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Given that it's only July and this weekend brings us the third Zac Efron movie of the year (Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates), perhaps it's time for a Posterized for America's favorite twinkly-eyed twentysomething heartthrob?
Though people are touchy lately about acknowledgement of star beauty, some stars more than obviously lean into it. Efron clearly understands where his plentiful bread has been buttered, regularly getting his shirt off sometimes even as setpiece plot points (Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising). And he's increasingly becoming a living example of unrealistic body expectations. If women can feel bad about their bodies via supermodel objectification, so can men via superheroes...or actors with superhero bodies! Low self-esteem for everyone, hooray!
Happily though, Efron is also talented. He's proved to be a deft comic performer and there's still the possibility of more musicals in his future (he's been offered a role in Hugh Jackman's P.T. Barnum musical) so the immediate future looks bright.
Good lord but 2016 has been rough on the showbiz community. It's as if the Grim Reaper is trying to meet some new end days quota starting with entertainers.
John McMartin has passed away at 86 from cancer. While the name might not wring a bell to everyone surely the face will. In his 60 year career he worked across all three actor's mediums regularly: stage, tv, and film...
Anne Marie is tracking Judy Garland's career through musical numbers...
There's a musical number I should be showing you for this week's post. It's the last musical duet between Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland captured on film, as part of her guest appearance in the Rogers & Hart biopic Words and Music. It's a fun but slightly awkward number. Despite the joy of seeing Mickey & Judy reunited after half a decade apart, there's also a sense that they're almost too mature for their mugging. They're still sweet together, but the frenetic energy of youth has been replaced by practice. Contemporary audience must have agreed to some extent, since the Judy Garland number that made a hit off this movie was not her nostalgic reunion but rather a signature brassy belter.
The Movie:Words and Music (MGM, 1948) The Songwriter: Richard Rogers (music) and Lorenz Hart (lyrics) The Players: Mickey Rooney, Tom Drake, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Janet Leigh directed by Norman Taurog
The Story: Full confession: I have a selfish reason for choosing "Johnny One Note" this week. It has been (improbably) the most requested song outside of "Over The Rainbow." It even tops "The Man That Got Away"! The Rogers & Hart belter may have been cut from the movie verson of Babes in Arms, but nine years later it landed Judy another solid hit. And why not? It's Judy at her best - big presence, big joy, big voice!
Though Judy probably didn't know it at the time, 1948 was her zenith at MGM. Her relationship with MGM was souring rapidly. The story would become familiar too quickly: marriage on the rocks, trouble with pills, and too many missed shoot days. Over the next three years, she would make only three more films with MGM and the Freed Unit. Her talent was undeniable, but soon her problems were as well.
On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1461 Edward IV is crowned King of England. Over a dozen actors will play him from silent film to TV miniseries including Roy Dotrice (The Wars of the Roses), John Wood (Richard III), and Max Irons (The White Queen) but despite awards-voters fetish for royalty porn this role has never resulted in an Oscar, Tony or Emmy nomination. 1838 Queen Victoria is crowned. Emily Blunt reenacts the ascenscion for Young Victoria (2009) receiving her third of five Golden Globe nominations (she's won once). Oscar, though, has yet to notice her gifts. When Oscar, when? What do you require?...
Just as there are films that shine bright in a star's history, there are also films whose histories are controversial at best. The Pirate is an odd contradiction of a movie. As one of Judy Garland's most expensive films, it was also her first MGM bust. Released two years after childrearing had put Judy on hiatus, it was nonetheless stuck in preproduction for five years before that. While it landed Judy another hit song, the knockoff written four years later would become a classic. Though The Pirate was the loudest, brightest movie Judy had made to date, its most interesting sequences were left on the cutting room floor. What to do with The Pirate?
The Movie: The Pirate (1948, MGM) The Songwriter: Cole Porter The Players: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, The Nicholas Brothers, directed by Vincente Minnelli
The Story: The Pirate must have seemed cursed from the start. By the time Vincente Minnelli started filming, it had already been stuck in pre-production hell since 1943. This meant that even though Minnelli tried to keep costs down, enough money had already been sunk into it that the budget ballooned to almost $5 million. Judy wasn't helping either - she reported sick to work 99 times. Then there was the issue of reshoots. The song "Voodoo" apparently enraged Mayer so much that he ordered the nitrate negative burned. The ending was a mess and had to be reshot. Then that ending got the boot in the South because it featured black men tapdancing
All of these production problems took their toll, and the resulting movie is a little bit of a beautiful mess. Nonetheless, there are three reasons to see this movie:
It's the first A Movie appearance of the Nicholas Brothers
Vincente Minnelli makes really beautiful color movies
Judy Garland throws china like a red-haired Bucky Walters
However, the scene that would make the film famous was "Be A Clown." As previously mentioned, it would become a modest hit for Judy, but the real hit came four years later when Judy's friend Donald O'Connor sang "Make 'Em Laugh" in Singin' in the Rain. Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed whipped up the song while trying to find a number for O'Connor. Luckily for them, Cole Porter was under MGM contract and wasn't feeling particularly litigious. While Judy would continue to sing the original throughout her career, ultimately Singin' in the Rain made Freed's version more popular. Even great talent couldn't keep The Pirate from sinking.
Friday, July 8, 2016 at 10:36AM 
Given that it's only July and this weekend brings us the third Zac Efron movie of the year (Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates), perhaps it's time for a Posterized for America's favorite twinkly-eyed twentysomething heartthrob?
