The Furniture: Design Inspires Van Gogh in Lust for Life

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber...

Kirk Douglas nearly drove himself over the edge while filming Lust for Life, inhabiting the character of Vincent van Gogh with a tenacity akin to the Method. The result was an Oscar nomination, likely the closest he ever came to a win. His emotionally volatile performance lends real weight to the oft-sensationalized biography of history’s most famously mad artist.

But the success of Lust for Life isn’t owed entirely to Douglas. Director Vincente Minnelli was a perfect match for the material, which necessitates a balance between the beauty that Van Gogh saw in the world and the feverish passion that drove him away from it. The Oscar-nominated production design team, led by frequent Minnelli collaborator Cedric Gibbons, offer a rich vision of the French countryside that serves as an essential counterpoint to Douglas’s madness.

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Judy by the Numbers: "The Man That Got Away"

When Judy Garland and George Cukor made A Star Is Born for Warner Bros, both Judy and the industry were changing. The Paramount Case and The De Havilland ruling had weakened the paternalistic power of the studio system by forcing studios to sell their theaters and release their stars, while widescreen technology changed the shape of the movies. Similarly, Judy's previously squeaky-clean MGM image had transformed. In the early 1950s, she divorced Vincente Minnelli, married Sidney Luft, survived a suicide attempt and rehab and launched a successful concert series and an even more successful concert album. It was no coincidence that in the middle of this maelstrom Judy Garland's comeback vehicle was a remake of a 1937 Technicolor classic.

The Movie: A Star is Born (Warner Bros 1954)
The Songwriter: Harold Arlen (music), Ira Gershwin (lyrics)
The Players: Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson, Charles Bickford, directed by George Cukor

I'm breaking with tradition slightly, but today I want to show you three versions of Judy's famous version of "The Man That Got Away."

In the first, the restaurant is too brightly lit with too many patrons, though the number more closely resembles the MGM Judy Garland numbers that inspired it.

In the second clip, colors and lighting are more muted, but Judy blends in to the background and the band in her brown dress.

The final version is the one used in the film - Judy stands almost alone in the spotlight, belting a mournful song and somehow rejoicing in it.

It's easy to read into the success of A Star Is Born in tapping into Judy Garland's star persona. With her private life so publically on display, the story of Judy Garland lays neatly on top of the story of Vicky Lester as a meta text: when Vicky battles Norman's alcoholism, Judy could be fighting her own demons externalized. However, these three alternate takes show how carefully this image is constructed from well-placed lights, new staging, and one incredible performance.

No matter how iconic the scene was, as a movie A Star is Born was not the comeback vehicle Judy had hoped. Warner Bros heavily edited the film for runtime, and ultimately the movie didn't make much of a profit. At the 1955 Academy Awards, Judy Garland lost the Oscar to Grace Kelly. Judy would stay away from movies for another 5 years after that, but her career was about to get much more interesting.

Judy by the Numbers: "Get Happy"

In 'Judy by the Numbers' Anne Marie looks back at Garland's career through key songs

By the time Judy Garland turned 28, her entire adult life and her entire star persona had been a product of MGM. In 1950, Judy Garland's image - as cultivated by MGM and the Freed Unit - was of an exuberant talent, small in stature but big in heart and voice; a buoyant box office sensation. However, the reality was different. In the 13 months between the release of In The Good Old Summertime and Summer Stock, Judy Garland fought drug addiction, rehab, an increasingly strained marriage, an unsympathetic studio, and a suicide attempt that made headlines worldwide. Filmed before her attempt but released two months after it, Summer Stock is a record of the conflict between the image of Judy Garland and the reality of Frances Gumm.

The Movie: Summer Stock (1950)
The Songwriters: Harold Arlen (music), Mack Gordon (lyrics)
The Players: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Eddie Bracken, Gloria de Haven, directed by Charles Walters 

The Story: "Get Happy" is the number that shouldn't be from the movie that shouldn't exist. Neither Judy Garland nor Gene Kelly was supposed to be in Summer Stock.  Judy had just dropped from Annie Get Your Gun and entered rehab, and Gene's star was rising with Arthur Freed. However, Joe Pasternak coaxed them into another picture, a return to form based on the old Rooney/Garland "let's put on a show!" model. Though it was intended to be a triumphant return, ultimately Judy lags through much of Summer Stock, which needs her energy to carry through a plodding plot. She looks and sounds a little slower, though sources disagree on why - either she was recovering from rehab or further spiralling into addiction. 

In this context - and even out of it - "Get Happy" is a shock. Filmed months later at Judy's insistence, with design and directorial help from husband Vincente Minnelli, the number shows Judy shining like she hasn't in a while. She's sexy, she's witty, she's beaming, and she's urbane in a way that sticks out from her nostalgia-laced image. Even without the maelstrom of malady surrounding her, this would be a defining number for Judy. With this backstory, "Get Happy" takes on another meaning too - the "fix." If Summer Stock is the movie where Judy Garland's facade slipped, then "Get Happy" is the number that restored it, at least temporarily. Don't worry about the exhaustion! Judy's back, and better than ever. Forget your troubles!

The fix was a public one only. Though Summer Stock was a success, Judy and MGM parted ways in 1951. Divorced from the studio that had raised her, Judy Garland would find the 1950s to be both happy and heartbreaking. She would live out private struggles in public, and her image would change from child star to musical maiden to something more complicated. For some stars, the tragedies of their lives become as image-defining as their successes.

Judy by the Numbers: "I Love A Piano"

Anne Marie is tracking Judy Garland's career through musical numbers... 

Easter Parade has becomea perrenial holiday favorite. Inevitably, the lighthearted musical appears on TCM Easter Sunday marathons, sandwiched between Ben Hur (1959) and King of Kings (1961). However, despite the annual dominance of this Judy Garland/Irving Berlin musical, the movie nearly stopped before it began. A combination of bad luck, souring relationships, and weak ankles nearly prevented the production from getting off the ground. Fans of the film have one person to thank for its resurrection: Fred Astaire.

The Movie: Easter Parade (1948)
The Songwriter: Irving Berlin (music & lyrics)
The Players: Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Ann Miller, Peter Lawford, directed by Charles Walters

The Story: The production of Easter Parade was plagued from the start. Though Irving Berlin enthusiastically agreed to expand upon his hit Holiday Inn for a new Judy Garland vehicle, the rest of the cast and crew was harder to secure. Originally, MGM sought to replicate the Freed unit partnerships that had already been proven box office success: Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, directed by Vincente Minnelli. But Judy and Minnelli were fighting, so she demanded that he be replaced with Charles Walters, a choreographer-turned-director on his second feature film. Then, Kelly broke his ankle playing football. Then Cyd Charisse broke her ankle. With two of three stars out of commission and a neophyte director at the helm, Easter Parade needed a big win. Then out of retirement waltzed Fred Astaire.

While the replacement of Gene Kelly with Fred Astaire saved the film, it also provides a window into how well-tailored numbers were tailored to their musical stars. Though "I Love A Piano" starts with the now old familiar standby of Judy Garland standing by a piano and singing to her beaux, it also moves into the high-energy, bright dancing style of Gene Kelly. Adapted to Fred Astaire, this dancing style loses none of its energy, but shows hints of ballroom influence in the lifts and mirrored taps of two partners arm in arm. Astaire doesn't simply stand in for Kelly; he makes the film his own. As a result, Astaire's retirement would turn out to be temporary; he kept on dancing for another 20 years.

Judy by the Numbers: "Be A Clown"

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:

1. It's the first A Movie appearance of the Nicholas Brothers
2. Vincente Minnelli makes really beautiful color movies
3. 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.