eoe wrote:Are you telling me that there is NO SINGING in the Rosalind Russell version of "Mame"? No singing at all?
Note a note or lyric, but a rousing score by, of all composers, Bronislau Kaper (he created the best part of the Brando "Mutiny on the Bounty", the sweeping epic music that I love to drop into the DVD player from time to time). The soundtrack score is jaunty, inventive and supports Russell's madcap performance. But no songs. It's "Auntie Mame," not "Mame,"
the Jerry Herman ("Hello Dolly") Broadway musical. "Auntie Mame" was adapted from a play and book, by Jerome Lawrence and Patrick Dennis, respectively and was about a real aunt of the playwright.
Roberta, all of the Rodgers and Hammerstein's screen adaptations were elephantine and overlong, tending to make one dose off between songs. "Carousel" is a better film musical than "The Sound of Music," but because of a few memorable songs. Julie Andrews, and the brilliant, gorgeous cinematography at actual location spots in Salzburg and the Alps by Ted McCord, it was a big audience hit, becoming the biggest box office winner for that time. Joshua Logan who was a stage director and tried to double as a movie director was responsible for most of the screen R&H musicals and his directing was, if anything, quirky and overwrought. Those annoying filters in the singing portions of "South Pacific" are a weak affectation that should have been left out.
Don't fret, they could have included "Flower Drum Song" which has only two great songs and a sagging, ho-hum plot about the Americanization of Chinese emigrants.
