Lena Horne

  • Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)

    Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2021) Film history tells us that the classical movie musical was losing steam by the mid-to-late 1950s, and you can almost sense this exhaustion at work in Meet Me in Las Vegas, a lavish MGM musical that took an interest in that new(ish) American playground — Las Vegas, conveniently close enough to Hollywood as to allow for extensive location shooting. The plot premise has something to do with a gambling rancher (Dan Dailey) falling for a lucky ballerina (Cyd Charisse, in one of the biggest roles of her career), but one senses that the point of the film was to use the flashy lights and growing reputation of Las Vegas as a backdrop to a movie musical. There are plenty of small appearances and cameos from people such as Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin (anticipating the Brat Pack), as well as Peter Lorre and Tony Martin (who wasn’t a relation to Dean, but was married to Charisse). It also features Lena Horne’s last film appearance as a singing performer, which further buries the end of an era. Still, the film’s intended showcase sequence is a rather entertaining parody of “Frankie and Johnny” — even in a career full of highlights, this feels like an anthology piece designed for Charisse. For her, Meet Me in Las Vegas as a whole is one of her best and comes toward the end of her best run of movies as a headliner (the superior Silk Stockings would soon follow, but also mark the end of her MGM dancing/acting period): she gets some decent dance numbers, a substantial dramatic part and a character suited for her not-always-warm persona. If you get away from Charisse’s performance and the musical numbers (which are fewer in numbers than you’d expect from a 1950s MGM musical), the film doesn’t quite fare as well — while the atmosphere of circa-1956 Las Vegas is interesting in its own right and sometimes gorgeously captured, the film has frequent lulls and a finale that doesn’t quite hit the mark. As I said — the MGM musical was a specific kind of film, and it wasn’t necessarily well suited to tackling an environment such as Las Vegas. Director Roy Rowland was nearing the end of his career at the time, and so was the “Freed Unit” (of which Meet Me in Las Vegas was not a production). You can certainly see the film as stuck between two sensibilities — the earlier musical style and the younger brashness of the Vegas environment, whose musical style was not necessarily that of musicals.   Comparisons with Ocean’s Eleven, three years later, are most instructive in seeing how even the musical genre changed in order to accommodate Vegas.

  • Words and Music (1948)

    Words and Music (1948)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2021) Hollywood based many musicals on the life of Broadway composers—you wouldn’t believe how many. On one level, the attraction is easy to understand: it’s a made-to-order way to insert musical numbers as part of the show, the rights to the music come in as a bundle, and audiences of the time presumably had fond memories of the tunes and their context. A modern equivalent would be the musical jukebox-musical biopic, which is alive and doing very well. On the other hand, Hollywood often mismanaged the material: The lives of the composers were often scrubbed of any detail that wouldn’t be acceptable by the Production Code (and considering the higher-than-average proportion of homosexuals as Broadway creatives, there’s an entire aspect of early Twentieth-century pop culture that simply isn’t covered in its Hollywood dramatizations). Nowadays, “Rodgers and Hammerstein” is a legendary duo of composers, but in 1948 the audience knew the duo as a still-fresh replacement for “Rodgers and Hart,” and Hart’s story is the one we see in Words and Music. Played by then former boy matinee idol Mickey Rooney, Hart’s character is not faithfully represented at all: Alcoholism and depression? Yes. Homosexuality? Again, no. (Which led to some hilarious reviews telling viewers that the film wasn’t accurate, but the reviews themselves were unable to specify why.)  Generally speaking, Words and Music is not all that interesting in its first half, as both the successes and the tragedy ramp up quite a bit in the second half once the duo makes their way to Hollywood and Hart’s self-destructive actions reach a tragic ending. From a musical fan’s perspective, the film (from the fabled Freed unit) is far more interesting at the edges than in the core of its story, because that’s where we find short appearances by MGM players such as Gene Kelly (dancing with Vera-Ellen in—yes—a gangster ballet), Judy Garland, Cyd Charisse and, far more strikingly, Lena Horne — Her first number “Where or When” is a sedate reminder about her talents as a signer, but then she starts tearing into “The Lady is a Tramp” and we know it’s the film’s single best number. Meanwhile, the central story of Hart and Rodgers unfolds along predictable lines all the way to the tragic ending. Rooney is not bad as Hart, with the movie making good use of his small stature in portraying a man complexed by his own short height. Words and Music is not near the top of MGM’s best musicals, and its appeal can be found in either appreciating the contributions of the bit players, or seeing this as the cleaned-up prequel to the far better-remembered Rodgers and Hammestein partnership. Either way, it’s a movie that is perhaps best defined by factors other than its main premise, which is a bit odd but not uncharacteristic of other second-tier MGM musicals at the time.

  • How it Feels to be Free (2021)

    How it Feels to be Free (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2021) One of the unexpected benefits of a deep dive in Hollywood history is knowing what people are talking about when they bring up half-forgotten, underappreciated or ill-served artists of the past. When How it Feels to be Free set out to shine a spotlight on six black female entertainers of previous generations, I was on semi-solid ground: I don’t need to be told about Lena Horne, Nina Simone and Pam Grier’s greatness, and I was at least able to nod in recognition at the praise for Abbey Lincoln, Diahann Carroll and Cicely Tyson. Six homages in two hours is a lot, but director Yoruba Richen manages to be both specific and sweeping, talking directly about each one of its six entertainers and still using them as a group to make larger points about discrimination, representation and inspiration. Historical footage is blended with contemporary interviews with a decent roster of stars (Halle Berry, Lena Waithe, Samuel L. Jackson, Lena Waithe, co-producer Alicia Keys, etc.) and heirs. Part of the reason to watch the film is getting a reminder about why these women were so fantastic, part of it is digging deeper into some biographies and discovering equally great people (including getting a crash course in Lincoln’s activism, Carroll’s groundbreaking work in TV and Tyson’s own brand of race-aware role selection). The film works itself up to a powerful argument in favour of diversity on the production side of the entertainment world, pointing out that some stories will never be told accurately if they don’t come from those different perspectives. I enjoyed the result quite a bit, and not just in the scope of the film itself: In between watching How it Feels to be Free and writing this review, Cicely Tyson died and the loss hit me harder than merely being told that she was the star of Sounder. It was important to capture why she was remarkable that before it was too late.

  • Two Girls and a Sailor (1944)

    Two Girls and a Sailor (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2020) A surprising number of WW2 MGM musicals were made primarily to be shown to troops. As such, they were collages of artists in the studio’s stable, with a plot optimized to get as many numbers on-screen as possible without it seeming like a clip show. Two Girls and a Sailor borrows a plot lifted from The Broadway Melody and updates it with elements familiar to viewers of Hollywood Canteen and Stage Door Canteen. Here, we have two sisters headed to Broadway, but falling into all sorts of romantic and professional complications. But the script (nominated for an Academy Award, amazingly enough) is really a backdrop to the musical numbers once the film gets underway. Everyone will have their favourites – for myself, the number one performance remains Virginia O’Brien’s hilarious rendition of “Take it Easy,” taking her unflappable comic singing gimmick to another level by miming nearly falling asleep during her performance. Close seconds include a capture of Jimmy Durante singing his famous “Inka Dinka Doo,” Gracie Allen having fun with “Concerto for index Finger” (it’s exactly what it claims to be) and the superb Lena Horne crooning “Paper Doll” like only she could. Two Girls and a Sailor works better considered as an anthology film of the time’s entertainers coming in for a number or two. It’s fun, albeit best considered in bit pieces rather than a full course.

  • Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)

    Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2020) Nominally a biopic about the life of composer Jerome Kern, Till the Clouds Roll By is perhaps best seen as an anthology showcase for MGM’s roster of musical talents. The story itself is perfunctory, largely fictional, and revolves around Kern’s best-remembered Show Boat. (Amusingly enough, Till the Clouds Roll By begins with a twenty-minute recreation of several of Show Boat’s set-pieces, years before MGM’s official adaptation—which also featured Kathryn Grayson in the same role.) There’s some additional resonance knowing that Kern died during filming—it’s too bad that his Hollywood years were scarcely covered here, the climax of the fictionalized story having occurred earlier. But that overall plot quickly gets forgiven and trivialized when you get down to the meat of the film, which is a series of nearly thirty musical numbers (some of them very short) featuring some very well-known names and fan favourites. The film gets off to a very strong start during its Show Boat sequence with performances by Kathryn Grayson, the always-funny Virginia O’Brien and a spellbinding Lena Horne. Later highlights include a surprisingly saucy Angela Lansbury, Dinah Shore, a trio of numbers by Judy Garland, Lucille Bremer with Van Johnson, a very short but still impressive dance number with Cyd Charisse, and a final rendition of “Ol’ Man River” by none other than a young Frank Sinatra. When you have such a strong cast of performers, the plot itself becomes inconsequential. While Till the Clouds Roll By doesn’t manage to create the alchemy required to become a great movie musical, it’s a strong collection of material and performers, and it will be best appreciated by those with some understanding (and appreciation) for the roster of mid-1940s MGM musical performers. [December 2021: Now that I’ve seen the 1951 version of Show Boat and read about its production, Till the Clouds Roll By becomes a precious document: a glimpse into an alternate reality where Lena Horne would have played the part that was so well suited to her rather than Ava Gardner.]

  • Cabin in the Sky (1943)

    Cabin in the Sky (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) What’s historically important about Cabin in the Sky is that it was one of the very few black-dominated musicals at a time when major film studios were reluctant to even put black performers on-screen at all. The story is a religious-themed (but funny) parable about God and the devil battling it out over a man’s soul, but the film exists for the decent musical numbers, showing a very different rhythm than other musical comedies of the time. Clearly, the reason to see the film is for Lena Horne as a sexy seductress… whew! This being said, she’s not the star here: Ethel Waters has more to do (musical wise) and deserves the spotlight. Elsewhere in the cast, Louis Armstrong shows up playing the trumpet. Cabin in the Sky is billed as Vincente Minelli’s first solo directorial effort even if some of the musical numbers are directed by Busby Berkeley. The worth of the performances that the film captures easily outweighs the sometimes-racist plot elements (and the other assorted stereotypes, such as facing off the mammy against the town harlot). It’s easy to make comparisons between this and Stormy Weather, as both were rare examples of black-cast MGM musicals in successive years—Cabin in the Sky is stronger on plot, but weaker in just about everything else, most crucially dancing and music. Still, both make a compelling case for a parallel universe in which black cinema from studios would be kick-started decades before the blaxploitation era—and it’s hard not to notice how these musicals play on an entirely different and more uplifting register.

  • I Dood It (1943)

    I Dood It (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) One box-office formula is as old as time: funny man plus attractive woman. In I Dood It, it’s then-popular comedian Red Skelton playing a humble pants presser, paired with the supremely gifted Eleanor Powell as a Broadway star. Through various shenanigans and misunderstandings, the two end up married, leading to further confusion and set-pieces. An entertaining blend of comedy, dancing and singing, I Dood It is not exactly a film with a strong plot: What is in place is just enough to get us from one sequence to another, and while the dancing and singing are fine, the comedy bits tend to be stretched just a bit too long—if you’re dubious about Skelton’s brand of comedy, some passages based on his verbal humour are borderline unbearable. Meanwhile, the physical comedy bits (including a sequence featuring a passed-out Powell manhandled by Skelton) are a bit better—Skelton had some help from gagman Buster Keaton in conceiving the physical comedy, as the film is a partial remake of Spite Marriage. Powell does quite well in her role, with two impressive original dance numbers (a Western-themed one at the beginning of the film, then a Polynesian one near the two-third mark) with a final reprise from Born to Dance that’s telegraphed by having the protagonist describe his ideal dance sequence in suspiciously familiar terms for Powell fans. While some moments drag on too long, I can’t fault I Dood It for those—one of the highlights of the film has the story stop cold in order to have the great Hazel Scott deliver a dazzling piano number, immediately followed by Lena Horne headlining a rather amusing “Fall of Jericho” number. Who can complain about that? Wartime topical content includes a saboteur subplot that provides just enough drama to prop up the last act, and a rather amusing precision that a French poodle is a “Free French Poodle” (as opposed to a “Vichy French Poodle.”) It’s not particularly well directed by Vincente Minelli (although there is a flourish during the piano and dance sequence), who would go on to better things. While I Dood It starts slowly and doesn’t amount to much more than a collection of scenes, it’s worth it for the Powell, Scott and Horne trio.

  • Swing Fever (1943)

    Swing Fever (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) The history of film is rife with unlikely movie stars, and you can watch Swing Fever for one particularly striking example. In many ways, it’s a rather silly musical comedy film in which a country man with supernatural “evil eye” powers comes to the city to sell a music piece, but gets embroiled into a story mixing swing music and boxing promoters. That’s not a bad excuse to see a few swing numbers and some middle-of-the-road comedy. As a wartime film, it’s big on supporting the troops and not challenging anything and featuring simple musical numbers. The rather wonderful Lena Horne plays herself in a disconnected number that is shot like a bluesy music video. But the big surprise here for uninitiated viewers such as myself is the lead actor, playing a character so nebbish that he would be featured as a minor comic character in other movies. But in Swing Fever, he takes centre stage complete with heroics, superpowers and getting the blonde girl at the end. Well, that actor turns out to be Kay Kyser, a rather popular band leader who was under contract for MGM at the time. The star power explains some of the leading role indulgences—in playing his band leader persona, however, much of the effect is lost on twenty-first century viewers. Still, it’s entertaining enough—the mixture of swing music and manly boxing (with some assorted criminal shenanigans) ensured that it was the closest thing to an all-quadrant crowd-pleaser for audiences at the time. Blandly-titled Swing Fever isn’t a great or overly memorable film (although the Horne number is worth a mention), but it’s entertaining enough, and an interesting representative of your wholly average early-1940s movie musical.

  • Stormy Weather (1943)

    Stormy Weather (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) Due to an unfortunate lengthy delay between first watching Stormy Weather and publishing this review, I’m cheating a bit here—I’ve seen the film about twice-and-a-half in the past two years, and I’m not going to pretend that this is a “first viewing” review. Simply put, I love Stormy Weather. It may not be as well known as other movies of the time, but it has something very distinct running for it: It’s one of the rare all-black films made by Hollywood studios in the 1940s, and it doesn’t hold back giving the star treatment to its lead performer Lena Horne. Given my enduring crush on the timelessly gorgeous Horne, it makes perfect sense that I’d like Stormy Weather as much as I did: She get the primary role (allowing her to show her acting talents far more than the walk-on singing performances she got in other musicals), it treated with reverence by the other characters, is shot in a luminous fashion by the best cinematographers that the studio could put on the project and she gets a few terrific numbers along the way (most notably the title song). But wait, because there’s so much more to Stormy Weather than a showcase for Horne: You have Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in a leading role, you have Cab Calloway showing everyone how it’s done, and as a perfect climax to the film you have an anthology-worthy dance performance from the Nicholas Brothers that’s worth seeing again and again. (Not less an authority than Fred Astaire famously called it the greatest movie musical number he had ever seen.)  Less famously, you have plenty of dance and song numbers by talented black performers who have full license to be at their best. (One of the numbers features black performers doing blackface, which is the kind of thing that marks it as a product of its time, but also make for interesting reading.) The all-black cast shows a very different vision of life in 1943, and it’s immensely regrettable that only Cabin in the Sky (also 1943) would be made in the same style. As mentioned before, I’ve watched Stormy Weather two-and-a-half times already (up to five times for the Nicholas Brothers sequence) and it gets better every time. An utterly essential musical and one I don’t get tired of recommending.

  • That’s Entertainment! III (1994)

    That’s Entertainment! III (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2019) Third instalment in the now-classic anthology series, That’s Entertainment! III is farther away from its 1950ish source material than its predecessors and consequently much less reverential. It innovates by featuring behind-the-scenes footage, cut numbers (some of them better than those that replaced them), a focus on lesser-known stars (such as my favourites Ann Miller and Cyd Charisse—who looks amazing in her sixties as she presents a segment of the film) and some attention to non-white performers (with Lena Horne even acknowledging that Hollywood wasn’t ready for them). Under this new focus, there are plenty of things to wow about: Eleanor Powell’s dancing remains as astonishing at the techniques used to film it, a wonderful ditty sung by Horne in a bathtub, and a split-screen comparison of a Fred Astaire routine performed several weeks apart shows the amazing control that he had over his performances. On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of the stupidly racist Judy Garland bit “I’m an Indian Too,” which should have stayed buried in the vaults. As with the other films of the series, That’s Entertainment! III can be revisited at several stages in a classic movie cinephile’s evolution: As an introduction to some terrific movies and performers, as an exploration of a few familiar favourites, or as delightful complements to one’s existing knowledge of the era. No matter how you choose to see it, it’s a great anthology movie, and it’s well-worth watching alongside the others.