Month O' Musicals: State Fair

Vital Stats:
Year: 1945
Director: Walter Lang
Stars: Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine, Fay Bainter, Charles Winninger
Choreographer: Hermes Pan
Songwriting: Rodgers & Hammerstein

Summary:
As corny as its Iowa setting, the movie follows the Frake family's trip to their great state's annual fair. Will Father Abel's prize boar Blue Boy win the grand award? Will Mother Melissa's views on liquor affect her chances of winning the mincemeat competition? Will sister Margy hear words that she has never heard from a man she's yet to meet? Will brother Wayne end up with the glamorous singer he meets at the fair or will he return to the girl back home?

Memorable Moments:
The movie has some lovely songs, including "It Might As Well Be Spring", "It's A Grand Night For Singing", and even the silly "All I Owe Ioway". There's also a great bit with Harry Morgan involving Wayne's quest to get even with the guy who cheated him at the ring toss game at the previous year's fair. ("We're having fun here!")

What I love about it:
The pig snorting along to "Our State Fair" is brilliant. I also find rather amusing the scene with Margy's really unromantic boyfriend Harry. But most of all I love watching Dana Andrews. Sometimes my family calls him "that cute little Dana Andrews" just for me. Despite his dubious choice of "bobby locks" as a pet name, he's charming and suave and very watchable as the newspaperman who sets out to investigate Margy. How's this for an invitation: "What'd be wrong with you and me sitting down over there and exchanging our ideas of life over a Coke?... I'm not saying it's a great idea, I'm just asking what's what's bad about it? What could we lose? Let's give it five minutes. What do you say?" What follows? Fun on a roller coaster, of course.

Month O' Musicals: Anchors Aweigh

Vital Stats:
Year: 1945
Director: George Sidney
Stars: Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, Gene Kelly, Jose Iturbi and a very young Dean Stockwell as the runaway child

Summary:
Two sailors on leave ("when they give you leave, you gotta leave") try to help an aspiring singer get an audition at MGM.

Memorable Moments:
Frank Sinatra crooning "I Fall in Love Too Easily" and Gene Kelly dancing with the animated Jerry Mouse. ("Look at me, I'm dancing!")


What I love about it:
The above scenes are great, but I really love the bit where the boys try to scare off a would-be suitor of the girl they're both falling for by singing a funny version of "If You Knew Susie" (with altered lyrics like: "S is for sincerity, which she's got none of...")

Month O' Musicals: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Vital Stats:
Year: 1953
Director: Howard Hawks
Stars: Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn, Elliot Reed, Tommy Noonan

Summary:
Lorelei Lee is engaged to be married to the very rich Gus Esmond. The two plan to sail to France for their wedding, but because his father does not approve of the match, Gus backs out on the trip. Lorelei takes the transatlantic cruise anyway along with best friend and fellow showgirl Dorothy Shaw. Along the way the two get mixed up with an aging millionaire, a detective, a bunch of Olympic athletes, and one diamond tiara.

Memorable Moments:
Best remembered is the iconic number "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend", the anthem of gold-diggers everywhere.


What I love about it:
Dorothy Shaw has got to be the best friend ever. She looks after her somewhat dim companion without ever getting really mad, even when her friend's antics put her in a jam. She never appears jealous or desperate, either, even as a definite non-blonde in a movie that declares men to be partial to fair-haired women.

I attribute this coolness to Jane "I wouldn't believe anything you said if you had it tattooed on your forehead" Russell. She more than holds her own and gets plenty of attention, including keeping to herself a whole pack of Olympic athletes (who, I'm glad to say and thanks to the censors, fortunately have a black stripe on their otherwise nude-colored shorts). She's smart and witty and wonderfully confident, and just as essential to the film as Marilyn.

My retreat

The first days of this New Year, I gave to my private retreat. I hope that my consecration of these few days to the Lord will set the tone of this year. Black Madonna, one of the Marian Valley’s retreat houses provided an almost monastic cell for these few days. I enjoyed having a few days where in a quiet and tranquil setting I could pray the hours, spend a large chunk of time conducting lectio divina and most importantly being absorbed in silence.

Daily Mass and even a common recitation of vespers with one of the Pauline Monks was a great addition to my some what light schedule. Surprisingly the Pauline monks retain there somewhat eastern roots by chanting the office tono recto, very similar to my experience of the Byzantine office.

As St Benedict stresses, the unity of prayer and work, was also a feature of my retreat, thanks in large part to an early morning storm, that allowed a good mornings work of clearing branches.

Surprisingly I experience a quasi spiritual conference, with an Anglican priest, which yields unexpected fruit. I even asked for his blessing, regretting that I didn’t receive his first blessing after his ordination.

Marian Valley is a marvelous place to conduct a retreat, I hearty recommend it.

Our Lady of Jasna Gora , Pray for us.

The New Year

Let's begin the year with a hymn

Veni, creátor Spíritus,
mentes tuórum vísita,
imple supérna grátia,
quæ tu creásti péctora.

Qui díceris Paráclitus,
altíssimi donum Dei,
fons vivus, ignis, cáritas,
et spiritális únctio.

Tu septifórmis múnere,
dígitus patérnæ déxteræ,
tu rite promíssum Patris,
sermóne ditans gúttura.

Accénde lumen sénsibus,
infúnde amórem córdibus,
infírma nostri córporis
virtúte firmans pérpeti.

Hostem repéllas lóngius
pacémque dones prótinus;
ductóre sic te prǽvio
vitémus omne nóxium.

Per Te sciámus da Patrem
noscámus atque Fílium,
teque utriúsque Spíritum
credámus omni témpore.

Deo Patri sit glória,
et Fílio, qui a mórtuis
surréxit, ac Paráclito,
in sæculórum sǽcula. Amen.

Watch this space....

Month O' Musicals: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Vital Stats:
Year: 1954
Director: Stanley Donen
Stars: Howard Keel, Jane Powell, Russ Tamblyn, Julie Newmar (Catwoman in the 1960s Batman), Tommy Rall
Choreographer: Michael Kidd
Lyrics: Johnny Mercer

Summary:
Backwoodsman Adam Pontipee comes into town one day shopping for lard, molasses, chewing tobacco, and something he can't find behind the store counter: a wife. Amazingly enough, he gets a hard-working woman named Milly to agree to marry him, although he fails to mention to her that he has six other scroungy (slummocky, in the version I grew up watching) brothers back home. It's not long before she has them all cleaned up into mighty good-looking boys, ready to catch the eyes of the girls in town. But it's not only the girls' hearts that the brothers end up stealing away.

Memorable Moments:


The choreography really shines in the energetic, acrobatic dance at the barn raising. The tension built up between the brothers and the townsmen as they vie for the girls' attentions climaxes in a pretty funny fight scene.

What I love about it:
The wonderful Johnny Mercer lyrics in songs such as "Bless Yore Beautiful Hide", "Lonesome Polecat" ("Can't make no vows to a herd of cows.") and "Sobbin' Women".

I also find it amusing trying to choose a favorite brother out of the seven. My pick used to be the cute baby brother Gideon, but I'd say now he's just too young for me. Who's left? I find it hard to pine for Adam since he's taken so early in the movie. (Also, despite his nice singing voice, he seems a bit selfish and arrogant.) I'm afraid Benjamin belongs in the pretty but dumb category. Caleb, Daniel and Ephraim all kinda blend together for me -- two of them sport facial hair that is too reminiscently backwoodsy, and the clean-shaven one of the three is rather bland and boring.

My pick would have to be Frank. Although he does seem to have a bit of a temper (mostly seen in his sensitivity to being teased about his name) he's also the best at the handshake-wrestling-on-wood-boards thing. And he's got a chin dimple. I like chin dimples.

January, I dub thee... Month O' Musicals

Let me go on record about this: I am not a winter person. Cold, dark, snow, it's just not my thing. I'd love to spend the season hibernating, but instead I try to get by with fireplaces, hot chocolate, books, and of course, movies. And what type of movie is great for chasing the winter blues away? My vote goes to musicals!

Sure, not every musical tells an altogether happy story. But even in a darker musical, there is still a sense of unreality I find refreshing, cathartic even. (When is the last time you danced out your differences with someone, or put your deepest emotions into rhyming song?) And by and large, musicals are just peppy and silly and fun. If I turn one up loud enough, I can ignore the sound of the wind blowing the snow outside.

Therefore, I declare January to be my Month O' Musicals! My goal is not to create an all-encompassing list of musicals, but instead to look a variety from the genre. I want to watch and post about musicals both old and new, revisiting some favorites and maybe watching a new musical or two.

To start off, here's a scene from Gold Diggers of 1933. In my book, it doesn't get much better than this: crazy choreography by Busby Berkeley, a literal interpretation of the song's title for the costumes, and a super-cute Ginger Rogers inging-say. Here's "We're in the Money":