Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber (65 page)

Kiss Me, Kate
, 1953 film. Petruchio (Keel) gives his new fiancée Katharine (Grayson) an unscripted paddling to conclude the first act of “Taming of the Shrew.”

Also absent from the film was the choral number, “I Sing of Love,” which those familiar with the cast album also never got to hear, and most of the two parallel finales in which the vitriol and the martial nature of the former is replaced by the tender words and musically lyrical qualities of the latter. Partially compensating for these quasi-operatic omissions is the insertion of a dazzlingly jazzy song and dance number originally composed for Porter’s
Out of this World
, for Lois (Miller), her suitor (Tommy Rall), her former suitors (Bobby Van and Bob Fosse), and their new girlfriends (Carol Haney and Jeanne Coyne). In marked contrast to the
Pal Joey
and Kurt Weill films we looked at in act I, the
Kiss Me, Kate
screenplay, greatly shortened in the transition from stage to film, effectively creates a sequence of songs occasionally interrupted by five minutes or less of dialogue.

The show’s principal ballad is the first of two songs to undergo a new context. Although the final A section of “So in Love” will eventually be heard in its rightful position as a reprise, sung by Lilli in her dressing room before the show moves to its Padua phase and “We Open in Venice,” its main dramatic purpose in the film occurs in its new context as an audition number in Fred’s apartment, a song performed by Fred to interest the prospective dramatic lead Lilli in the show. The character impersonating Cole Porter (Ron Randell), a depiction only slightly more believable than the casting of Cary Grant in
Night and Day
(1946), sits down at the piano (later joined by an invisible orchestra), and Fred starts the love song. Even before the second A section Lilli joins in, and immediately making the song her own, sings the second A by herself. Fred starts the B and is answered by Lilli, a process repeated in the final A before both Fred and Lilli conclude the song in glorious harmony and ardent glances. In the stage version Lilli sings the song alone in the dressing room unheard by Fred, and Fred sings a reprise in act II unheard by Lilli.

In contrast to the gradual unfolding of Fred and Lilli’s love onstage, before seven minutes have gone by in the film, viewers in this medium hear and see that they are deeply in love. Fred may be infatuated with the sexy Lois (Bianca), but the flirtation is fundamentally innocent, or at least superficial. In any event, Fred’s attentions are not seriously reciprocated by Lois, who is using Fred to further her show business career and that of her boyfriend Bill Calhoun (Lucentio). Despite its fundamental meaninglessness, the dalliance between Lois and Fred leads to an incriminating note intended for Lois but mistakenly delivered, with a bouquet of flowers, to Lilli, who imprudently reads the note onstage, thus provoking genuine rather than acted stage violence against Fred as Petruchio. Had Fred not included the note, it is likely that the onstage conflicts would not be mirrored by offstage fireworks but by reconciliation, which would spoil the fun (and not incidentally end the show prematurely). The flowers serve their purpose, helping Lilli to realize that she is still in love with Fred. Although she is engaged to the rich and powerful cattle baron Tex, a man incapable of song—in the stage version her fiancé is the Washington diplomat Harrison Howell, also without a song—tellingly we observe her remove the engagement ring in her dressing room before she finishes the reprise of “So in Love.”

The re-connection Lilli and Fred make at the end of the “So in Love” duet in Fred’s apartment is immediately interrupted by the whirlwind entrance of Lois, who is clearly familiar with the surroundings. Lois (Ann Miller) then proceeds to sing and dance a sexually charged and energetic song and tap dance number, which she hopes will go into the show. Those who find “Too Darn Hot,” an entertaining but somewhat gratuitous act II opener may appreciate its new context as a diegetic show-within-show. In fact, when she is finished she learns that the song will be taken out because there’s no place to put it—art imitating life evaluating art. In the absence of a second act subdivision, a luxury offered to all stage works but only to a few of their longest film adaptations (e.g.,
My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof
), where could such a song go? The answer: as an audition number in the director’s apartment.

In order to guide film viewers who presumably are less familiar than stage audiences with the plot of
The Taming of the Shrew
, the
Shrew
performance in the film offers a narrative in which Petruchio explicitly introduces the main characters and situation. The film is also clearer than the stage version about such matters as the fact that Lilli reads Fred’s note to Lois (at the end of “Were Thine That Special Face”), which explains why her violence toward Fred goes considerably beyond what is called for in the script. The film also clarifies the connection between Fred’s removal of food from the hungry Lilli in the dressing room scene and when Petruchio deprives Kate of food in his later efforts to tame her. The cuts in the libretto deprive film audiences of some of the Spewacks’ and even more of Shakespeare’s lively dialogue, but when films were expected to run less than two hours, even great material had to go.

One of the more unfortunate aspects of this often successful film adaptation is that even nearly twenty years after the first film version of
Anything Goes
(see
chapter 8
), Porter’s lyrics still required considerable cinematic expurgation. We might expect that the script would replace “bastard” with “louse,” but changes in the lyrics amount to a censorship that is collectively depressing. What follows is a generous, if not exhaustive, sample:

• “Too Darn Hot”

“According to the Kinsey report” is replaced by “according to the latest report” and instead of indulging his favorite sport, man prefers taking the lyrically cumbersome “lovey-dovey to court.”

• “Tom, Dick, or Harry”

“God-damned nose” is replaced by “Doggone nose” and “in the dark they [women] are all the same” is replaced by “in a brawl they are all the same.”

• “I Hate Men”

“Maiden” replaces “virgin” and instead of Mother having to marry Father, she now “deigns to marry Father.” The film version goes on to make several other unfortunate deletions and additions in this song.

• “Where Is the Life that Late I Led?”

Since “puberty” is suggestive and provocative, “the charming age of puberty” becomes the first awareness of “masculinity.” Later in the song the mandatory removal of “hell” (also removed later in “Always True to You in My Fashion” and in “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”) necessitates the replacement of the rhyme “well / hell” with “pain / Cain,” as in raising a bit of.

• “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”

The suggestive failure of a woman to defend her virtue (
All’s Well That Ends Well
) is replaced by the infelicitous woman “shocked she pretends well.”

• “I Am Ashamed That Women Are So Simple”

Perhaps the title of this song should have been altered to something like “I Am Ashamed to Sing a Sexist Song about Women Being Simple.” In any event, Kate replaces the music to this beautiful song with a recitation (with a little underscoring of “So in Love”), fortunately unexpurgated, of Shakespeare, who wrote the lyrics.
¹⁰

While Porter’s reputation will survive the changes made to his lyrics in the film, it is not enhanced by them. Yet all things considered, the film adaptation of
Kiss Me, Kate
, is not only relatively faithful to its stage version (when compared with its predecessors) but boasts full-throated but not overdone singing by Keel and Grayson, and exuberant singing and dancing by Miller. The ensemble dancing of Miller, Rall, Van, Haney, Coyne, and Fosse, choreographed by Fosse in the angular signature style that he would develop further in the 1960s and 1970s, is outstanding as well as historic, and the supporting roles, especially Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore as the two gunmen, add to the film’s quality. Even the interpolated “From This Moment On,” is arguably no more extraneous than “Too Darn Hot” was in its original place as the opening of act II. The film, shot and released in 3D, in its day a novelty and today a distraction, does not undermine the film’s enjoyment, but it is probably good to know about it in advance.

The large and impressive oil painting of Laurence Olivier as Hamlet in Fred’s apartment is clearly visible as a backdrop to Miller’s “Too Darn Hot” and other scenes. The character of Hamlet not only demonstrates a Shakespearean
connection but likely also alludes to the fact that producer Jack Cummings tried unsuccessfully to engage the non-singing Olivier for this role. It is difficult to imagine what would have happened if this had come to pass, since the demands of the role require a trained singer with a strong high G. The film also introduces a few touches that enhance the dramatic verisimilitude and topicality, such as when Fred, who thinks that Lilli has left the show, says in a stage whisper to a question about her whereabouts that she is probably at that moment flying over Newark. One charming musical touch that deserves honorable mention occurs during the duet in “Wunderbar” when Lilli sings the main melody of the overture and act II finale to Johann Strauss Jr.’s
Die Fledermaus
(one of the many operettas Fred and Lilli have doubtless sung together in various small towns) as a counterpoint to the main tune of Porter’s song.

The starting point for the Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974) film adaptation of
Guys and Dolls
was Goldwyn himself who, in the words of his biographer A. Scott Berg, “grew determined to produce
Guys and Dolls
as the ultimate film musical, an epic” and in the end “spent $5.5 million overproducing the movie.”
¹¹
Interestingly, in a career that goes back to the 1910s and includes such memorable films as
Wuthering Heights
(1939) and
The Best Years of Our Lives
(1946),
Guys and Dolls
would be only the second in a group of musical films that concluded his body of work. The first film of this trilogy brought Goldwyn in contact with Frank Loesser on the successful original film musical
Hans Christian Andersen
, starring Danny Kaye, three years earlier. The second musical,
Guys and Dolls
, would also prove to be the penultimate product of Goldwyn’s long career, his seventy-ninth feature film. Four years after
Guys and Dolls
, a huge box office success with the highest earnings of any film in 1956 (more than $13 million in the United States alone), Goldwyn finished his career with his third musical, the commercial and artistic failure,
Porgy and Bess
(discussed in
chapter 8
).

Guys and Dolls
, 1955 film. Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando) and Sarah Brown (Jean Simmons) dancing in Havana.

Goldwyn was famous for discovering and signing talent. In the case of
Guys and Dolls
it was mostly the latter. To complement Loesser and his great hit, Goldwyn turned to Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993), who not long before had gained distinction as the first to win a double pair of Academy Awards for both directing and screenwriting in two successive years
A Letter to Three Wives
(1949) and
All About Eve
(1950). Mankiewicz, who had never directed or written a musical, wanted to convert Abe Burrows’s libretto into more of a play. In preparation for the transfer from stage to film Mankiewicz even wrote a new script that could stand alone without music. He made his goals and intentions clear in a letter to Goldwyn: “My primary, almost only, objective in this writing has been to tell the story as warmly and humanly as possible—and to characterize our four principals as fully as if their story were going to be told in purely dramatic terms.”
¹²
Although Mankiewicz tried to flesh out Sarah Brown’s character, especially in the extended scene in Havana, Cuba, the movie ultimately falls short because the experienced screenwriter, but musical theater novice, failed to grasp how the subtleties of music, at least in Loesser’s songs, effectively removed the need to transform a musical into a play. Joseph Kerman’s famous principle that “the music is the drama” was not a concept that Mankiewicz believed or understood.