out the extras. Nice,
but we would have preferred an audio commentary and isolated score too. Oh
well. Can’t have everything. Bottom line: recommended. *Also featured as part of the Frank Sinatra Collection, available today on Blu-ray.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
3.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS
2
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