FOLIO
The vice of procrastination linked with the limited viewing venues in my hometown of St. Augustine made me miss The Greatest Showman on the big screen last year. Finally seeing it on video spurred me to check out two older musicals.
Both older films are, like The Greatest Showman, reputedly musical biographies of entertainers. Unlike P.T. Barnum, though, Jerome Kern and Sigmund Romberg were actual musicians, noted composers in American theater and film in the first half of the 20th century.
Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) is Kern’s story and Deep in My Heart pays tribute to Romberg. MGM excelled in lavish productions, and the films show the glitz and talent with which Tinseltown was brimming.
The films are textbook examples of Hollywood’s cheerful abandonment of truth in service of entertainment lush in music
and dance. These two are woefully short on factual reality.
But ah! The music!
Jerome Kern’s single greatest achievement was Show Boat, which premiered on Broadway in 1927. Clouds Roll By fittingly opens with an 18-minute production montage from that simulated premiere, highlighting songs like “Cotton Blossom,” “Make Believe” (Tony Martin, Kathryn Grayson), “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” (the radiant Lena Horne) and, of course, “Ol’ Man River” (Caleb Peterson).
From there, the 41-year-old Kern (played by 27-year-old Robert Walker) reminisces about his life, particularly his friendship with mentor James Hessler (Emmet Evan “Van” Heflin Jr.) and Hessler’s daughter Sally (Lucille Bremer), neither of whom really existed. Apart from his music, Kern’s life was quite commonplace. One notable event was when he just missed sailing on the Lusitania, sunk by a Nazi U-Boat during WWI.
Dorothy Patrick provides a bit of fictional romance, as Kern’s real-life wife Eva. When Kern was told MGM was going to film his life-story, he reportedly said he wanted to check with his wife about the casting of Robert Walker. She told Jerome to play himself; she’d take Walker.
Kern died as Till the Clouds Roll By was still filming, so the concluding scenes are a montage of individual hits from productions after Show Boat. Performing those are Angela Lansbury, Dinah Shore and Judy Garland, with reprises by Grayson, Martin and Horne. The movie concludes with 31-year-old Frank Sinatra, backed by the MGM orchestra, warbling “Ol’ Man River,” rather a comedown from Caleb Peterson’s opening version of the great song.
Deep in My Heart (’54) has the advantage of Stanley Donen’s (Singin’ in the Rain) direction and a star turn by Jose Ferrer (Oscar-winner for Cyrano De Bergerac three years before). It’s been restored in high-def; it looks as great as it sounds.
The facts of Sigmund Romberg’s life are skewed and arranged to fit his career’s various hit musical numbers. His best achievements came early (The Student Prince, ’24; The Desert Song, ’26).
Romberg’s first marriage is ignored, letting the screenwriters construct a largely fictional courtship of second wife Lillian Harris (Doe Avedon). Though he become identified as a writer of light operettas, among his early successes were jazzy tunes for singer Al Jolson and his ilk.
The marvelous musical numbers are the real stars, though, including a duet by Ferrer and then-wife Rosemary Clooney, and a lively song-and-dance number by Gene Kelly and older brother Fred. Other memorable performers are Vic Damone, Jane Powell, Howard Keel and leggy ladies Ann Miller and Cyd Charisse.
Schmaltzy at times, sentimental at others, both Deep in My Heart and Till the Clouds Roll By are rousing entertainment for lovers of classic MGM musicals and the talented singers and dancers who made them so great.
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