From the 1950s: There's No Business Like Show Business

1954 Musical

From 20th Century Fox

Directed by Walter Lang

Starring

Ethel Merman

Donald O'Connor

Marilyn Monroe

Dan Dailey

Mitzi Gaynor

Johnnie Ray

Richard Eastham

Hugh O'Brian

Full disclosure.  It's one of my favorite musicals of the 1950s. I've lost count how many times I've seen it and I've seen only the finale even more.  It's not a perfect film but it is an utterly enjoyable one with its cast of colorful musical stars, the wonders of Cinemascope and featuring a familiar Irving Berlin songbook.  

From around the time that movie musicals became popular, there was American songwriter Irving Berlin.  There are 29 movies devoted to his music and this is the last of them, coming out two months after White Christmas, also from Berlin.  His presence, by the way, was strongly felt on all his productions, much more so than the average songwriter-composer.  If he weren't on a film set with his eagle eye, then there were the many stipulations in his contract.

When this story idea was first tossed around, it was decided to title it after one of Berlin's most famous songs, one that was used four years earlier in Annie Get Your Gun.  That must have played hell with theater owners who were always clamoring for shorter titles to fit on their marquees. 

This is a Berlin musical that was written directly for the screen by Phoebe and Henry Ephron (who passed their writing genes onto daughter Nora).  No one was greatly concerned with the story.  The focus would be the stars and the music.  

Everyone also knew the production numbers would be very time-consuming and very expensive.  So the decision was made early on to film entirely on Fox soundstages.  The story would be simple, uncomplicated and oh-so familiar.  Yeah, it's the old story of a family working its way into top billing on the vaudeville circuit and singing their little hearts out along the way while coping with the missteps.  It was presented well in Cagney's Yankee Doodle Dandy and not as well in thousands of others.  At the same time, it was easy for Fox to pick this particular familiar plot because Berlin songfests often centered on some form of show business because, all together now,  there's no business like show business.

The Ephrons' tale opens in 1919 and focuses on Molly and Terry Donahue (Merman and Dailey), a singing-dancing-razzamatazz married couple playing one vaudeville gig after another.  They were called The Donahues and then The Three, Four and Five Donahues as Steve (Ray), Katie (Gaynor) and Tim (O'Connor) are born and join the act.  

By the way, all of the musical numbers were filmed first and the actors must have been exhausted since there were so many.  I remember once someone carping about perhaps too many numbers.  What...?!?!  Well, I know Irving (we're on a first-name basis now) agreed with me because he wasn't about to let any of his music get short-changed because of something silly like a plot.

Before the children arrive we are treated to Merman and Dailey singing and dancing to When That Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam, A Simple Melody, You'd Be Surprised and A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody.  In the latter Merman dons a blonde wig and there's a chorus of leggy blonde showgirls.  There's much comedy in the number including one where Merman get dumped on her derriere.  There can be no doubt these two were well-paired.  They look like they're having fun. 

After the three kids arrive and have performed for awhile, Merman decides they need to live in a regular home in a nice neighborhood and the kids must regularly attend school.  This showbiz stuff can wait.

When the kids grow up and become O'Connor, Gaynor and Ray, more dramatics are introduced into the story but not before the five of them do a lively rendition of Alexander's Ragtime Band.  At a family party Gaynor and O'Connor do an encore of Alabam, dressed and sounding like Daily and Merman, and Ray has his one solo, If You Believe.

The drama starts when Ray decides he wants to become a priest, thoroughly surprising and upsetting his parents.  Merman is further annoyed when O'Connor takes up with a sexy hatcheck girl (Monroe playing Vicky) who has some serious designs on a showbiz career.  She takes to the stage, while O'Connor watches and drools, and sings After You Get What You Want You Don't Want It exciting a Broadway producer (Eastham) who is there to evaluate her for one of his shows. 

The song is one of a few written for this film.  We don't know if the song was written before Monroe joined the cast or if it was the other way around.  Should she have been cast before he wrote the song, then he, of course, would have tailored it to her knowing that she would sing it.  It's then that I think of the title and wonder if Berlin didn't tailor that to the actress as well.  Watching her perform the number says it all.

Monroe's Vicky is a decent, although ambitious, young woman and O'Connor falls for her.  The Donahues travel to Florida to do nightclub work and find Monroe also on the bill.  When it is discovered that both she and the family intend to perform Heat Wave separately, O'Connor arranges it so Monroe can do it and his family will find something else to do.  Merman steams.

In some ways Heat Wave is the number that everyone talked about.  Newsman and television host Ed Sullivan said it was the most flagrant violation of good taste that I have ever witnessed.  The censors wanted some lyrics altered and Monroe's undulations toned down.   Regardless, the island scenario with the actress in a black bra, huge hat and big, open skirt and near-naked young men cavorting about was enough to give America a heat wave.  It reeked of sex.  Watching it off stage, Merman steams a little more.

Back on the Great White Way. Monroe gets parts in her show for O'Connor and Gaynor.  Together the three of them perform Lazy, another seductive number with MM singing while lounging on a long couch and the other two dancing around her and performing a comedy routine.

Monroe's success begins to eclipse O'Connor's and at the same time he thinks she may be messing around with Eastham (she's not) and he goes off his noodle.  After Dailey tries to slap some sense in him, O'Connor vanishes.  After a period of time, Dailey goes off to look for him.  No one realizes O'Connor has joined the Navy.

Then we get to the Hippodrome, a New York auditorium that is closing its doors for good.  Various acts are asked to contribute to a farewell show and Merman alone has been coaxed to sing her showstopper, There's No Business Like Show Business.

In the dressing room before her number, she is joined by Gaynor and Monroe (also on the bill).  Daughter wants mother to stop being so stubborn and to accept Monroe for the good woman she is.  She says the three of them all have something in common...  they all love O'Connor.  Merman will mend her ways.  Gaynor will watch Merman's performance from the wings with Ray.

O'Connor just happens to show up and silently stands behind his siblings as they watch their mother.  When Gaynor turns around and sees him, she bawls.  It looked as though the guys were a little weepy too.  (They weren't the only ones.)  Merman spots O'Connor while she's still singing, letting out a gasp.  When the song concludes she rushes offstage and they all have a good cry.  When O'Connor asks where his father is, a voice says here, son, and we see that Dailey just happens to arrive back as well.  (Let's assume both men had heard of the Hippodrome show.)

Waiting to shoot the big finale

And finally...

The harried stage manager comes backstage to the Donahues. The audience is clapping since no one is on stage.  Mrs. Donahue, he says, we're waiting for you to lead us into the finale.  Dailey blurts out hold on and takes to the stage and warm applause.

He tells the audience that the Hippodrome is the last place to feature the 5 Donahues and the others are all backstage.  He says they want to sing one last time the last song they sang at the theater.  The other four sashay on stage and break into a rousing chorus of Alexander's Ragtime Band.  They disappear down some steps at the front of the stage as the song ends.

The curtain opens.  Singing Berlin's great anthem to the show business community are scores and scores of colorfully-costumed cowboys and tumblers and wrestlers and clowns and roustabouts that move the show at dawn.  They criss-cross the stage waving flags and banners.  At the back of the large set, high atop the stairs, come the six stars,  arms interlocked as they join in the song, walking down the stairs.  As the song is coming to its conclusion, they have seamlessly walked onto a hydraulic lift that raises them into the air.  The end.  

For a movie that set out to raise the spirits of the public, as all musicals are given to do, it was not an especially happy time for a number of the participants.

The role of a sexy showgirl fit MM to a tee but she was tired of playing them.  She'd been at Fox for seven years and she still thought they didn't understand her or showed any respect.  And when she thought that, she became a most troublesome contractee.  She caused an international sensation in three recent films, Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire.  She thought she'd grown into a proven commodity and saw it as her divine right to expect good scripts.

She was annoyed they forced her to make River of No Return but when they attempted to put her into a second western, Heller in Pink Tights, about a traveling acting troupe, she said hell no.  (The film was made in 1960 with a blonde Sophia Loren.)  She took off with new husband Joe DiMaggio.

When she returned they told her they'd like her for the lead in The Seven Year Itch, to be directed by the esteemed Billy Wilder, and she was ecstatic.  It would come with this teeny little compromise.  She would have to first work on TNBLSB, billed third and in a costarring role rather than the lead.  She freaked out.  Later, when she saw it was inevitable, she made her usual demands and insisted on her team to join the paid parade... acting coach Natasha Lytess, favorite dress designer Billy Travilla (already on the studio payroll, her own makeup artist Whitey Snyder, a dance coach Jack Cole and musical arranger Hal Schaefer.

Fox had originally intended the showgirl role for Sheree North but they later realized MM would help sell the film far more than North would.  So what did they do?  They built up her part, which oddly took our attention off the main stars and focus of the story, and just as in the script, they gave her songs that were originally intended for Merman or others.  And Miss Merman remained an unhappy lady.

Even though she was never the grand dame of movies as she was in the theater, God knows Merman could raise her voice.  And she did.  She also bristled at MM's famous tardiness and like many of MM's costars, she found her acting coach being on the set an affront to all.  Merman knew how to be a professional and many would say Monroe never learned that.

This one always cracked me up.  Merman was fearful that Monroe's many charms would cause no one to pay much attention to Merman (other than her voice, of course).  She went to MM's designer Travilla and asked him to make a special gown that would somehow give the impression that she had a larger bosom than she actually did.  So he designs this hideous thing with wings (wings?) over the top of her cleavage.  The public derision was a hoot.  Here it is... 

 

Interesting and a little fun that Merman's dress is white, Monroe's is blue and Gaynor's red.  It was probably one of those things the patriotic Berlin insisted upon in his contract.  

Merman had been hoping the film would be as successful as her previous Call Me Madam, also costarring O'Connor and also directed by Walter Lang for Fox.  A lady always needs another hit but it was not to be.

She was quieter in this film than she was in most but her strength and resilience never leave her.  Garland (her pal) said there was never a better belter.  Belters, I think, are especially compelling when they are singing songs of triumph and there is no doubt whatsoever that the title song was destined to be an anthem and Merman's signature piece.  Berlin was besotted with the singer and they became life-long friends.  She thought he wrote the songs she was born to belt.  

I didn't come to know Berlin because I knew of Merman.  It was the other way around.  I knew Berlin as a wee lil one because of God Bless America when I noticed others in my family take on a glow as they mentioned he wrote the famous American song.  

MM's new marriage to DiMaggio was starting to unravel during the making of this film.  His legendary jealousy was in full bloom.  He thought his wife was having an affair with the handsome and debonair Jack Cole because she spent so much time with him learning dance moves.  But it was Hal Schaefer, a longtime friend and intimate, with whom she was fooling around.  

O'Connor said that TNBLSB was his favorite film.  Both he and Dailey had something similar here in that they were hoofers who also got to do some dramatics.  O'Connor also loved working with Merman again.  They got on splendidly.  But I suspect his chief reason for favoring this film is he got to romance MM.  I think he was pretty nuts about her.

Let's continue with that thought as we ease into what didn't go well for him.  He and Monroe had no chemistry together.  They each had their own, but together... zip.  As I said in a recent piece on him, she was way too much woman for him.  He looks so young and innocent and she looks so glamorous and worldly.  Merman, by the way, agreed.  He had far more chemistry with Gaynor and that would be proven two years later when they were romantic partners in Anything Goes.

While making the film, O'Connor separated from his wife and she began dating Dailey and they later married.  That must have made  filming interesting.  Though playing father and son, Dailey was only 10 years older than O'Connor.

This has always been one of my favorite Dailey roles.  Again, he showed he was a triple threat with wonderful dancing, a perfectly fine voice and some good drama.  He was a good match for Merman.  I've never read how they got along.

Some critic said Gaynor wriggled and squirmed to the point of embarrassment.  I thought she wriggled and squirmed to the point of making a lot of men wriggle and squirm.  Ah, two such different takes.  

Ray is disappointing.  He had never made a movie and would never make another one.  As a New York singer he'd made a splash three years earlier with his emotional recording of Cry and Fox hoped he might be the movies' new Sinatra.  I always found him to be an acquired taste as a singer and Fox sadly discovered that he could neither dance nor act.  It was decided that he had to have less screen time so some rewriting was quickly scribbled and Ray's character was sent away to become a priest.  It's easy even for an untrained eye to see how awkward he is.

Walter Lang was one of Fox's most reliable directors and he had much experience with musicals.  Like a number of her directors, he was sorely tested by Monroe and her antics.

Robert Alton was the primary choreographer here although there were several.  For the big finale it seems logical that more than one would be involved.  He worked most of his career at MGM but scooted over to Fox especially for this movie.

Leon Shamroy's cinematography was always at the top of its game and he was behind the camera for many of Fox's top films.  Cinemascope, only about a year old when this film was made, elevated Shamroy in his studio's esteem and he would come to make the process his own.

There's no people like show people.

The songwriter and the belter

There's No Business Like Show Business was not a hit with the public or critics.  It returned a small profit but certainly not what the studio anticipated.  MM wasn't surprised.  She always considered it one of her least interesting films and it was unquestionably one of her least important.  Still, there were those two sexy songs.  I've seen it so many times that I certainly know what's wrong with it but I am always entertained.  Despite its poor reception, it has grown in stature over the years and it deserves that.

I've heard critics say... oh its nothing more than a tribute to the music of Irving Berlin.  I agree but the difference is I think that's a good thing.  I don't give a hoot or a holler over its trite story.  That doesn't make the story any more horrible... it only makes it familiar.  The film has both Monroe and Merman, as unalike as two could be, and both are softer here and glorious interpreters of their songs. Three superb dancing stars are on board who responded nicely to splendid choreography.  It has Cinemascope, Technicolor, gorgeous costumes and an array of Berlin's fabulous songs.

Movie musicals changed the year following this film's release. Along came what I call The Big Musicals and by and large that meant the work of Rodgers and Hammerstein.  Their films came from legendary Broadway productions and were highly anticipated. Gaynor would claim one of them as the most famous movie she ever made. 

Take a look at that popular, fabulous finale... one of my favorite musical scenes of all time.

Next posting:

The directors