Alan Jay Lerner: A Lyricist's Letters (10 page)

    
To Arthur Schwartz

    
July 21, 1953

    
JUST HAD AND [
SIC
] EXHILARATING MEETING WITH AL CAPP. CONTRACTS WERE SIGNED. I HAVE COLLECTED YOUR $20. I AM MORE ENTHUSIASTIC THAN EVER AND CAN’T WAIT TO GO TO WORK. HOPE YOU WILL BRUSH ASIDE ALL NEGATIVE FEELINGS AND THROW YOURSELF INTO WHAT I AM CONVINCED CAN BE ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING EXPERIENCES OF BOTH OUR LIVES.

ALAN

    
But although movie star Van Johnson was rumored to have been cast in the musical in September, Schwartz’s impatience with Lerner reached an impasse in November. He decided to collaborate with Dorothy Fields
²⁵
on her new show,
By the Beautiful Sea
, instead. Burton Lane was to have written the music for Fields, but he withdrew after major changes were made to
Beautiful Sea
’s story line, providing Schwartz with the perfect last-minute opportunity to find an alternative to working with Lerner.
²⁶
A clue to the reason for Schwartz’s frustration was revealed on October 29, when Lerner announced he had started writing the screenplay for the non-musical movie version of the W. H.
Hudson novel
Green Mansions
for Arthur Freed, thereby delaying all plans for his musical projects.
²⁷
Left with nothing to do, Schwartz was glad to jump ship, even if it meant the end of the relationship with Lerner and, sadly, thereby wasting the nine well-honed songs they had written for the
Wagon
film. These seem to have been the only products of the collaboration, and none of the other announced projects were ever written.

    
In an unusual twist of fate, Lane took Schwartz’s place as the composer of
Abner
, and it seemed like the
Royal Wedding
team was to reunite for at least a couple of new musicals (including
Huckleberry Finn
). In a letter from this period, Freed wrote to Lerner about the end of his association with Schwartz, as well as mentioning his screenplay adaptation of
Brigadoon
, which had been submitted in early October.
²⁸
“Naturally, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to
Brigadoon
because at long last the starting date is getting closer and closer. In going over the music I realize more than ever what a great score it is,” he commented. “Confidentially, I’ve been a little put out about Arthur Schwartz’s conduct,” he added, “and while I would be the last person in the world not to fight for the proper credit of any creator, I certainly resented the ultimatums and, it seems to me, the pettiness of the whole affair. Frankly, I’ve lost my desire and enthusiasm for working with him. It seems to me the desire to work with you and, incidentally, myself should have made anything else secondary. I’m a funny guy; I just don’t like one-sided love affairs.”

    
Aside from his main projects, friends and colleagues constantly wrote to Lerner to ask him for favors or help. For instance, a letter arrived in September from Lotte Lenya, the widow of Kurt Weill, asking him to reminisce with her about his time with Weill on writing the groundbreaking
Love Life
. “A publisher has asked me to write a biography of Kurt,” she reported. “Of course, the whole story of your collaboration on
Love Life
must be told, and I want to get all the facts down with complete accuracy.” Although brief, Lerner’s reply reveals the affection with which he regarded the composer:

    
To Lotte Lenya

    
October 5, 1953

    
Lenya dear,

    
I’m off to California for about ten days. As soon as I return I’ll put down all I can remember about
Love Life
. I hate to do it. It’s going to make me very sad.

        
See you soon.

        
Love to you and George.
²⁹

Fondly,

Alan

Many of the letters that were found during the research for this book but omitted from it are notes such as this, arranging meetings or offering assistance to a range of friends and acquaintances.

    
Lerner’s work during the second half of 1953 revolved around Arthur Freed, and specifically
Green Mansions
and
Huckleberry Finn
. The latter was to be a musical adaptation of Mark Twain’s novel and was probably first mooted as an immediate follow-up to
Royal Wedding
for Lerner and Lane (though a few manuscripts in the Burton Lane Collection at the Library of Congress suggest that E. Y. Harburg was briefly intended as the lyricist). Danny Kaye was cast as the Dauphin, with Gene Kelly as the Duke. As with
An American in Paris
and
Brigadoon
, Vincente Minnelli was to direct. In this letter, Lerner discusses details of the plot structure, which was still in development:

    
To Arthur Freed

    
December 29, 1953

    
Dear Arthur:

    
Under separate cover I am sending you
Huck Finn
. I have included all the lyrics, some of which were not in the studio script, and all in all, including the lyrics I have added, I think I will have cut around twenty-five to thirty pages.

        
As you know from our discussions, there was no major problem in cutting and editing up to the arrival at the Grangerford’s. The Grangerford sequence, as I worked on it, seemed to me to present two major problems, and I am not sure even now that they are licked. That’s
something that may well require not only further work, but possibly even a whole new idea—although I doubt the latter.

        
The two problems were: 1) It seemed to get farcical and therefore over-plotty, and 2) The section is on the skimpy side musically. It seemed to get out of lyric theatre and to fall more into a picture with songs.

        
As you will see from reading the script, I tried to handle the first problem by simply cutting the fat and therefore placing the story line that much more in relief. In dealing with the second problem, I put in a montage to “The World’s Full of Suckers,” which montage leads directly into “When You Grow Up You’ll Know.” The incidents of the montage are a little sketchy even now, but if you and Vincente like the dramatic theme of the montage, when the time comes to prepare the final script for shooting I am sure they can be improved upon. There is no doubt that the montage gives us a great musical pickup and telescopes an awful lot of story line and lapses of time.

        
It was great fun working on the script again, even though I felt like I was buying a marriage license for a wedding next year. It’s really a wonderful project, and I can’t wait for “the big push,” when you, Vincente and I really tear into it, with production imminent. If everything goes off according to schedule, I imagine that moment will be some time next winter. Needless to say, when that time does come I will be at your disposal wherever and for how long you want me to be.

        
From my experience with you and Vincente on
An American in Paris
and
Brigadoon
, it’s only when the three of us are working together for immediate production that a really final script can be prepared. However, I think the cut version I just finished is a pretty good scaffolding for that last period of concentrated work.

        
In the meantime, have a wonderful New Year.

Devotedly,

Alan

The letter refers to the cutting of an earlier studio script, a copy of which is currently housed in the New York Public Library, and unlocks some of Lerner’s techniques for improving his work. The references to “cutting the fat” and adding a “montage” attest to his high level of self-awareness as a writer. Whether his judgments on improving this specific script were well placed is impossible to confirm because the film was never made, but as a window into the atmosphere of his “workshop” this letter is invaluable.

    
Lerner worked hard during this period on his MGM assignments, and both he and Minnelli were particularly enthusiastic about the
Green Mansions
project. In the absence of Loewe, Minnelli almost seemed to become Lerner’s replacement collaborator, and in view of their mutual inclination toward fantasy on the screen—something that comes explicitly into
An American in Paris, Brigadoon
, and
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
—their attitudes to the movie musical were evidently sympathetic with one another. But the adaptation of Hudson’s fantasy about a traveler to a Venezuelan jungle who encounters a forest dweller, Rima the Bird Girl, was a complicated process. MGM had owned the rights for eight years by the time Lerner was given the go-ahead to make his adaptation in September 1953.
³⁰
By early 1954, he in turn was starting to have his doubts, which he underlines in the following letter to Freed:

    
To Arthur Freed

    
January 12, 1954

    
Dear Arthur:

    
Enclosed is a kind of general outline for
Green Mansions
. I use the words “general outline” loosely, because what you will find is certainly more of an expression of my general approach to the book and an indication of some of the scenes I intend to omit and some of the relatively minor changes I intend making.

        
I think what is very important to keep in mind is that
Green Mansions
, even as a novel, is not a perfect work of art, as is, for example,
Huckleberry Finn
, and that it is generally conceded even by the most ardent Hudson admirers in the literary world that his character delineation and plot development were far less perfect than his exquisite prose facility. I’ll be more specific in the “outline.”

        
I’ll call you next weekend. I’m glad all is well with
Brigadoon
.

Love,

Alan

    
The agony lingers in the next two letters, as Lerner continued to ponder the
Green Mansions
material. More than one ending to the film was considered, and increasingly it became apparent that the strength of the source material was its linguistic surface (as Lerner indicates above), rather than its narrative structure. He also hints at the ongoing development of
Huckleberry Finn
in
these letters, particularly in the second. Ironically, Lerner’s problem with
Finn
was the opposite of the one with
Mansions
: Twain’s book is episodic in nature, with lots of action but perhaps lacking the simple teleological structure of most musicals’ plots. As Lerner said, the problem with adapting a serialized story is that “there are so many ways of doing it”—words that bring to mind Stephen Sondheim’s discussion of his own struggles when trying to make a musical out of the episodic
Mary Poppins
stories when he was a teenager (he ultimately abandoned his attempt).
³¹
Green Mansions
and
Finn
were developed in tandem while
Brigadoon
was being made (production started the second week of December)
³²
—a sign of Lerner’s central importance to the Freed Unit at this period of high activity for MGM:

    
To Arthur Freed

    
January 15, 1954

    
Dear Arthur:

    
Since I spoke to you on the phone, I’ve been going through a one-man debate about the ending—my feeling about it swinging back and forth for the last few days. Hence the delay in sending the outline.

        
The ending that you read is, of course, the one I am certain now is right. When I see you I’ll tell you what the alternative in my mind was.

        
Huck
will go out over the weekend.

Love,

Alan

    
To Arthur Freed

    
January 16, 1954

    
Dear Arthur:

    
Here are the changes for
Huck
.

        
There was no problem cutting the Grangerford section. As for the beginning, I went over it with a fine toothcomb and gave it a great deal of thought, and actually in the present structure there isn’t too much that can be done about revealing Huck himself before the song, unless
we include some new situations. One of the dangers of that, of course, is that it would be such a long time before a song. As you remember, in the first draft I had a huge court trial about whether Huck should go to Widow Brown or Pap. When Huck finds out he is to go to Pap, he runs away. Before that scene, however, there was a small scene between Huck and Jim, leading into the song, “Huckleberry Finn.” In that way we had a song practically in the first three minutes. Unfortunately, the trial scene was just too long for the balance of the picture. That was when we got the idea of the present opening of having everyone think Huck is dead.

        
This situation is so tight, I would hesitate to cloud it with extraneous matter. Therefore, what I have tried to do is establish Huck a little more before the song and a little more after. If this still seems inadequate and it still seems that Huck is not established properly, then I think we have to re-examine the whole opening idea.

        
My own personal opinion is that the present opening idea is absolutely right, and that we may have to include another sequence with Huck and Jim before introducing the Duke and Dauphin, in order to put everything in the right proportion.

        
One of the peculiarities of
Huck
as a project is that there are so many ways of doing it, any one of which can be made right. In the final analysis, it will be a matter of choice what we do, rather than the usual procedure of suddenly recognizing the one and only way and doing it that way.