Carousel – 50th Anniversary Edition (DVD-Video Set)
Picture: B- Sound: B- Extras: B- Film: B-
Maybe the
strangest of all Rodgers & Hammerstein Musicals is Carousel, an adaptation of a much more serious film
by the great Fritz Lang entitled Liliom (1934, included on DVD 2 of this
set) about a man (the title character) who dies in a bank robbery only to be
given a strange second chance to make right in the moral world or burn forever
in Hades. Once again, Lang takes a deep
look at the character of man through Liliom and is the soul redeemable. Liliom turns out to be too set in his rotten
ways and the despair that he cannot change is key to the film and original
Hungarian story.
Well,
there are no bank robberies in the R&H version or in this 1956 Henry King
film version Fox made in their CinemaScope 55 system. It did not do well in its initial release,
but fans of the musical tend to enjoy it and the studio went to great lengths
to restore and clean up (even by manufacturing costly special equipment) from
the original camera materials and the results are pretty good.
Gordon
MacRae is Billy (in a role one-take Frank Sinatra turned down because they though
until the last minute that they would have to shoot two versions of every scene
with one in a 35mm CinemaScope negative (like 65mm and 35mm on Oklahoma!) because they did not have photographic
print reduction technology until the last minute), who just happens to be dead
and in heaven. Then he discovers a
strange clause (in what sounds almost like a deal with the devil) that he can
go back to earth, so he wants to see his old love Julie Jordan, played
charmingly by a young Shirley Jones.
It turns out that instead of some moral dilemma, he
is just a jerk and their relationship could be a case study for a book like The Women Who Love Too Much & The Men
Who Hate Them. She loves him, no
matter what a misogynist he is and the commercial failure of the film is not
simply because it was downbeat, but because it is so blatantly dysfunctional
even for its time and common sense asks us why she would care.
She is more childlike than childish, but for those
who complained about the politics of My Fair Lady, any male/female
problems there are a picnic as compared to this film. Yes, classics like June Is Busting Out All Over, You’ll
Never Walk Alone, Mister Snow, What’s The Use Of Wond’rin’ and
especially If I Loved You, which is
one of the all-time R&H gems. Though
I like the Jones performance, I have to give credit to Barbra Streisand for
such an exceptional performance of the song on her Broadway Album that
it brings out nuance in the song many never considered. It is not in this set.
Cameron
Mitchell, Gene Lockhart, Barbara Ruick, John Dehner and even Richard Deacon are
in the supporting cast with about 100 dancers in the various group sequences,
including non-dancing carousel attendees.
Fox went all out to compete against the other studios and though it is a
flawed film (and premise, with a shaky revision of the classic Hungarian
material), it is a top-rate production.
The kind Hollywood seems unable to even attempt in ambition, despite the
Musical’s slow return. It is worth
seeing for mixed reasons.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.55 X 1 image is one of only two films shot in the
CinemaScope 55 format, which used a 1.33 X 1 block of special 55mm negative
with smaller sprocket holes, then used CinemaScope squeeze lenses to put the
image on the square frame, only to be unsqueezed later. This was Fox’s failed response to Paramount’s
VistaVision format, but the two films that were produced look good. Charles Clarke was a Fox cameraman and had a
challenge on his hands being the first to shoot in this new format. The job is not bad, though there is detail
limits in this transfer I was not expecting, though I bet an HD Blu-ray release
will reveal points a regular DVD cannot show with its 480-lines limit. The Dolby Digital 5.0 comes from the existing
magnetic stereo mixes (whatever survives of and 4-track general release and
premiere-only 6-track mag masters) of the film.
Extras
include feature-length audio commentary by Jones & Nick Redmond, an
isolated music score soundtrack, Sing-A-Long Subtitles, Turns On The Carousel, Vintage Stage Excerpt, "You're A Queer One Julie Jordan"
& "If I Loved You"
Performed by Jan Clayton & John Raitt. The original theatrical trailer, Still
Galleries, Additional Songs: "You're
A Queer One Julie Jordan" performed by Ruick & Jones and "Blow High, Blow Low" performed by
Mitchell & Chorus and Movietone News: "Carousel Opens at NY and
Hollywood in Cinemascope 55" pushing the format in its
brief-but-interesting life.
This set is
also available in a nice new compact DVD collection with all six R&H titles
(eight films in all not including alternate cuts of the main film) in The Rodgers
and Hammerstein Collection Box Set. Like their Mel Brooks Collection (reviewed
elsewhere on this site), the DVDs is thicker regular cases are here in slender
cases (two each!) for The King & I, Oklahoma!, The Sound
of Music, South Pacific, Carousel and State Fair. Our page links to all six reviews at this
link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4547/The+Rodgers+and+Hammerstein+Collection+Box+Set+(The+King+&+I/Oklahoma!/The+Sound+of+Music/South+Pacific/Carousel/State+Fair)
- Nicholas Sheffo
