MUSICALS, include humor, music, dancing and a story.
One of the reasons I love musicals, is the use of beautiful background scenery. Dancers seem to perform as if there is a live audience watching.
This is my version of DANCING WITH THE STARS.
Bing Crosby (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 19770. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century.
Crosby won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Father Chuck O'Malley in the film,Going My Way(1944)and was nominated for his reprise of the role in, The Bells of St. Mary's the next year, becoming the first of four actors to be nominated twice for playing the same character. Crosby is one of the 22 people to have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Blue Skies(1946). Cast: Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Joan Caulfield, Olga San Juan and Billy De Wolfe, with music, lyrics and story by Irving Berlin. Most of the songs came from earlier works. The film was directed by Stuart Heisler and produced by Sol C. Siegel.
As in Holiday Inn (1942), the film is designed to showcase the songs of Irving Berlin. The plot, which is presented in a series of flashbacks with Astaire as narrator, telling the story how Crosby won the heart of the leading lady through songs and dance numbers. I thought it was a very colorful and entertaining musical.
"All by Myself": Crosby performs this 1921 song to Caulfield, who harmonizes with him in the closing phrases.
"I'll See You In Cuba": A 1920 song performed as a duet by Crosby and San Juan.
"A Couple Of Song And Dance Men": A comic song and dance duet for Astaire and Crosby.
Fred Astaire and a chorus of Fred Astaires in "Puttin' on the Ritz" Although Berlin's 1930 song was originally written for vaudevillian Harry Richman, it has become associated with Astaire. In this tap solo with cane, which was widely billed as "Astaire's last dance". The routine was produced after the rest of the film had been completed, and according to Astaire, it took "five weeks of back-breaking physical work" to prepare.
"You Keep Coming Back Like a Song": Crosby performs this number.
"Blue Skies": Crosby sings this ballad, to Caulfield.
"How Deep Is The Ocean?": Crosby performs this 1932 song, backed by a female quartet.
"(Running Around In Circles) Getting Nowhere": Crosby sings this specially composed song to his daughter, played by Karolyn Grimes.
Fun Facts:
Draper was fired over either his impatience with Joan Caulfield, who was not a professional dancer, or his stutter. He was replaced by Fred Astaire.
This marked the second time that Irving Berlin's song "White Christmas" was used in a film.
Mark Sandrich, who directed several of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films, was the original director, but he died suddenly of a heart attack.
This was Paramount's biggest hit of 1946.
Fred Astaire, then 47 years old, planned to retire as a leading man with this film. He was planning to only work with his dance studios and breed racehorses. The film Easter Parade (1948), having recently lost Gene Kelly to a broken ankle, brought Astaire out of retirement. He danced on film and on television until he was nearly 70.
One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.
After Fred Astaire announced his retirement after completing Blue Skies (1946), New York's Paramount Theater generated a petition of 10,000 names to persuade him to come out of retirement.
Pennies from Heaven (1936) Musical/comedy. Based on the novel The Peacock Feather by Katherine Leslie Moore. Columbia hired Jo Swerling to adapt into the script Pennies from Heaven (1936). (Swerling would later write Leave Her to Heaven, 1945, and It's a Wonderful Life, 1946.) Cast: Bing Crosby, Madge Evans, Edith Fellows, Louis Armstrong and Donald Meek.
The story begins when, Crosby's character is asked by a condemned prisoner, to take a letter to his little girl when he gets out of jail, and to move her and her grandfather into the old family home. Which they believe to be haunted. Crosby comes up with the idea to turn the house into a restaurant/nightclub called the Haunted House Cafe.
Susan Sprague works for the county welfare department and it is her job to see that Patsy goes to school or she have will go to an orphanage. Larry tries to help Gramps out with Patsy to save her from the orphanage. To make the money needed for a restaurant license, Larry takes a job at the circus, but is injured and ends up in the hospital. When Gramps comes to let him know that the county has taken Patsy. Larry believes Susan went behind his back and placed Patsy in the orphanage. You will have to watch to see what happens to Patsy's future.
FUN FACT:
Louis Armstrong was hired for this movie at Bing Crosby's insistence. Crosby also insisted that Armstrong receive prominent billing, the first time a black actor shared top billing with white actors in a major release film.
"Pennies From Heaven"
(1936)
Music by Arthur Johnston
Lyrics by Johnny Burke
Played during the opening credits and often as background music
Sung by Bing Crosby
"Skeleton in the Closet"
(1936)
Music by Arthur Johnston
Lyrics by Johnny Burke
Performed by Louis Armstrong with Louis Armstrong and His Band
"So Do I"
(1936)
Music by Arthur Johnston
Lyrics by Johnny Burke
Sung by Bing Crosby and
Danced by Edith Fellows
Reprised by Crosby at the orphanage and in the New York City montage
"One Two Button Your Shoe"
(1936)
Music by Arthur Johnston
Lyrics by Johnny Burke
Sung by Bing Crosby at the orphanage
Reprised by a marching band
"Let's Call a Heart a Heart"
(1936)
Music by Arthur Johnston
Lyrics by Johnny Burke
Sung by Bing Crosby with Louis Armstrong and His Band
Played also as background music
"Old MacDonald Had a Farm"
(uncredited)
Traditional children's song
Sung by Bing Crosby, Edith Fellows and Donald Meek on the hay wagon
