DVDs: I Will Wait for You
While Jodi Moccia choreographed the Goodspeed production of All Shook Up, Ken Roberson Avenue Q, the upcoming The Color Purple will choreograph All Shook Up's Broadway mounting.
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DVD: THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG Koch Lober
Before there were Andrew Lloyd Webber, Claude-Michel Schonberg, and Alain Boublil, there was Les Parapluies de Cherbourg 1964, a full-blown, romantic pop opera fashioned for the screen by director-writer Jacques Demy and composer Michel Legrand.
The plot is simple. It's 1957, and seventeen-year-old Genevieve works with her mother in their umbrella boutique. Genevieve is in love with twenty-year-old Guy, a garage mechanic. When Guy is called away for two years of military service in Algeria, Genevieve is left pregnant. With the urging of her mother, Genevieve accepts the marriage proposal of a man she doesn't love, diamond dealer Roland Cassard. When Guy finally returns and learns the truth, he proposes to Madeleine, the young woman who has for years taken care of the godmother who raised him. In an unforgettably poignant final scene, it's 1963, and Guy and Genevieve have a chance meeting on Christmas Eve. We know it's the last time they'll ever see each other.
Famous for its color-saturated, color-coordinated look, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a beautiful picture featuring beautiful actors, sets, costumes, and music. It made a star of twenty-year-old Catherine Deneuve, who is exquisite and also quite obviously talented.
Neither Deneuve nor any of the other cast members speak, because Cherbourg is entirely sung, the principals lip-synching to the singing voices of others. Legrand and Demy fashioned recitatives, duets, and arias into a score that's constantly melodic and features recurring themes. There are no big numbers, no dances, and no chorus. But several of the strongest melodies were ultimately translated into distinct English-language songs; the best known was "I Will Wait For You," and there were also "Watch What Happens" and "I'm Falling in Love Again."
The style pioneered here would go on to become the most popular musical-theatre mode of the '80s. But Cherbourg still seems special, and it has aged quite well. It's an enchanting work, and if you've never seen it, you should try it.
Koch Lober recently released the second DVD version of the film, which is, of course, in French with English subtitles. As a bonus, it includes excerpts from a documentary about Demy made by his wife, film director Agnes Varda. It would have been fun if the DVD could also have included the English-dubbed version that used to show up on television. But we must at least be grateful that the washed-out prints of Cherbourg that also used to appear on TV are a thing of the past, and that the film can again be enjoyed in all of its original vividness.
Demy and Legrand followed up Cherbourg with The Young Girls of Rochefort, also with Deneuve, also filled with music, and also available on DVD. And Cherbourg went on to a stage life, beginning with the New York Shakespeare Festival mounting at the Public Theatre in February, 1979. The translation was by Sheldon Harnick and Charles Burr, the cast included Stephen Bogardus, Laurence Guittard, and Dean Pitchford, and director Andrei Serban staged a production that, with an entirely different look, managed to create something almost as lovely as the movie.
In September, 1979, Cherbourg had its French stage premiere, at the Théâtre Montparnasse in Paris, and that version produced a double-disc cast recording. With Serban back as director, the Shakespeare Festival staging played London's West End, opening at the Phoenix Theatre in April 1980 for a short run.
If Cherbourg failed to catch on in the theatre, it may be because the exquisite film had come first, and it tended to render subsequent stage treatment unnecessary. Had Cherbourg been initially conceived as a stage production, however, it might very well have thrived.
DVD: THE ONE AND ONLY, GENUINE, ORIGINAL FAMILY BAND Buena Vista
Who would have thought that a minor '60s Disney musical would rank as one of the summer's more relevant DVD releases? The action of The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band 1968 revolves around the conflict between Democrats and Republicans in Dakota territory in 1888. Grandfather Walter Brennan is a staunch Democrat, and the eponymous group of singing musicians, the Bower family, is initially invited to perform at the Democratic convention in St. Louis, where the candidate is Grover Cleveland.
But when the family moves from Nebraska to Dakota and daughter Alice Lesley Ann Warren falls for young Republican newspaperman Joe John Davidson, the stage is set for a showdown that embraces issues like freedom of speech and the statehood of North and South Dakota.
Dakota is Republican territory, and the film climaxes on election night, when, in an upset with shades of Bush vs. Gore, Cleveland wins the majority of popular votes but loses the electoral college and the election to Republican Benjamin Harrison.
For all of its serious thematic concerns, Family Band still follows the wholesome Disney studio formula. Based on an autobiographical book by Laura Bower Van Nuys, the film features songs by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman that are pleasant but even less memorable than those the team composed for the previous Disney live-action tuner also with Warren and Davidson, The Happiest Millionaire, and also less infectious than the Sherman's score for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, released the same year as Family Band.
Playing the Republican father of the family is Buddy Ebsen, the former song-and-dance man who was, at the time of this film, riding high as the star of TV's "The Beverly Hillbillies." As Ebsen's trouble-making father, Academy Award-winning Brennan gives one of his customarily warm, cantankerous performances.
In the thankless part of Ebsen's wife is Janet Blair, whose musical theatre starring roles included the national tour of South Pacific, the London Bells Are Ringing, and the TV version of One Touch of Venus. Shortly after this film, Blair would become one of the best musical Mames. Her tour boasted the Vera Charles of Elaine Stritch. After that, Blair would succeed Dorothy Collins as Sally in the final, L.A. lap of the original Follies.
Perhaps most notable among the Family Band cast credits are future mates Kurt Russell, who appears as the oldest Bower boy, and "Goldie Jeanne Hawn," making her screen debut dancing in the "West O' The Wide Missouri" production number. Only a year later, Hawn would win an Academy Award for Cactus Flower.
Directed by Michael O'Herlihy, Family Band isn't a particularly distinguished picture, but its abundant political content makes it one of the more unusual ventures among Disney musicals. As such, this summer was probably the right season for its DVD premiere, and it comes complete with a pair of bonuses, a new, thirteen-minute documentary and audio commentary by Warren, Davidson, and Richard M. Sherman.
Looking back fondly on the picture, Warren talks about her Actor's Studio background and her approach to a role and a scene. She recalls how Russell hated the dancing he was forced to learn. Warren errs by stating that Davidson was appearing on Broadway in Hello, Dolly! when she was working across the street at the Broadhurst in 110 in the Shade; when she was in 110, Davidson was in Foxy, at the old Ziegfeld, and not very close to the Broadhurst.
Disney died just as Family Band went into production, and it was the last film that received his imput. Davidson recalls everyone wondering throughout the production what Disney would have done. He also reveals that Brennan --a loyal Republican forced to play a devout Democrat-- relied on cue cards for his scenes.
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