Alan Jay Lerner: A Lyricist's Letters (5 page)

    
First, though, he had to complete work on two Hollywood projects that were demanding urgent attention:
Royal Wedding
, which was now to star the young Jane Powell
¹²⁴
opposite Astaire,
¹²⁵
and
An American in Paris
, which would provide a vehicle for Gene Kelly, using the song catalogue of George and Ira Gershwin. His contract with producer Arthur Freed
¹²⁶
at MGM would become increasingly pressing over the course of the 1950s, because he was obliged to write several movie musicals for an industry in swift decline, and at the same time he was pursuing various Broadway projects on the opposite coast. Though
Paris
was always to have a Lerner screenplay and
Royal Wedding
was also in the works, the third film was to prove elusive. For instance, he was offered
Mr. Imperium
, a vehicle for Ezio Pinza
¹²⁷
(the star of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
South Pacific
), which would have brought him a new collaborator in composer Harold Arlen
¹²⁸
(
The Wizard of Oz
), but Lerner rejected the idea.
¹²⁹
Additionally, Lerner was briefly named as screenwriter of the remake of
The Belle of New York
, perhaps as a result of his successful ongoing relationship with Astaire (the intended star) on
Royal Wedding
, but he quickly passed on the option.
¹³⁰
Eventually, Lerner did complete the songs and screenplay for a film version of
Huckleberry Finn
with Burton Lane,
¹³¹
composer of the score for
Royal Wedding
, though it went unproduced. At a time when Freed was among the most powerful figures in Hollywood and only engaged the best, it is telling that Lerner was hired for or associated with all these films, in spite of barely having passed his thirtieth birthday.

    
May 1950 brought Lerner back into the newspapers with the return of
Brigadoon
to New York’s City Center after its successful national tour. The reviews again gave him credit for his “constantly fascinating” book, and the show was referred to as “one of the milestones in the latter-day history of the musical stage.”
¹³²
No wonder Lerner was determined to resume the partnership with Loewe. Returning from Hollywood to see
Brigadoon
in mid-May, he had now completed most of his work on
An American in Paris
and
Royal Wedding
and could spend the rest of the year concentrating on his next Broadway show. By the end of the month, Lerner and Loewe were happy to divulge the fact that the new production would recall “the rip-roaring days of the wild and woolly West” and announced it was to be called
Paint Your Wagon
. In the show’s announcement in the New York Times, columnist Sam Zolotow explained, “If you’re mystified by the connection between the title and the hectic Western Era, hearken to the following explanation: During the gold rush the wagons used by the pioneers carried the inscription of ‘Pike’s Peak or Bust’ lest the absent-minded lost sight of the objective. The story covers the birth, life and death of a gold mining town.”
¹³³

    
Work on the new show went slowly, presumably not helped by the fact that
Royal Wedding
was being shot until October 1950.
¹³⁴
Wagon
’s book and several songs were drafted, but by January 1951 the production had been deferred to the next season, ostensibly because of the lack of availability of the intended star, veteran James Barton.
¹³⁵
If the delay was also partly Lerner’s fault (as seems
likely from his busy schedule and
Paint Your Wagon
’s well-known book problems), Loewe cannot have been annoyed for long because in February the lyricist’s relationship with MGM helped him close a deal for Freed to produce the long-mooted movie version of
Brigadoon
.
¹³⁶
In March,
Royal Wedding
opened to mixed reviews: in his appraisal for the
New York Times
, Bosley Crowther didn’t even mention Lerner’s name as lyricist or screenwriter. Crowther’s reference to the “spider-web story-line” was less than flattering,
¹³⁷
and Lerner himself mentioned the film only with embarrassment later in his career: “Although Burton Lane wrote some spiffy songs and Fred [Astaire] danced in a way that made all superlatives inadequate, my contribution left me in such a state of cringe that I could barely straighten up.”
¹³⁸
Nevertheless, the film made almost $4 million at the box office, against costs of around $1.5 million.

    
It had also provided him with the opportunity to write for one of his idols, Fred Astaire, adding to the extraordinary list of stars for whom Lerner created musicals, and he must have been proud of the double feat of writing for both the major male Hollywood dancers of the Golden Age—Astaire and Kelly.
Royal Wedding
was an underwhelming screen debut for a young writer who had always loved the movies, but with the much more ambitious
An American in Paris
due to be released later in the year, plus the new contract to write the screen version of
Brigadoon
, all was not lost.
¹³⁹
Freed’s confidence in him was high: $225,000 was paid for the rights to
Brigadoon
, and star names were associated with it from the start (Gene Kelly and Kathryn Grayson,
¹⁴⁰
who was soon replaced by Cyd Charisse).
¹⁴¹
In turn, Lerner’s spirits were on the rise, and by June 1951
Paint Your Wagon
neared completion, with previews set to start in September.
¹⁴²

    
After
Brigadoon
, Lerner and Loewe were starting to be regarded as serious competition for Rodgers and Hammerstein, and the new show boasted a stellar list of investors including Mary Martin and Josh Logan (star and director, respectively, of
South Pacific
), Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner (directors of the Theatre Guild, who had produced
Oklahoma!
and
Carousel
), and producer Billy Rose.
¹⁴³
The curtain went up on the first Philadelphia preview of the
musical on September 17, but it opened to very mixed reviews. Problems with the script, on which Lerner had been working for several years, led to the addition of a three-week Boston preview through most of October, with an extra week after that for final polishing before the Broadway debut on November 12. As part of this process, several songs were added to the score.
¹⁴⁴

    
In the middle of the stress, Lerner could at least enjoy a momentary respite with the successful opening of
An American in Paris
in October. The film, which starred Gene Kelly, Oscar Levant,
¹⁴⁵
and Leslie Caron
¹⁴⁶
under the direction of Vincente Minnelli, received glowing reviews and became instantly admired for its artistic vision and ingenious sets, going on to win six Oscars, including one for Lerner’s screenplay.
¹⁴⁷
But his mind was entirely on his current production, which had been in his head for years and brought him back into contact with Loewe. In an article titled “Painting the Wagon,” published the night before the opening, Lerner admitted that it had not been an easy project:

    
The show itself was a brute to write. There was too much material. It was hard to coordinate it all and distill it to its purest meaning. Many of the incidents in the show are based upon actual fact. Comstock, of the Comstock Silver Lode, bought his wife from a man who didn’t want her and a bill of sale was actually drawn up to consummate the purchase. In
Paint Your Wagon
Ben Rumson (played by James Barton) becomes involved in a variation of that incident. There is a scene where a woman and a child arrive in a camp that has not seen a woman or a child for over a year and a half. The incident is verbatim from an old record. There is a courtroom scene held in a saloon on a Sunday morning after services in which the judge is sentencing a man. His speech is based upon an actual one. These are only a few incidents that come readily to mind, but there are others.

        
Musically, Fritz went through the same trial and error that I did on the book. Over thirty songs were actually written. Half that number are in the show now. The reason so many songs were discarded was mostly a matter of style. The Western flavor is a hard thing to pin down. James Barrie once said that he could not define charm but he knew when somebody didn’t have it. That’s very much like Western flavor. In the writing of the songs we weren’t sure what we had but we certainly knew when it wasn’t there.
¹⁴⁸

    
After seven weeks on the road and two delays to the New York opening, the show’s critical reception was not as immaculate as might have been hoped, but neither was it a disaster. Brooks Atkinson, for instance, called it “bountiful and exultant,” and although he said it was not up to the “artistic standard” of
Brigadoon
because it was “not quite so meticulously edited and organized,” for the most part “good humor and romantic beauty” made
Paint Your Wagon
“a very happy evening in the theatre.”
¹⁴⁹
In an additional article, written five days later, Atkinson commented specifically on Lerner’s work: “For
Paint Your Wagon
Alan Jay Lerner, author of
Brigadoon
, has written a more literate book. He is trying to recapture some of the comic naiveté of life in an old mining town. In the second act he runs into some mass resistance that impedes the movement of the production but the first act is freely sketched, spontaneous and convivial. As a whole
Paint Your Wagon
is so heartily enjoyable that a job of loosening and shortening the second act might still be worth attempting.”
¹⁵⁰
Others were less kind: Robert Garland (
Journal-American
) called it “monotonous” and “quite repetitious,” William Hawkins (
World-Telegram and Sun
) said it had “gigantic faults,” Walter Kerr (
Herald Tribune
) commented that “Mr. Lerner seems more interested in the authenticity of his background than in the joy of his audience,” and Richard Watts Jr. (
New York Post
) simply said “there is something just a little flat about it.”
¹⁵¹
Nonetheless, the score included a series of Lerner and Loewe’s finest songs, such as “I Talk to the Trees” and “They Call the Wind Maria.”

    
Early the following May, James Barton announced his intention to leave the show, citing the need to take a rest as his reason for his departure after only about half a year. This left the production in trouble, because Barton’s name was a huge commercial draw and artistic linchpin, as Lerner explained to him in the following letter:

    
To James Barton

    
May 4, 1952

    
Dear Jim,

    
I was heartbroken to hear this week that you are leaving the show. It goes without saying that, to me, the show will never be the same without you.

        
As you know, neither Cheryl [Crawford], Fritz [Loewe] nor I expected you to leave so soon, and although I certainly do not blame you for feeling the need of a rest, it does put us in a kind of difficult position. We are trying very, very hard to find a replacement, but so far we have been unsuccessful. Both Joe E. Brown
¹⁵²
and Jack Oakie
¹⁵³
are unavailable. We have two or three other ideas, as of yesterday, that we will get into immediately. If you have any notions on it, please tell Dick LaMarr.
¹⁵⁴

        
In the meantime, June 1st is just a few weeks away and we may not be able to find a replacement, rehearse him and put him in, in that short a period. At the same time, it would not be possible to play the show without a star of your caliber, in other words, with the understudy, and expect either business or the show to hold up. Therefore, Jim, if there is a one- or two-week delay, would you help us out? You can rest assured we will do our damnedest to find somebody so that you can leave June 1st, but if it isn’t possible in that short a period, we would all appreciate it more than we can say if you would stay a little longer, certainly not more than two weeks, and undoubtedly not more than a week.

        
California is the same - and you know what that means. I can’t wait to get finished and get back to my natural habitat. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you and Katherine then.

Best love to you both,

Alan

    
It is interesting to see how keenly and personally Lerner engaged in the running of his musicals, even when he was not the producer. Barton obliged, and in mid-June actor Eddie Dowling
¹⁵⁵
took over the role of Rumson.

    
Dowling’s characteristics as an actor were clearly very different to Barton’s, and when helping to rehearse Dowling with the existing Broadway company, Lerner evidently made a comment about the differences between the two personalities. He felt his remarks had been misrepresented to Barton, who had heard about it, and Lerner wrote to confirm his respect for the actor:

    
To
James Barton

    
[Undated; early June 1952]

    
Dear Jimmy:

    
I just heard from the theater that my remarks introducing Eddie Dowling to the company were repeated to you in the usual out of shape condition of most second hand things. Actually, all I said was that because Eddie was a different artist than you and had a different interpretation of the part, the play would at first seem different to the company. How this innocent and accurate statement could be twisted is something beyond me. But it seems to have been. I beg you to rest assured that nothing detrimental to you was intended or implied. As you well know, this show was written for
you
from the very beginning and, as I wrote you not long ago, would always be your show as much as mine.