SONDHEIM ON FILM

Sondheim as film critic

By Andrcic Milner

tephen Sondheim's love of movies is well established. In 2003, he was invited to be a guest director at the Telluride Film Festival, and he's contributed lists of favorite underrated films for Facets MultiMedia's video catalogs. Less widely known is that, in his mid-20s, Sondheim contributed reviews to Films in Review, a venerable film magazine, constituting the most substantial prose he has published to date. (Founded in 1909 by the Nalfonal Board of Review of Motion Pictures, Films in Review was for decades the primary cinema magazine in the United States, offering serious analyses of movies and directors as opposed to fan-magazine gossip. FIR currently exists only on the Internet as a webzine). After 50 years, Sondheim's writing remains uncannily relevant. His opinions on performing sound as uncompromising a half-century ago as they do today. Even more prescient is Sondheim's lengthy letter to the editor, reprinted here in full, regarding the magazine's two rave reviews for Kiss Me, Kate, where the 23-year-old explains what he demands from the musical genre. Several years before his Broadway debut in West Side Story, it's intriguing to see what Sondheim thought of two future collaborators, Leonard Bernstein and set designer Oliver Smith.

Letter to the Editor (April 1954)

After reading Robert Kass' enthusiistic review of Kiss Me, Kate I was tempted o write a vitriolic refutation. But, because >f my innate modesty, warm heart, and he cheerful glow of Christmas goodvill, I refrained. But because of Gordon iendricks' enthusiastic follow-up to 'obert Kass' enthusiastic review, and ecause baleful New York rancor has ^placed Christmas cheer, I shall now >tfly.

Kiss Me, Kate is a static, boring, badly written and directed musical. The opening sequence, in which "Cole Porter" is depicted as a winking and grimacing fugitive from low comedy, is tasteless and unnecessary. "So In Love" is a perfect example of the Hollywood musical's ceaseless battle against imagination the leading lady takes one quick look at that song, sings it brijliantly with an overdose of tremolo, and then praises the composer unreservedly. The treatment of the other numbers is not much better. For the most part, they are visually static (the camera seems to be nailed down); mugged ("I Hate Men," "Why Can't You Behave," "Wunderbar," etc.); sung badly ([Kathryn] Grayson's lyrics are unintelligible half the time, and even [Howard] Keel buries most of "Padua"); and staged unimaginatively (most of the movement is copied from the stage version on the mistaken theory that what is effective in one medium must be effective in another). The book, which was just passable on Broadway, is embarrassing on the screen where the actors (except for Ann Miller) are not as plausible, personable, or well-directed. In sum, Kiss Me, Kate is a badly photographed stage play with all of the play's flaws and few of its virtues, and with no cinematic style. I think it strange indeed that it has been so widely acclaimed as "fresh and imaginative." Yet this proves nothing except that I disagree with Messrs. Kass and Hendricks et al. That is hardly enough reason to write a letter. But there is a further point which disturbs me: Usually, when a film is nothing more than a photographed play, FIR reviewers are quick to point out the fact. But for some reason these same reviewers, when confronted with a musical, treat it much more kindly than a nonmusical. I suspect there is amused condescension behind it all: musicals are "light," "just entertainment," "not to be taken seriously," and are therefore

viewed with the kind of faintly smiling tolerance that adults often impose on children. The possibilities of screen musicals have barely been touched. Hollywood is still ten years behind Broadway (I say ten because Oklahoma, the first attempt at complete musical integration, appeared in 1943). The Kelly-DonenFreed-Edens contingent at Metro has been putting a tentative foot in the right direction ever since On the Town (a far fitter example of cinematic musical adaptation than Kiss Me, Kate). But caution still confines the best of them. Another direction that of the simple, 'Ultimate" integrated musical has been opened up by the Walters-Knopf UK. But otherwise today's musicals are bright Technicolor versions of dull colorless stories. The numbers are dragged in for no reason and little rhyme; the screenplays are carelessly and insipidly written and self-consciously seem to be hurrying along in embarrassment until the next song-cue. I am by no means advocating opera or an operatic approach. I am only urging an emulation of, say, Rodgers and Hammerstein, who have proved that what is new can also be popular. I realize that pictures like Kiss Me, Kate and the Esther Williams confections have wide appeal and a vast market, but why encourage and overpraise them? They're going to make money anyway. Encourage instead the really fresh experiments like Lili, which Metro was so ashamed of they didn't want to release it, and which largely because of critical encouragement has run over a year in New York. The potentialities of film musicals are limitless; songs can enhance, support and contribute character to a story. They can accomplish things that words cannot in an emotionally direct way. They can add a third dimension without glasses or wide screens.

The Sondht'itii

! sionally too relaxed. Williams doesn't project as well as he did on the stage, where he was freer and funnier. The first minute of Dial Mfor 1 Anthony Dawson, as the hired killer Murder is characteristic Hitchcock: a with a sleazy air of shiftiness, comes off dolly shot toward a quiet, respectable best. London house and into the living room One final accolade for Hitchcock: he where Grace Kelly is decorously kissing succeeds in explaining the title, which her husband (Ray Milland) "good mornwas never clear on the stage. ing" over breakfast; the morning paper informs her of the arrival in England of an American mystery-writer (Robert Review: On the Waterfront Cummings); a few shots of Cummings (August/September 1954) stepping off the boat and into a taxi; [...] Leaning heavily on sensationalthen the same dolly shot as at first, ism, the film is a medley of items from toward the same, respectable London the Warner Brothers' gangland pictures house, this time into the living room of the '30s, brought up to date. Many where Grace Kelly is indecorously kissingredients of the classic pattern are ing her lover (Mr. Cummings) "good present: 1) the individual (Marlon afternoon" over cocktails. Brando) against the mob (Lee J. Cobb What might have taken other direcand Rod Steiger); 2) the understanding tors 15 minutes and 15 pages of dialogue, parish priest who smokes cigarettes and Hitchcock accomplished in one minute drinks beer (Karl Maiden); 3) the wan, and no dialogue. A basic situation is set naive daughter of the poor, torn up, pointedly and humorously, and the between her desires for revenge and for audience is already speculating about its love (Eva Marie Saint); 4) the symbol of consequences. the tough guy's inner gentleness (it used Dial Mfor Murder was originally a to be violins, in this film it's pigeons); TV show by Frederick Knott, a British etc. writer who transformed it into a stage Yet, because of the inventive success and then into this film. The play direction of Elia Kazan, the formula was a smooth example of slick, cerebral becomes fresh, the cliches become melodrama with one moment of viopower, the expected becomes surprising. lence. The rest was all bright talk the Never has Kazan's gift for handling pitting of wits by the husband whose actors been more evident, nowhere his attempted murder of his wife backfires extreme individual style been more into a tricky situation wherein he almost effective. Group scenes teem with succeeds in getting her hanged, and a movement and life; love scenes are shrewd but seemingly bumbling police presented in huge head-on close-ups and off-balance silhouettes. The tiny inspector (John Williams in both play gesture, the pause and repetition in and movie). The play had the advantage speech, the searching camera that misses of Maurice Evans' ability to communinothing Kazan uses these to illumine cate to the audience an enthusiasm for as well as to startle. His ability to murder. dramatize subtle and intense relationOn the screen, Dial M is still all ships results in profoundly revealing bright talk, though Hitchcock makes the scenes e.g., the hesitant showdown one moment of violence satisfyingly between Brando and his brother in a gory. But the essential situation is too taxicab and Brando's shy and embarrassed static for a movie and Dial M will chiefly invitation to the girl to have a beer. appeal to patient audiences. [...] The casting of Brando and Steiger as The color is good but unnecessary, brothers is a stroke of genius, since and black-and-white, by avoiding pretriSteiger, new to movies but familiar on ness, would have been less distracting TV, has for years been using many of and probably more suspenseful. Brando's mannerisms [...] The performances by Milland, Miss The performances of Steiger and Kelly, and Cummings are good but occa-

Review: Dial M for Murder (June/July 1954)

Miss Saint are keystones in the film's credibility. Cobb shouts too much, but the mobility of his face and body makes most actors seem like robots. Brando is Brando, which in this case is good. On the Waterfront is also notable for two firsts: the use of the phrase "go to hell," and the use of a score by Leonard Bernstein. Both are effective, especially the latter, which is spare, and in its quieter moments, quite moving. [...]

Review: Rear Window (October 1954)

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is his best picture in many years. It is more comic, though less sardonic, than Strangers on a Train, and in its characterizations is as pointed as Shadow of a Doubt. It is less subtle than that masterwork, but has the same kind of serious moral undercurrent. [...] Tension is almost non-existent in the first hour and a half of Rear Window, but the last 20 minutes are as exciting as anything Hitchcock has ever done. And what Rear Window lacks in suspense, it more than makes up for in humor. Hitchcock's distinction as a director is not his ability to create suspense, as is commonly supposed. Other directors Reed, Welles, Wilder are equally adept with suspense. Hitchcock's brilliance is his wit, and his flawless technique for using wit to support and counterpoint suspense. [...] [Jimmy] Stewart's performance could hardly be improved upon, and he even succeeds in projecting an almost old-maidish nosiness without losing audience sympathy. Thelma Ritter's deadpan realism is well used in the part of a gore-happy nurse. Wendell Corey as the detective must suggest two opposed concepts simultaneously, and does so with skill. [...] But Rear Window's acting honors belong to Grace Kelly, who more than justifies the publicity build-up she's been getting. Beautiful, well-bred, exuding subdued sex, she blithely projects charm that is never pretentious and sophistication that is never phoney ...
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The Sondheirn Review

Review: Guys and Dolls

^ The two major flaws in Guys and Dolls are Oliver Smith's sets and Frank Sinatra's performance. Samuel Goldwyn (producer), Joseph Mankiewicz (authordirector), and Mr. Smith apparently couldn't make up their minds whether the scenery should be realistic or stylized. As a result, they have the disadvantages of both, and these disadvantages work against the very special nature of Runyonesque story-telling. For example, the backdrop of Times Square, the picture's most important setting, is a prettified, cute, two-dimensional melange of signboards and neons that looks like a New Yorker cover, whereas the subway station entrances are as real as the rush-hour. Because of this lack of solidified style, the film lacks one of the basic elements of the stage version's charm a feeling of New York. [...]

(December 1955)

Sinatra ambles through his role (Nathan Detroit) as though he were about to laugh aj the jokes in the script. He has none of the sob in the voice, and the incipient ulcer in the stomach, that the part requires and Sam Levene supplied so hilariously on the stage. Sinatra sings on pitch, but colorlessly; Levene sang offpitch, but acted while he sang. Sinatra's lackadaisical performance, his careless and left-handed attempt at characterization, not only harm the picture immeasurably, but indicate an alarming lack of professionality. [...] Vivian Elaine repeats her comic stage triumph as Miss Adelaide, "the wellknown fiancee," who has been engaged for 14 years and is disconsolately resigned to being married on "the twelfth of never" (the quotations are two lines from the play that Mankiewicz unfortunately omitted). Marlon Brando is too young for the smooth, experienced gambler Sky Masterson, but he acts with personability

and conviction (almost too much conviction for a musical) and sings pleasantly. Jean Simmons is surprisingly appealing as Sarah Brown, a part with almost no potential, and her Havana dance is a high point of the picture. She and Brando are unpleasantly off-pitch in their first duet ("I'll Know"), and she sings a little too shrilly, in "If I Were a Bell," but her charm is immense. Both Simmons and Brando could give lessons to most of the more polished voices in Hollywood on how to ad a lyric. [...] Guys and Dolls is much more successful as a screen transference of a stage musical than Oklahoma!, Brigadoon and Kiss Me, Kate, but is not so successful as Cover Girl, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Singin' in the Rain, all of which were written for the screen. <3> Andrew Milner reviews books and CDs for Philadelphia City Paper; he contributed an essay to Stephen Sondheim: A Casebook.

Night Music inspiration on DVD

Review by Eric Grade

miles of a Summer Night was a hugely important film in Ingmar Bergman's career, despite or maybe because of differing radically in tone from almost any of his other films. This spry, effervescent farce vaulted him into the international spotlight, paved the way for one of the richest careers in film history and inspired Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler to write A Little Night Music (which debuted in 1973, not long after the appearance of The Last of Sheila). Smiles (now out on DVD) is one of the few cases I can think of where the source material is more, not less, dowj?beat than the subsequent musical. Madame Armfeldt doesn't die in the film, and the climactic duel is played more for laughs. Some of the more intriguing changes can be seen in how Sondheim transformed monologues into duets. Bergman has Fredrik contribute both the fawning and the damning com-

ments about Anne that would fuel his and Desiree's "You Must Meet My Wife," and Charlotte's deeply moving ambivalence toward her husband would conjoin with Anne's own feelings in the sublime "Every Day a Little Death." The outrageously nubile Petra (Harriet Andersson), who has clearly seen her share of "giggles in the grass," is much more of a presence in the film; the sage Madame Armfeldt (Naima Wifstrand), by comparison, has only two scenes. (As in A Little Night Music, these scenes are among the strongest, and Wheeler was wise to use several chunks verbatim in his libretto.) But while Sondheim and Wheeler focused on the views of sex as seen by the young, the old and everyone in between, Bergman pays particular attention to Anne, Fredrik's child bride. There's a marvelous sequence in which she interacts in rapid succession with Petra, the cook, Henrik, Fredrik and Charlotte, briefly trying on every conceivable level of experience and feminin-

ity, from shrieking schoolgirl to mother to wife and finally back to the confused, duty-bound young woman she is. Bergman provided all the laughs and piercing emotional insight you could ask for in a romantic farce. All this summer night needed was a little music. 0 Eric Grade is an associate editor o/TSR and works on the editorial staff of TV Guide.

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The Sondheim