The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
Anne Marie has been chronicling Judy Garland's career chronologically through musical numbers...
With only two weeks left in the year, how do we cover the five remaining years of Judy Garland's life? I've tried as much as possible to deliver beautiful numbers and biographical details as near as I could verify in between bits of high-spirited hagiography. Unfortunately, the complicated myth built by talent, timing, and Hollywood studios only amplified after her death, making fact and fiction nearly impossible to untangle...
Playbill recently announced that one of our very favorite Oscar nominees/hunks/great actors, Jake Gyllenhaal, will reprise his four-day stint from October as French painter George Seurat in Steven Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with Georgefor an official ten-week Broadway run. Previews begin February 11th.
I was able to catch Jake in the initial staged-concert run of the show, and he’s a sight to behold...
With La La Land, isn't it great to have a musical out in front again this Oscar race, especially one that brings such joy (sideyeing you specifically, Les Miz)? And as Nathaniel pointed out, that shouldn't be taken for granted.
Ten years ago, Dreamgirls was a more traditional genre high, and ulitmately taught us not to get too comfortable with a musical's Oscar chances after it landed that year's highest nomination tally but missed Best Picture and Director. But maybe that miss resulted from voters tiring of a campaign that started a full year before release, and not from the quality of the film.
Anne Marie has been chronicling Judy Garland's career chronologically through musical numbers...
On January 22, 1964, CBS announced the inevitable: The Judy Garland Show would be cancelled after just one season. Though the network stated that the cancellation was so that Judy could spend more time with her family, the subpar ratings and tumultuous backstage difficulties had made the show untenable for the studio. In fact, less than a month after the announcement - after Episode 22 was shot - Judy ended the longest artistic partnership she'd had on the show when she fired Mel Torme. Musical director replaced and show revamped for the fifth time, Judy still ended the series looking and singing like a million bucks.
The Show: The Judy GarlandShow Episode 22 The Songwriters: Charlie Chaplin (original score), John Turner & Geoffrey Parsons The Cast: Judy Garland, directed by Dean Whitmore
The Story: The style the show settled on was one with which Judy was familiar, and which had inspired the series to begin with: the concert. Guests were winnowed down to one or two (or none) per episode, sketches were cut, and instead the series focused on producing mini-concerts beamed directly to American living rooms. No longer needing to memorize lines or force interactions, Judy instead used the format to let her talent and the emotion of the songs carry her away, as she did in this bittersweet version of "Smile." Though the show would not go off the air until late March, it left a lasting impression on fans. A fan-led write-in protest was even started to try to resurrect it. The series had an effect on Judy, as well. With her third marriage and her television career over, Judy turned back to tours to spend time on the two things she loved most: her children, and her fans.
Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 7:33AM 
Anne Marie has been chronicling Judy Garland's career chronologically through musical numbers...
