LOVERLY: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MY FAIR LADY

LOVERLY: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MY FAIR LADY. Dominic McHugh. Oxford University Press; 2012.

This scholarly tome looks at virtually every aspect of the world-famous and wonderful musical, Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady, from George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion to the Broadway (and subsequent) productions of the musical, the acclaimed motion picture version, and reassessments of the show over the decades. McHugh goes into various attempts to go against Shaw and turn the piece into a conventional romance, and how librettist and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner did his best to avoid that situation. The book goes into casting choices and decisions -- Mary Martin was for a long time the front-runner to play Eliza Doolittle -- as well as rehearsal problems and how they were dealt with. McHugh also scrutinizes and analyzes the music (unless you're a music student these passages may be a little dry, of course) and cites composer Frederick Loewe's influences. McHugh hardly leaves a stone unturned, although I must say I was given pause when he describes "On the Street Where You Live" -- in my opinion a beautiful and soaringly romantic number and a major highlight of the score -- as "superficially pretty, but a little dull and insipid [like Freddy]." Dull and insipid? To each his own. I also recommend The Musical Worlds of Lerner and Loewe.

Verdict: More than anyone could possibly want to know about My Fair Lady. ***. 

GIGI

Louis Jourdan and Leslie Caron

GIGI (1958). Director: Vincente Minelli.

Gigi (Leslie Caron) is a young French girl (of about sixteen?) who is being raised by her grandmother, Madame Alvarez (Hermione Gingold). She is also taught lessons in deportment by her Aunt Alicia (Isabel Jeans), as it seems the girl is being groomed to be the courtesan to some wealthy man to avoid a life of comparative poverty. Gigi's mother is not in the picture.

The title tune: "What miracle has made you the way you are?

Gigi and her grandmother have been befriended by wealthy sugar manufacturer and playboy Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan), who thinks Gigi is just a charming child until ... Could Gaston be the man who will wind up keeping Gigi, but will the independent-minded Gigi even go for this arrangement? Gigi first came to life in a 1944 novella by the French writer Colette. It was made into a film in 1949 in France, and then turned into a 1951 Broadway play starring Audrey Hepburn. Lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe turned it into a musical film in 1958 (not bringing it to Broadway until 1973),

"I Remember It Well"

Leslie Caron made the perfect choice to play the lead role. (Hepburn was a little too old at that time and certainly not French.) One could argue that the storyline is slight, an inferior variation on Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady, and there are other things you could quibble about, but it has a pleasant score and is extremely well-acted by Caron and everyone else. This, of course, includes Maurice Chevalier [Love Me Tonight], who plays Gaston's uncle, and gets to sing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore," as well as the amusing and sentimental number "I Remember It Well," a duet with Gingold. Arguably the two most memorable songs are the bouncy "The Night They Invented Champagne" and the soaring title tune sung by Gaston. Eva Gabor [The Mad Magician] and Jacques Bergerac [Twist of Fate] are fun as Gaston's lover Liane, and her skating instructor, with whom she has the audacity to have a romantic rendezvous.

Despite the satisfying ending are there perhaps undertones of misogyny behind the ever-so-polite and genteel goings-on? One doesn't think too much of the grandmother and aunt who expect Gigi to be, in some ways, little better than a prostitute. And Gaston, a wealthy man in Paris who sings about being eternally bored, is not very sympathetic. Rich and living in Paris -- and bored! What the f--k is his problem?  Like many early CinemaScope movies there is a scarcity of close-ups that might pull the viewer more into the action and the movie is only on occasion cinematic. And what on earth was Minelli thinking in the second scene at Maxim's where he allows an anxious extra -- a lady at the next table -- to repeatedly distract the audience's attention away from Gaston and Gigi? Still Gigi is entertaining and classy, and if you can ignore its hokier aspects you may find it charming. It won the Best Picture Oscar.

Verdict: A sugary confection. ***1/2. 

THE MUSICAL WORLDS OF LERNER AND LOEWE

THE MUSICAL WORLDS OF LERNER AND LOEWE. Gene Lees. University of Nebraska Press; 2005.

Lyricist/librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe combined their talents to come up with such memorable shows and films as Paint Your Wagon, Brigadoon, My Fair Lady, Camelot, and Gigi, which was written for the screen before becoming a Broadway show many years later. Lerner also did the screenplays for An American in Paris and Royal Wedding (he also contributed lyrics to Burton Lane's music), in addition to his screenplays for the often mediocre film versions of the Broadway shows. Lerner's other collaborators included the aforementioned Lane [On a Clear Day You Can See Forever] and Charles Strouse, resulting in Dance a Little Closer, which, unfortunately, opened and closed on the same night. If you're expecting a dry recitation of the credits of the two gentlemen, you'll be pleasantly surprised. because this book is a dishy, intensely readable, even suspenseful look at the work and often messy private lives of these two musical giants. Loewe had only one marriage and divorce, but after his retirement spent his days with a variety of young women, while Lerner was married and divorced over and over again. Lerner became one of the patients of a Dr. Feelgood who gave him injections that negatively affected his health, work and thought processes. Such composers as Richard Rodgers  had to throw up their hands waiting impatiently for Lerner to deliver material, although Lerner managed to complete one work with Leonard Bernstein, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Frederick "Fritz" Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner

The Musical Worlds of Lerner and Loewe goes behind the scenes, often in great detail, exposing the struggles to get Rex Harrison to deliver -- which he eventually did -- for My Fair Lady, the battles over Camelot, and the disastrous making of the godawful film version of Paint Your Wagon, among other highlights. Lerner's eight marriages are scrutinized, including his union to the only ex-wife he hated and wouldn't even name in his memoirs, Micheline, and his apparently very happy marriage to the much-younger and talented Liz Robertson, who starred in the ill-fated Dance a Little Closer and was with him until his death. (While Lees provides backstage info on that production, I do wish he had spent more time discussing the inclusion of the gay male couple who want to get married -- decades before marriage equality -- making Dance a Little Closer ahead of its time in that regard at least. This situation gets no less than three different song numbers, but Lees dismisses the "homosexual airline employees who want to get married" -- along with all of the other characters it must be noted --  as being unlikable.)  Lees makes the point that Lerner, being born into a wealthy family, had no true understanding of people from the lower classes. He also correctly surmises that, sadly, the days of Lerner and Loewe (the latter with his rich Viennese-influenced scores) are over, with Broadway now given over to pop and rock musicals and Disney movie adaptations, more's the pity. Some of  Lees' opinions can be surprising, especially when he states that Paint Your Wagon has only one memorable song, "They Call the Wind Mariah," (ignoring "Wand'rin Star" and others, although, oddly he does mention the beautiful "Another Autumn" later on in the book).

Verdict: A must-read for Broadway, music, and film fans. ***1/2. 

BRIGADOON (1966)

Peter Falk, Robert Goulet and Sally Ann Howes

BRIGADOON (1966 ABC television special). Produced and directed by Fielder Cook. Music and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederic Loewe.

In this television adaptation of the famous Broadway musical, American friends Tommy Albright (Robert Goulet) and Jeff Douglas (Peter Falk) stumble upon an 18th century Scottish village that only appears every hundred years (the logistics of this are impossible to really figure out so don't even try). Jean (Linda Howe) has decided to marry Charlie (Thomas Carlisle) over Harry (Edward Villella), putting him in a funk that leads to tragedy. While milkmaid Meg (Marlyn Mason) pitches woo at Jeff, the also unmarried Fiona (Sally Ann Howes) develops feelings for Tommy and vice versa. But is Tommy willing to make what might seem to any reasonable person an insane sacrifice for love that can never be rescinded? Even this shortened and adapted version of Lerner's libretto gets across the intense romance (in every sense of the word) of the story, as well as both the poetic and nightmarish aspects of Brigadoon and the curse that hangs over it. Peter Falk [Luv] is terrific in this, but thank goodness he doesn't have to do any singing. That's left to Howes [Dead of Night], who has a beautiful voice, and Carlisle, who is also a splendid singer. Goulet has a fine voice as well, but although he appeared in Broadway shows (such as Lerner and Loewe's Camelot), he sings in a typically sixties pop style that doesn't quite ruin such superb numbers as "Almost Like Being in Love" and "There But for You Go I" but doesn't compliment them, either. (The original Broadway cast album has the best versions of these songs.) Marlyn Mason [That Certain Summer] is excellent as Meg, and does a fine rendition of "My Mother's Wedding Day." Interestingly the last two lines of the song -- "It was a mess beyond compare/I ought to know 'cause I was there" -- which were cut from the original cast album were reinstated for this TV special. Ballet dancer Edward Villella does a very nice job as the jilted Harry and dances a sword dance as well. The Lerner and Loewe score is one of their finest, and can almost be described as American opera. The 1957 feature film was a big disappointment.

Verdict: Interesting adaptation of this enduring and beautiful musical. ***.

MY FAIR LADY

MY FAIR LADY (1964). Director: George Cukor.

George Cukor, primarily concerned with actors and not with being "cinematic," may not have been the best choice to helm the film adaptation of the smash Lerner and Loewe musical, but the film is still so entertaining and well-acted that there seems little point in complaining about its static, theatrical aspects. Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, and Stanley Holloway are all superb, and they are bolstered by an outstanding supporting cast made up of the likes of Gladys Cooper as Henry Higgins' mother (wish we saw more of her) -- Cooper, of course, was the dragon-mother of Now, Voyager -- Wilfrid Hyde-White as Pickering; Mona Washbourne as the housekeeper Mrs. Pearce; and Theodore Bikel as that "ruder pest" from Budapest, Zoltan Karpathy etc. This is probably one of the few (only?) film adaptations of a Broadway musical that includes all of the songs (the adaptation of Fanny dropped the songs entirely, although you at least heard the music in the background). Great story, great score, great entertainment. Eliza's haunting refrain of "what's to become of me?' echoes -- along with a great sense of loneliness -- as she returns to the place where she once sold flowers and none of her old companions fully recognize her. You really can't go home again.

Verdict: Loverly. ***1/2.