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Einen Jux will er sich machen
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Einen Jux will er sich machen (1842) (He Will Go on a Spree or He'll Have Himself a Good Time), is a three-act musical play, designated as a Posse mit Gesang, by Austrian playwright Johann Nestroy first performed at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on 10 March 1842. The music was by Adolf Müller.
Although about half of Nestroy's works have been revived for the modern German-speaking audience and many are part and parcel of today's Viennese repertoire, few have ever been translated into English, because Nestroy's language is not only stylized and finely graduated Viennese dialect, but also full of multiple puns and local allusions.
Einen Jux will er sich machen is the only one that has become well known to English-speaking theatre-goers. It has become a classic more than once. It was adapted twice by Thornton Wilder, first as The Merchant of Yonkers (1938), then as The Matchmaker (1955), which later became the musical Hello, Dolly!. It also achieved success as the comic masterpiece On the Razzle, which was adapted by Tom Stoppard in 1981. Stoppard claims in his introduction that in most of the dialogues he did not even attempt to translate what Nestroy wrote.
The play itself was adapted from John Oxenford's A Day Well Spent (1835).


Contents  [hide]
1 Roles
2 Synopsis
3 Films
4 References
5 External links

Roles[edit]
Zangler, spice trader in a small town
Marie, his niece and ward
Weinberl, Zangler's apprentice
Christopherl, Zangler's apprentice
Kraps, Zangler's servant
Frau Gertrud, Zangler's housekeeper
Melchior, a lazy servant
August Sonders, Marie's impoverished suitor
Hupfer, a master tailor
Madame Knorr, milliner in Vienna
Frau von Fischer, widow
Fräulein Blumenblatt, Zangler's sister-in-law
Brunninger, merchant
Philippine, milliner
Lisett, Fräulein Blumenblatt's parlour maid
A landlord
A coachman
A guard
Rab, a crook
First waiter
Second waiter
Synopsis[edit]
Weinberl and Christopherl go off to Vienna when they should be looking after Zangler's shop, only to run straight into their boss. (See the plot of 'On the Razzle' for more details.)
Films[edit]
A film entitled Einen Jux will er sich machen was made for television in 1956, directed by Alfred Stöger, with Josef Meinrad as Weinberl, Inge Konradi as Christopherl, Hans Thimig as Kraps, Richard Eybner as Zangerl, Ferdinand Mayerhofer as Melchior, and Gusti Wolf as Marie.[1]
References[edit]
Notes
1.Jump up ^ *Einen Jux will er sich machen at the Internet Movie Database
SourcesBranscombe, Peter (1992), 'Nestroy, Johann Nepomuk' in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie (London) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
Nestroy Centre page on Einen Jux will er sich machen, accessed 21 February 2011
External links[edit]
Einen Jux will er sich machen at the Internet Movie Database
 


Categories: Plays by Johann Nestroy
1842 plays


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The Merchant of Yonkers
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 This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2010)



 First edition (publ . Harper and Brothers)
The Merchant of Yonkers is a play by Thornton Wilder.
John Oxenford's 1835 one-act farce A Day Well Spent had been extended into a full-length play entitled Einen Jux will er sich machen by Austrian playwright Johann Nestroy in 1842. Wilder adapted Nestroy's version into an Americanized comedy entitled The Merchant of Yonkers, which revolves around Horace Vandergelder, a wealthy Yonkers, New York businessman in the market for a wife.
The Broadway production, starring Jane Cowl as Dolly Gallagher Levi and Percy Waram as Vandergelder, and directed by Max Reinhardt, opened on December 28, 1938 at the Guild Theatre, where it ran for 39 performances. The cast also included June Walker and Tom Ewell.
In 1954, at the request of Edinburgh Festival director Tyrone Guthrie, Wilder made what he later termed "minor revisions" to his original script and rechristened the piece The Matchmaker, under which title it was presented in Edinburgh, followed by a West End theatre production in London which opened at Theatre Royal Haymarket on November 4, 1954. An American production of the revised play opened on Broadway on December 5, 1955 with Ruth Gordon as Dolly and had a far more successful run of 486 performances, followed by a motion picture version starring Shirley Booth as Dolly. The Matchmaker later served as the basis for Jerry Herman's 1964 musical hit Hello, Dolly!, running for 2,844 performances.
External links[edit]
Internet Broadway Database listing
Internet Broadway Database listing for The Matchmaker
thorntonwilder.com


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The Matchmaker
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This article is about the play. For other uses, see Matchmaker (disambiguation).


 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2010)
The Matchmaker is a play by Thornton Wilder.
The play has a long and colorful history. John Oxenford's 1835 one-act farce A Day Well Spent had been extended into a full-length play entitled Einen Jux will er sich machen by Austrian playwright Johann Nestroy in 1842. In 1938, Wilder adapted Nestroy's version into an Americanized comedy entitled The Merchant of Yonkers, which attracted the attention of German director Max Reinhardt, who mounted a Broadway production. It was a dismal failure, running for a mere 39 performances.
Fifteen years later, director Tyrone Guthrie expressed interest in a new production of the play, which Wilder extensively rewrote and rechristened The Matchmaker. The most significant change was the expansion of a previously minor character named Dolly Gallagher Levi, who became the play's centerpiece. A widow who brokers marriages and other transactions in Yonkers, New York at the turn of the 20th century, she sets her sights on local merchant Horace Vandergelder, who has hired her to find him a wife. After a series of slapstick situations involving mistaken identities, secret rendezvous behind carefully placed screens, separated lovers, and a trip to night court, everyone finds themselves paired with a perfect match.
The play was a success at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland and at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London's West End before finally opening on Broadway on December 5, 1955 at the Royale Theatre, later transferring to the Booth to complete its run of 486 performances. Ruth Gordon's performance in the title role earned her a Tony Award nomination as Best Actress; Guthrie won as Best Director.
The 1958 film version, adapted by John Michael Hayes and directed by Joseph Anthony, starred Shirley Booth (Come Back, Little Sheba) as Dolly, Anthony Perkins (Psycho) as Cornelius, Shirley MacLaine (Terms of Endearment) as Irene, Paul Ford (The Music Man) as Vandergelder, and Robert Morse reprising his Broadway role as Barnaby.
In 1964, the play enjoyed yet another incarnation when David Merrick, who had produced the 1955 Broadway production, mounted a hugely successful, Tony Award-winning musical version entitled Hello, Dolly!, with a score by Jerry Herman and starring Carol Channing.
A film version of Hello, Dolly! was released in 1969 starring Barbra Streisand in the lead role.
The 1981 Tom Stoppard farce On the Razzle is also based on the same story.
Characters and original Broadway cast[1][edit]
Horace Vandergelder, a Merchant of Yonkers – Loring Smith
Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi, a Friend of Vandergelder's Late Wife – Ruth Gordon
Irene Molloy, a Milliner – Eileen Herlie
Minnie Fay, Mrs. Molloy's Assistant – Rosamund Greenwood
Cornelius Hackl, a Clerk in Vandergelder's Store – Arthur Hill
Barnaby Tucker, an Apprentice in Vandergelder's Store – Robert Morse
Ermengarde, Mr. Vandergelder's niece, whom Ambrose wants to marry — Prunella Scales
Miss Flora Van Husen, a Friend of Vandergelder's Late Wife – Esme Church
Malachi Stack – Patrick McAlinney
Ambrose Kemper, an Artist – Alexander Davion
Gertrude, Vandergelder's Housekeeper – Charity Grace
Miss Van Husen's Cook – Christine Thomas
Rudolf, a Waiter – William Lanteau
Joe Scanlon, a Barber – Philip Leeds
August, a Waiter – John Mulligan
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "The Matchmaker". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 2 December 2010.
External links[edit]
Internet Broadway Database listing
'The Matchmaker' Plot Summary and Critical Analysis; by The Thornton Wilder Society


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The Matchmaker (1958 film)
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The Matchmaker
Matchmaker 1958 poster.jpg
One of theatrical release posters

Directed by
Joseph Anthony
Produced by
Don Hartman
Written by
Thornton Wilder (play)
John Michael Hayes(screenplay)
Starring
Shirley Booth
Anthony Perkins
Shirley MacLaine
Paul Ford
Robert Morse
Music by
Adolph Deutsch
Cinematography
Charles Lang
Edited by
Howard A. Smith
Distributed by
Paramount Pictures
Release dates
1958
Running time
101 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
This article is about the 1958 film. For other uses, see Matchmaker (disambiguation).
The Matchmaker is a 1958 American comedy film directed by Joseph Anthony. The screenplay by John Michael Hayes is based on the 1955 play of the same name by Thornton Wilder.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Hello, Dolly!
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

Plot[edit]
Set in 1884, the story focuses on Dolly Gallagher Levi, a widow who supports herself by a variety of means, with matchmaking as her primary source of income. Horace Vandergelder, a wealthy but miserly merchant from Yonkers, New York, has hired her to find him a wife, but unbeknownst to him Dolly is determined to fill the position herself. When he expresses his intent to travel to New York City to woo milliner Irene Molloy, Dolly shows him the photograph of a woman she calls Miss Ernestina Simple and tells him the buxom beauty would be a far better choice for him. Horace agrees to have dinner with Ernestina at the Harmonia Gardens after visiting Irene.
Meanwhile, Horace's clerk head Cornelius Hackl convinces his sidekick Barnaby Tucker that they, too, deserve an outing to New York. The two cause cans of tomatoes to explode, spewing their contents about the store, which justifies their closing it for the day and heading to the city.[1] While there, they come across Irene's hat shop and Cornelius is instantly taken to her. The pair are forced to hide however, when Mr. Vandergelder and Dolly arrive. Though Dolly and Irene cover up for them, Mr. Vandergelder still realizes that Irene is hiding people in her shop (though he doesn't know who) and leaves in disgust. Irene furiously demands that Cornelius and Barnaby repay her by taking her and the shop assistant Minnie out to a fancy restaurant for dinner (Dolly had led her to believe that the men were secretly members of high society).
By total coincidence, Cornelius, Barnaby, Irene, Minnie, Horace, and Dolly all dine at the same restaurant. Horace realizes that Dolly tricked him and that there is no such person as Ernestina Simple. Cornelius worries over how to pay for the meal until a well-meaning diner gives him Mr. Vandergelder's wallet (which the diner believes Cornelius dropped). Over the course of the evening, Irene and Cornelius fall in love as Barnaby falls for Minnie. The two men escape being caught by Mr. Vandergelder by disguising themselves as women and dancing towards the door. Before going, they leave the two women a note confessing who they really are and that they love them.
The next day, Irene and Minnie help the two shopkeepers pretend to be setting up a feed store of their own across the street from Mr. Vandergelders. Frightened by the competition, Horace gives them better working hours and wages. Realizing how foolishly he's been acting, he agrees to marry Dolly as well.
Hello, Dolly![edit]
The Broadway musical Hello Dolly! starring Carol Channing and movie of the same name with Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau were both based upon Wilder's play.
See also[edit]
Hello, Dolly!
List of American films of 1958
Matchmaking
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Time review
External links[edit]
The Matchmaker at the Internet Movie Database


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On the Razzle (play)
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On the Razzle
OnTheRazzle.jpg
Poster for the original Royal National Theatre production

Written by
Tom Stoppard
Characters
Herr Zangler, owner of a rural upscale grocery store
 Mme. Knorr, proprietor of a women's clothing store in Vienna
 Weinberl, Zangler's chief clerk
 Christopher, Zangler's apprentice
 Frau Fischer, Mme. Knorr's customer
 Marie, Zangler's niece
 Sonders, Marie's ne'er-do-well suitor
 Melchior, Zangler's personal assistant
Date premiered
18 September 1981
Place premiered
Royal National Theatre
London
Original language
English
Subject
Mistaken identities lead to comedic chaos and romantic entanglements
Genre
Farce
Setting
Vienna
On the Razzle is a play by Tom Stoppard. It is an adaptation of the Viennese play Einen Jux will er sich machen by Johann Nestroy, which previously was adapted twice by Thornton Wilder. The first 1938 version, entitled The Merchant of Yonkers, was faithful to the original material, but the second 1955 version, renamed The Matchmaker, expanded the previously secondary role of Dolly Gallagher Levi, who later became the heroine of the Jerry Herman musical hit, Hello, Dolly!. Stoppard's adaptation eliminates the Dolly character.
The play's title is a euphemism often used by the British press to describe the actions of a celebrity who has drunk, or is about to drink, a considerable amount of alcohol.
Plot[edit]
Stoppard's farce consists of two hours of slapstick shenanigans, mistaken identities, misdirected orders, malapropisms, double entendres, and romantic complications.
Herr Zangler, the twisted-tongued proprietor of an upscale grocery store in a small Austrian village, plans to marry Mme. Knorr, the proprietor of a women's clothing shop in Vienna. In preparation for new life in the big city, he orders a new wardrobe and hires the fast-talking Melchior as a personal assistant. He arranges to send his niece Marie to his sister-in-law in Vienna, Miss Blumenblatt, to protect her from the penniless Sonders who is courting her. As he departs for Vienna, Zangler entrusts the operation of his business to his garrulous head clerk, Weinberl, and his naive apprentice, Christopher, who decide to go "on the razzle" to Vienna.
Almost immediately, Weinberl and Christopher catch sight of Zangler and disguise themselves as mannequins in the window of Mme. Knorr's House of Fashion. Circumstances propel the two into a fancy restaurant in the company of Mme. Knorr and her customer, Frau Fischer (who has been roped into pretending she is Weinberl's new wife), the same restaurant to which Zangler intends to take Mme. Knorr. Several sprinting waiters, a sexually obsessed coachman and a carefully positioned Chinese screen come into play, and things finally seem to be settling down when the eloping Sonders and Marie enter the scene and the chaos starts anew. The various characters flee to Miss Blumenblatt's, who mistakes Weinberl and the disguised Christopher as Sonders and Marie. Eventually, all is sorted out, Christopher and Weinberl make it back to the store in time to prevent Zangler from ever knowing they were gone, and everything solves itself: Sonders comes into an inheritance and is allowed to marry Marie, Weinberl and Frau Fischer discover they have been romantic pen pals all along, Christopher is promoted, Zangler and Mme. Knorr finalize their engagement, and life returns to normal after one night "on the razzle."
Production history[edit]
On the Razzle opened on September 18, 1981 at the Royal National Theatre in London, with Felicity Kendal switching genders to star as Christopher.[1]
Other cast members included Dinsdale Landen as Herr Zangler, Michael Kitchen as Melchior, Ciaran Madden as Mme. Knorr, Meg Wynne Owen as Frau Fischer, and Alfred Lynch as Weinberl. Peter Wood won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director.
The production later was filmed by Terence Donovan in association with Channel 4. The film was released in 1983 and once again starred Kendal as Christopher.[2] It eventually aired on PBS in the United States in January 1986.[3]
The American premiere featured Yeardley Smith and was directed by Douglas C. Wager. It opened at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. in September 1982. An off-Broadway production was mounted at the Bouwerie Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village in 1999.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ On the Razzle by Tom Stoppard, published in 1981 by Faber and Faber, Ltd. ISBN 0-571-11835-6
2.Jump up ^ On the Razzle at IMDb
3.Jump up ^ New York Times review


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A Trip to Chinatown
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A Trip to Chinatown
TriptoChinatown1.jpg
Cover of Vocal Score

Music
Percy Gaunt
Lyrics
Charles H. Hoyt
Book
Charles H. Hoyt
Productions
1891 Broadway
A Trip to Chinatown is a musical comedy in three acts by Charles H. Hoyt with music by Percy Gaunt and lyrics by Hoyt, that became a silent film featuring Anna May Wong half a century later. In addition to the Gaunt and Hoyt score, many songs were interpolated into the score at one time or another during the run, as was fashionable for musicals of the era. The story concerns a widow who accidentally maneuvers several young suburban couples into a big city restaurant and brings romance to them and herself, as in Hello, Dolly!
After almost a year of touring, the musical opened at Broadway’s Madison Square Theater on November 9, 1891 and ran for 657 performances, or just short of two years. This was the longest-running Broadway musical in history up to that time (although London had seen a few longer runs), and it held that record until Irene in 1919. The show was such a hit that several road companies played it throughout the country simultaneously with the Broadway production, and at one point a second company was even opened in New York while the original company was still performing on Broadway. The cast included Trixie Friganza and Harry Conor, who introduced "The Bowery".
A version of the show was produced in 1912 under the title A Winsome Widow, and a film adaptation was made in 1926.


Contents  [hide]
1 Background
2 Synopsis
3 Roles and original Broadway cast
4 Musical numbers
5 1926 film; A Winsome Widow
6 Notes
7 References
8 External links

Background[edit]
Hoyt was born in Concord, New Hampshire (USA) in 1859. In the 1870s, Hoyt became musical and dramatic critic of the Boston Post. Beginning in 1883, he began a career as a playwright, producing a series of twenty farcical comedies (roughly one per year until his death) and a comic opera. Hoyt had his own theater, the Madison Square Theater, where A Trip to Chinatown was performed.
sheet music cover
A Trip to Chinatown was Hoyt's 10th play. Hoyt's plays emphasized individualized characters drawn from the everyday experiences of ordinary people. Most of his plays were non-musical farces. Two of the songs from the show are still known, "The Bowery" and "Reuben and Cynthia." There were many interpolations of songs into A Trip to Chinatown due to the many touring companies, the most famous being Charles K. Harris's "After the Ball," which was not part of the 1891 Broadway production but became a big hit and was later interpolated into Show Boat to exemplify the 1890s style.[1]
Versions of the script can be found in the 1941 Princeton University Press collection, Five Plays by Charles Hoyt edited by Douglas L. Hunt. In addition the George Washington University has microfiche copies of three versions of Hoyt’s script, which changed as the cast changed, and differed from tour to tour.
Synopsis[edit]
A group of young people in San Francisco tell their wealthy guardian, Uncle Ben, that they are going sightseeing in Chinatown. They really plan a night out on the town. They have engaged a chaperone, Mrs. Guyer, but her letter of acceptance is received by Uncle Ben, who misinterprets it as an invitation to a rendezvous. At "The Riche", the restaurant mentioned in the letter, where the young people have booked a table, he gets drunk. He does not see the young couples or Mrs. Guyer and it turns out that he has forgotten his wallet, which leads to humorous complications. Ben is unable to scold the young people for deceiving him, as they point out that they know about his own night out.
Roles and original Broadway cast[edit]



 A poster with lyrics to "The Bowery", 1890Welland Strong (a man with one foot in the grave) - Harry Conor
Ben Gay (a wealthy bachelor) - George A. Beane, Jr.
Tony Gay (his ward) - Avery Strakosch
Rashleigh Gay (his nephew) - Lloyd Wilson
Norman Blood (chum of Rashleigh) - Arthur Pacie
Willie Grow (a gilded youth - a trouser role) - Blanche Arkwright (later Queenie Vassar)
Noah Heap (waiter) - Harry Gilfoil
Slavin Payne (Ben's servant) - Harry Gilfoil
Turner Swift (runs the ice crusher) - W. S. Lewis
Isabel Dame (friend of the Gays) - Geraldine McCann
Hoffman Price (manager of Cliff House) - Frank E. Morsk
Mrs. Guyer (a widow) - Anna Boyd
Flirt (Mrs. Guyer's maid) - Patrice
Dancers
Musical numbers[edit]
The Bowery
Reuben and Cynthia
The Widow
Push Dem Clouds Away (an African cantata)
The Chaperone
Out for a Racket
After the Ball
The Sunshine of Paradise Alley
Love Me Little, Love Me Long
Do, Do, My Huckleberry, Do[2]
Keep A-Knockin’
Riding on the Golden Bike
Her Eyes Don’t Shine like Diamonds
Only One Girl in the World for Me
Then Say Good Bye!
She’s My Best Girl
Back among the Old Folks Once Again[3]
McGee’s Back Yard
1926 film; A Winsome Widow[edit]
Main article: A Trip to Chinatown (film)
A silent film adaptation of the musical was released in 1926, called A Trip to Chinatown, starring Margaret Livingston and featuring Anna May Wong and Charles Farrell. The screenplay was by Beatrice Van, based on Hoyt's book, and the film was directed by Robert P. Kerr.
In 1912, a revised version of the musical was produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., with a score by Raymond Hubbell, called A Winsome Widow.[4]
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "After the Ball" at the Tin Pan Alley Project, 2008
2.Jump up ^ Do, Do, My Hucklerberry Do Music (1893) (by Dillon Brothers)
3.Jump up ^ Sheet music for this song indicates that it was composed by J. W. Wheeler with words by Dave Reed Jr.
4.Jump up ^ Boardman, Gerald Martin. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle, pp. 322–23 (2011 ed.)
References[edit]
Information about the musical (Archived 2009-10-23)
Profile of the musical and photo of a program
External links[edit]
A Trip to Chinatown at the Internet Broadway Database
A Trip to Chinatown at the IMDB database
Profile and poster of the musical
List of longest-running plays
 


Categories: Broadway musicals
1891 musicals


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A Trip to Chinatown (film)
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A Trip to Chinatown
A Trip to Chinatown - 1926 theatrical poster.jpg
1926 theatrical poster

Directed by
Robert P. Kerr
Produced by
William Fox
Written by
Charles Hale Hoyt (play)
Beatrice Van
Starring
Margaret Livingston
Earle Foxe
J. Farrell MacDonald
Cinematography
Barney McGill
Distributed by
Fox Film
Release dates
June 6, 1926

Running time
60 minutes; 6 reels (5,594 feet)
Country
United States
Language
English
A Trip to Chinatown is a 1926 silent film produced and distributed by the Fox Film Corporation and starring Margaret Livingston. The supporting cast includes Anna May Wong and Charles Farrell. The movie was scripted by Beatrice Van from Charles Hale Hoyt's hit Broadway musical of the same name and directed by Robert P. Kerr.
Livingston played the "Woman from the City" the following year in F. W. Murnau's Sunrise, the rival to Farrell's future screen partner Janet Gaynor.
This film is considered by historians to be lost.[1]
Cast[edit]
Margaret Livingston as Alicia Cuyer
Earle Foxe as Welland Strong
J. Farrell MacDonald as Benjamin Strong
Anna May Wong as Ohati
Harry Woods as Norman Blood
Marie Astaire as Rose Blood
Gladys McConnell as Marion Haste
Charles Farrell as Gayne Wilder
Hazel Howell as Henrietta Lott
Wilson Benge as Slavin
George Kuwa as Tulung
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ A Trip to Chinatown (1926) at Silentera.com
External links[edit]
A Trip to Chinatown at the Internet Movie Database
A Trip to Chinatown at AllMovie
Stub icon This article about a silent film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




 


Categories: 1926 films
English-language films
American films
American silent feature films
Black-and-white films
Films directed by Robert P. Kerr
20th Century Fox films
Silent film stubs





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A Winsome Widow
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A Winsome Widow
Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee (1912 cover).jpg
Sheet music cover to Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee, a popular song from the play

Written by
Revised version of Charles Hale Hoyt's A Trip to Chinatown (1891)
Date premiered
11 April 1912
Place premiered
Moulin Rouge (New York)
Original language
English
A Winsome Widow is a 1912 musical produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., which was a revised version of Charles Hale Hoyt's 1891 hit, A Trip to Chinatown, with a score by Raymond Hubbell.


Contents  [hide]
1 History
2 Primary cast (may be incomplete)
3 References
4 External links

History[edit]
The show debuted at the Moulin Rouge on April 11, 1912, and ran into September, with a total of 172 performances.[1] (A pre-opening performance was presented at Parson's Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut on April 8, 1912.[2])
One of its featured songs was Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee by Stanley Murphy and Henry I. Marshall. The musical was a big hit, and featured a finale with real ice skating.[3]
The large cast featured Emmy Wehlen, Leon Errol, the Dolly Sisters, Elizabeth Brice, Frank Tinney, and Charles King. A young Mae West played a small role, though she quit after five performances.[3][4][5]
Though well received by audiences, the show had mixed reviews. The New York Clipper called it "a spectacle of gayety and gorgeousness", but The New York Times was bored of its "sameness", and critic Sime Silverman of Variety said it was "at least forty minutes too long, draggy with superfluous people."[4][6]
Primary cast (may be incomplete)[edit]



 Emmy Whelen in Cosmopolitan Magazine, August 1912Emmy Wehlen - Mrs. Guyer (the "winsome widow" of the title)
Leon Errol - Ben Gay
Dolly Sisters - Jenny and Rosie
Elizabeth Brice - Isabel
Frank Tinney - Noah
Kathleen Clifford
Charles King - Wilder Daly
Harry Conor - Welland Strong (the role he also played in A Trip to Chinatown)
Mae West - Le Petite Daffy
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Boardman, Gerald Martin. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle, pp. 322-23 (2011 ed.)
2.Jump up ^ (9 April 1912). "A Winsome Widow" Staged, The New York Times
3.^ Jump up to: a b Mordden, Ethan. Ziegfeld: The Man Who Invented Show Business, p. 123 (2008)
4.^ Jump up to: a b Watts, Jill. Mae West: An Icon in Black and White, p. 37 (2001)
5.Jump up ^ Colt, Stanislaus Winsome Emmy Wehlen, Cosmopolitan (magazine), p. 410-411 (August 1912)
6.Jump up ^ (12 April 1912). Now New York Has Its Moulin Rouge, The New York Times
External links[edit]
A Winsome Widow at the Internet Broadway Database
1912 recording of Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee at the U.S. Library of Congress
 


Categories: American plays
1912 plays
Broadway plays


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Hello, Dolly! (musical)
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Hello, Dolly!
DollyPlay.jpg
1964 Broadway poster

Music
Jerry Herman
Lyrics
Jerry Herman
Book
Michael Stewart
Basis
Play The Matchmaker
 by Thornton Wilder
Productions
1964 Broadway
 1969 Film
 1965 West End
 1975 All-black Broadway revival
 1978 Broadway revival
 1995 Broadway revival
 1996 Mexico City
 2009 Regent's Park Open Air Theatre revival
Awards
Tony Award for Best Musical
Tony for Composer and Lyricist
Tony Award for Best Book
Hello, Dolly! is a musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955.
Hello, Dolly! was first produced on Broadway by David Merrick in 1964, winning a record 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, a record held for 35 years. The show album Hello, Dolly! An Original Cast Recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002.[1] The album reached number one on the Billboard album chart on June 6, 1964 and was replaced the next week by Louis Armstrong's album "Hello, Dolly!" [2]
 The show has become one of the most enduring musical theatre hits, enjoying three Broadway revivals and international success. It was also made into a 1969 film that was nominated for seven Academy Awards.


Contents  [hide]
1 History
2 Synopsis 2.1 Act I
2.2 Act II
3 Characters
4 Musical numbers
5 Productions 5.1 Original Broadway production
5.2 Original London production
5.3 Revivals
5.4 International productions
5.5 Tours
6 Critical reception
7 Awards and nominations 7.1 Original Broadway production
7.2 1978 Broadway revival
7.3 1995 Broadway revival
7.4 2009 Open Air Theatre revival
8 Recordings
9 Cultural influence
10 Footnotes
11 References
12 External links

History[edit]
The plot of Hello, Dolly! originated in an 1835 English play, A Day Well Spent by John Oxenford, which Johann Nestroy adapted into the farce Einen Jux will er sich machen. Wilder adapted Nestroy's play into his 1938 farcical play, The Merchant of Yonkers, a flop, which he revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955, expanding the role of Dolly, played by Ruth Gordon.[3] The Matchmaker became a hit and was much revived and made into a 1958 film of the same name starring Shirley Booth. The story of a meddlesome widow who strives to bring romance to several couples and herself in a big city restaurant also features prominently in the 1891 hit musical A Trip to Chinatown.[4]
The role of Dolly Levi in the musical was originally written for Ethel Merman, but Merman turned it down, as did Mary Martin (although each eventually played it).[3] Merrick then auditioned Nancy Walker. Eventually, he hired Carol Channing, who then created in Dolly her signature role.[5] Director Gower Champion was not the producer's first choice, as Hal Prince and others (among them Jerome Robbins and Joe Layton) all turned down the job of directing the musical.[6]
Hello, Dolly! had rocky out-of-town tryouts in Detroit and Washington, D.C.[5] After receiving the reviews, the creators made major changes to the script and score, including the addition of the song, "Before the Parade Passes By".[7] The show was originally entitled Dolly, A Damned Exasperating Woman [8] and Call on Dolly but Merrick changed the title immediately upon hearing Louis Armstrong's version of "Hello, Dolly". The show became one of the most iconic Broadway shows of its era, the latter half of the 1960s, running for 2,844 performances, and was for a time the longest-running musical in Broadway history. During that decade, ten "blockbuster" musicals played over 1,000 performances and three played over 2,000, helping to redefine "success" for the Broadway musical genre.[9]
Synopsis[edit]
Act I[edit]
As the 19th becomes the 20th century, all of New York City is excited because widowed but brassy Dolly Gallagher Levi is in town ("Call On Dolly"). Dolly makes a living through what she calls "meddling" – matchmaking and numerous sidelines, including dance instruction and mandolin lessons ("I Put My Hand In"). She is currently seeking a wife for grumpy Horace Vandergelder, the well-known half-a-millionaire, but it becomes clear that Dolly intends to marry Horace herself. Ambrose Kemper, a young artist, wants to marry Horace's weepy niece Ermengarde, but Horace opposes this because Ambrose's vocation does not guarantee a steady living. Ambrose enlists Dolly's help, and they travel to Yonkers, New York to visit Horace, who is a prominent citizen there and owns Vandergelder's Hay and Feed.
Horace explains to his two clerks, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, that he is going to get married because "It Takes a Woman" to cheerfully do all the household chores. He plans to travel with Dolly to New York City to march in the Fourteenth Street Association Parade and propose to the widow Irene Molloy, who owns a hat shop there. Dolly arrives in Yonkers and "accidentally" mentions that Irene's first husband might not have died of natural causes, and also mentions that she knows an heiress, Ernestina Money, who may be interested in Horace. Horace leaves for New York and leaves Cornelius and Barnaby to run the store.
Cornelius decides that he and Barnaby need to get out of Yonkers. They'll go to New York, have a good meal, spend all their money, see the stuffed whale in Barnum's museum, almost get arrested, and each kiss a girl! They blow up some tomato cans to create a terrible stench and a good alibi to close the store. Dolly mentions that she knows two ladies in New York they should call on: Irene Molloy and her shop assistant, Minnie Fay. She tells Ermengarde and Ambrose that she'll enter them in the polka competition at the upscale Harmonia Gardens Restaurant in New York City so Ambrose can demonstrate his ability to be a breadwinner to Horace. Cornelius, Barnaby, Ambrose, Ermengarde and Dolly take the train to New York ("Put On Your Sunday Clothes").
Irene and Minnie open their hat shop for the afternoon. Irene wants a husband, but does not love Horace Vandergelder. She declares that she will wear an elaborate hat to impress a gentleman ("Ribbons Down My Back"). Cornelius and Barnaby arrive at the shop and pretend to be rich. Horace and Dolly arrive at the shop, and Cornelius and Barnaby hide from him. Irene inadvertently mentions that she knows Cornelius Hackl, and Dolly tells her and Horace that even though Cornelius is Horace's clerk by day, he's a New York playboy by night; he's one of the Hackls. Minnie screams when she finds Cornelius hiding in the armoire. Horace is about to open the armoire himself, but Dolly distracts him with patriotic sentiments ("Motherhood March"). Cornelius sneezes, and Horace storms out, realizing there are men hiding in the shop, but not knowing they are his clerks.
Dolly arranges for Cornelius and Barnaby, who are still pretending to be rich, to take the ladies out to dinner to the Harmonia Gardens restaurant to make up for their humiliation. She teaches Cornelius and Barnaby how to dance since they always have dancing at such establishments ("Dancing"). Soon, Cornelius, Irene, Barnaby, and Minnie are happily dancing. They go to watch the great 14th Street Association Parade together. Alone, Dolly decides to put her dear departed husband Ephram behind her and to move on with life "Before the Parade Passes By". She asks Ephram's permission to marry Horace, requesting a sign from him. Dolly catches up with the annoyed Vandergelder, who has missed the whole parade, and she convinces him to give her matchmaking one more chance. She tells him that Ernestina Money would be perfect for him and asks him to meet her at the swanky Harmonia Gardens that evening.
Act II[edit]
Cornelius is determined to get a kiss before the night is over, but Barnaby isn't so sure. As the clerks have no money for a carriage, they tell the girls that walking to the restaurant shows that they've got "Elegance". At the Harmonia Gardens Restaurant, Rudolph, the head waiter, prepares his service crew for Dolly Levi's return: their usual lightning service, he tells them, must be "twice as lightning" ("The Waiters' Gallop"). Horace arrives with his date, but she proves neither as rich nor as elegant as Dolly had implied; furthermore she is soon bored by Horace and leaves, as Dolly had planned she would.
Cornelius, Barnaby, and their dates arrive, unaware that Horace is also dining at the restaurant. Irene and Minnie, inspired by the restaurant's opulence, order the menu's most expensive items. Cornelius and Barnaby grow increasingly anxious as they discover they have little more than a dollar left. Dolly makes her triumphant return to the Harmonia Gardens and is greeted in style by the staff ("Hello, Dolly!") She sits in the now-empty seat at Horace's table and proceeds to eat a large, expensive dinner, telling the exasperated Horace that no matter what he says, she will not marry him. Barnaby and Horace hail waiters at the same time, and in the ensuing confusion each drops his wallet and inadvertently picks up the other's. Barnaby is delighted that he can now pay the restaurant bill, while Horace finds only a little spare change. Barnaby and Cornelius realize that the wallet must belong to Horace. Cornelius, Irene, Barnaby and Minnie try to sneak out during "The Polka Contest", but Horace recognizes them and spots Ermengarde and Ambrose as well. The ensuing free-for-all culminates in a trip to night court.
Cornelius and Barnaby confess that they have no money and have never been to New York before. Cornelius declares that even if he has to dig ditches the rest of his life, he'll never forget the day because he had met Irene. Cornelius, Barnaby, and Ambrose then each profess their love for their companion ("It Only Takes A Moment"). Dolly convinces the judge that their only crime was being in love. The judge finds everyone innocent and cleared of all charges, but Horace is declared guilty and forced to pay damages. Dolly mentions marriage again, and Horace declares that he wouldn't marry her if she were the last woman in the world. Dolly angrily bids him "So Long, Dearie", telling him that while he's bored and lonely, she'll be living the high life.
The next morning, back at the hay and feed store, Cornelius and Irene, Barnaby and Minnie, and Ambrose and Ermengarde each set out on new life's paths. A chastened Horace Vandergelder finally admits that he needs Dolly in his life, but Dolly is unsure about the marriage until her late husband sends her a sign. Vandergelder spontaneously repeats a saying of Ephram's: "Money is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread about, encouraging young things to grow." Horace tells Dolly life would be dull without her, and she promises in return that she'll "never go away again" ("Hello, Dolly" (reprise)).
Characters[edit]
Dolly Levi: A widow in her middle years who has decided to begin her life again. She is a matchmaker, meddler, opportunist, life-loving woman.
Horace Vandergelder: The proprietor of a Hay & Feed store and a client of Dolly Levi. A well-known half-a-millionaire, he is a widower, gruff, set in his ways, and authoritative.
Cornelius Hackl: Vandergelder’s chief clerk who yearns for one exciting day in NYC. Energetic, enthusiastic, and adventurous young man who has a sweet innocence about him.
Barnaby Tucker: An assistant to Cornelius at Vandergelder’s Hay & Feed store. He is sweet, naïve, energized, and a follower.
Irene Molloy: A widow, beautiful, smart, fun-loving milliner with a hat shop in New York. Dolly has introduced her to Horace Vandergelder but she yearns for romance.
Minnie Fay: A young girl who works in Irene’s hat shop. Irene’s assistant, she is a naïve, strait-laced, fresh, follower.
Ambrose Kemper: A young and explosive struggling artist seeking to marry Ermengarde.
Ermengarde: The young niece of Horace Vandergelder. She cries often and wants her independence and wants to marry Ambrose.
Ernestina Money: An eccentric-looking girl in need of Dolly’s matchmaker services.
Rudolf Reisenweber: Maître d' of the Harmonia Gardens restaurant.
Waiters: A group of waiters at the Harmonia Gardens restaurant.
Mrs. Rose: A friend of Dolly’s from years before. A street vendor who sells vegetables.
Judge: A white-whiskered night court judge. Easily moved to tears by romance.
Musical numbers[edit]
Act IPrologue ("Hello, Dolly!") - Orchestra
Call On Dolly - Ensemble
I Put My Hand In — Dolly
It Takes A Woman — Horace and the Men
It Takes A Woman (Reprise) - Horace
World, Take Me Back - Dolly*
Put On Your Sunday Clothes — Cornelius, Barnaby, Dolly, Ambrose, Ermengarde, and Ensemble
Ribbons Down My Back — Irene
Ribbons Down My Back (Reprise) - Irene
Motherhood March — Dolly, Irene, Minnie, and Horace
Dancing — Dolly, Cornelius, Barnaby, Irene, Minnie, and Dancers
Love, Look In My Window - Dolly*
Before the Parade Passes By — Dolly, Horace, and the Company
Finale Act I: Before The Parade Passes By - Dolly
 Act IIEntr'acte - Orchestra
Elegance — Cornelius, Barnaby, Irene, Minnie
The Waiters' Gallop — Rudolph and the Waiters
Hello, Dolly! — Dolly, Rudolph, Waiters, Cooks
The Waiters' Gallop (Reprise) - Rudolph and Waiters
The Polka Contest — Orchestra**
It Only Takes a Moment — Cornelius and Irene, Prisoners and Policeman
So Long, Dearie — Dolly
Finale Act II: Hello, Dolly! / Dancing / It Only Takes A Moment / Put On Your Sunday Clothes / Hello, Dolly! — The Company

Song cut before Broadway Opening, reinstated when Ethel Merman joined to play Dolly. Song replaced "Come and Be My Butterfly" during Broadway Run.

Horace Vangergelder's solo "Penny in my Pocket", although it received rave responses out of town, was cut prior to the Broadway opening for matters of time.
The song "Elegance", though credited to Herman, was written by Bob Merrill for the 1957 show New Girl in Town but deleted from the original production.[10]
Productions[edit]
Original Broadway production[edit]
The musical, directed and choreographed by Gower Champion and produced by David Merrick, opened on January 16, 1964, at the St. James Theatre and closed on December 27, 1970, after 2,844 performances. Carol Channing starred as Dolly, with a supporting cast that included David Burns as Horace, Charles Nelson Reilly as Cornelius, Eileen Brennan as Irene, Jerry Dodge as Barnaby, Sondra Lee as Minnie Fay, Alice Playten as Ermengarde, and Igors Gavon as Ambrose. Although facing competition from Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand, Hello, Dolly! swept the Tony Awards that year, winning awards in ten categories [11] (out of eleven nominations) that tied the musical with the previous record keeper South Pacific, a record that remained unbroken for 37 years until The Producers won twelve Tonys in 2001.



 Two "Dollys", Pearl Bailey and Carol Channing, in a 1973 television special, One More Time.
After Channing left the show, Merrick employed a string of prominent actresses to play Dolly, including Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Pearl Bailey (in an all-black version with Cab Calloway, Mabel King, Clifton Davis, Ernestine Jackson and a young Morgan Freeman), Phyllis Diller, and Ethel Merman after having turned down the lead at the show's inception. Two songs cut prior to the opening — typical Mermanesque belt style songs "World, Take Me Back" and "Love, Look in My Window" — were restored for her run. Thelma Carpenter played Dolly at all matinees during the Pearl Bailey production and subbed more than a hundred times, at one point playing all performances for seven straight weeks. Bibi Osterwald was the standby for Dolly in the original Broadway production, subbing for all the stars, including Bailey, despite the fact that Osterwald was a blue-eyed blonde. Bailey received a Special Tony Award in 1968.[12]
The show received rave reviews,[5][13] with "praise for Carol Channing and particularly Gower Champion."[14] The original production became the longest-running musical (and third longest-running show)[15] in Broadway history up to that time, surpassing My Fair Lady and then being surpassed in turn by Fiddler on the Roof. The Broadway production of Hello Dolly grossed $27 million.[16] Hello, Dolly! and Fiddler remained the longest-running Broadway record holders for nearly ten years until Grease surpassed them.
Tour and regional Dollys
Dorothy Lamour, Eve Arden, Ann Sothern, Michele Lee, Alice Faye, Edie Adams, and Yvonne De Carlo played the role on tour. Molly Picon appeared as Dolly in a 1971 production by the North Shore Music Theatre of Beverly, Massachusetts. Lainie Kazan starred in a production at the Claridge Atlantic City. Both Tovah Feldshuh and Betsy Palmer played Dolly in productions by the Paper Mill Playhouse. Marilyn Maye also starred in several regional productions and recorded a full album of the score.
Original London production[edit]
Hello, Dolly! premiered in the West End at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on December 2, 1965 and ran for 794 performances. Champion directed and choreographed, and the cast starred Mary Martin as Dolly, Loring Smith as Horace Vandergelder (Smith had created the Horace role in the original production of The Matchmaker), Johnny Beecher as Barnaby, Garrett Lewis as Cornelius, Mark Alden as Ambrose Kemper, and Marilynn Lovell as Irene Molloy. Dora Bryan replaced Martin during the run.[17]
Revivals[edit]
The show has been revived three times on Broadway:
November 6, 1975 - December 28, 1975, Minskoff Theatre - Starring Pearl Bailey and Billy Daniels in an all-black production (42 performances)
March 5, 1978 - July 9, 1978, Lunt-Fontanne Theatre - Starring Carol Channing and Eddie Bracken. (147 performances)
October 19, 1995 - January 28, 1996, Lunt-Fontanne Theatre - Starring Carol Channing and Jay Garner (116 performances)
In London's West End, the show has also been revived three times:
1979 - Starring Carol Channing at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and Shaftesbury Theatre
January 3, 1984 - April 27, 1984 - Starring female impersonator Danny La Rue as Dolly at the Prince of Wales Theatre[18]
July 30, 2009 - September 12, 2009 - Starring Samantha Spiro (Dolly) and Allan Corduner (Horace) at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park.[19] Spiro won the Olivier Award for her performance.
International productions[edit]
The original German production of Hello, Dolly!, with the title character's surname "Wassiljewa" (Vasilyeva) rather than "Levi," starred Tatjana Iwanow (Tatyana Ivanov).
The first production in Spanish was held in 1967 at the Teatro Nacional in Buenos Aires, starring Argentinian actress and tango singer Libertad Lamarque, who also did it in Mexico.
In 1996, Mexican diva Silvia Pinal starred in the Spanish language version of the musical, ¿Qué tal Dolly? ("What's Up, Dolly?"), opposite Ignacio Lopez Tarso in Mexico City.[20]
In 1985, Cuban diva Rosita Fornes played Dolly Levis in a Cuban production of Hello, Dolly by the Teatro Karl Marx in Havana, Cuba. She also played the role in Camaguey city and in a television production under director Manolo Rifat.[21]
Tours[edit]
Mary Martin starred in a US tour, starting in April 1965 and playing in 11 cities. The production also toured in Japan, Korea and Vietnam for a special USO performance for U.S. troops.[22]
A second US tour began in September 1965, headed by Channing, and ran for two years and nine months. Eve Arden and Dorothy Lamour were replacements.[23]
In 2008, Anita Dobson toured in the UK.[24]
Critical reception[edit]
Opening night reviews of the original production were generally positive, and Carol Channing's performance as Dolly Levi was greatly acclaimed; however, some reviewers criticized the score and the libretto, implying that Channing's performance was responsible for the efficacy of the show. In his review of the opening night performance, The New York Times theatre critic Howard Taubman wrote "Hello, Dolly! ... has qualities of freshness and imagination that are rare in the run of our machine-made musicals. It transmutes the broadly stylized mood of a mettlesome farce into the gusto and colors of the musical stage. ... Mr. Herman's songs are brisk and pointed and always tuneful ... a shrewdly mischievous performance by Carol Channing. ... Making the necessary reservations for the unnecessary vulgar and frenzied touches, one is glad to welcome Hello, Dolly! for its warmth, color and high spirits."[25] John Champman of the New York Daily News lauded Carol Channing's performance, declaring her "the most outgoing woman on the musical stage today – big and warm, all eyes and smiles, in love with everybody in the theatre and possessing a unique voice ranging somewhat upward from a basso profundo." He also wrote, "I wouldn't say that Jerry Herman's score is memorable."[26] New York Post critic Richard Watts, Jr., wrote, "The fact that [Hello, Dolly!] seems to me short on charm, warmth, and the intangible quality of distinction in no way alters my conviction that it will be an enormous popular success. Herman has composed a score that is always pleasant and agreeably tuneful, although the only number that comes to mind at the moment is the lively title song. His lyrics could be called serviceable."[26]
In the New York Herald Tribune, Walter Kerr wrote, "Hello, Dolly! is a musical comedy dream, with Carol Channing the girl of it.... Channing opens wide her big-as-millstone eyes, spreads her white-gloved arms in ecstatic abandon, trots out on a circular runway that surrounds the orchestra, and proceeds to dance rings around the conductor.... With hair like orange sea foam, a contralto like a horse's neighing, and a confidential swagger, [she is] a musical comedy performer with all the blowzy glamor of the girls on the sheet music of 1916." Kerr perceived deficiencies in the libretto, though, stating that the "lines are not always as funny as Miss Channing makes them".[26] John McClain of the New York Journal American particularly praised the staging of the musical, saying that "Gower Champion deserves the big gong for performance beyond the call of duty. Seldom has a corps of dancers brought so much style and excitement to a production which could easily have been pedestrian.... It is difficult to describe the emotion [the song "Hello, Dolly!"] produces. Last night the audience nearly tore up the seats as she led the parade of waiters in a series of encores over the semi-circular runway that extends around the orchestra pit out into the audience, ... a tribute to the personal appeal of Miss Channing and the magical inventiveness of Mr. Champion's staging."[26]
Awards and nominations[edit]
Original Broadway production[edit]

Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result
1964 New York Drama Critics Circle Award[27] Best Musical Won
Tony Award[28][29][30] Best Musical Won
Best Book of a Musical Michael Stewart Won
Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical Carol Channing Won
Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical Charles Nelson Reilly Nominated
Best Original Score Jerry Herman Won
Best Producer of a Musical David Merrick Won
Best Direction of a Musical Gower Champion Won
Best Choreography Won
Best Conductor and Musical Director Shepard Coleman Won
Best Scenic Design Oliver Smith Won
Best Costume Design Freddy Wittop Won
1968 Special Tony Award[31][32][33] Special Award Pearl Bailey Won
1970 Drama Desk Award[34][35] Outstanding Performance Ethel Merman Won
1978 Broadway revival[edit]

Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result
1978 Tony Award[36] Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical Eddie Bracken Nominated
1995 Broadway revival[edit]

Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result
1996 Tony Award[37][38] Best Revival of a Musical Nominated
2009 Open Air Theatre revival[edit]

Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result
2010 Laurence Olivier Award[39] Best Musical Revival Won
Best Actress in a Musical Samantha Spiro Won
Best Theatre Choreographer Stephen Mear Won
Recordings[edit]
A cast recording of the original Broadway production was released in 1964. It was the number-one album on the Billboard pop albums chart for seven weeks and the top album of the year on the Year-End chart. In 1965, a recording of the original London production was released. In 1967, a recording of the all-black Broadway replacement cast was released, featuring Pearl Bailey, who also starred in the unrecorded 1975 revival. The movie soundtrack was released in 1969. On November 15, 1994, the 1994 revival cast recording was released.[40]
Cultural influence[edit]
In 1964, Armstrong's recording of the song, "Hello, Dolly!", rose to number one on the Billboard pop chart,[41][42] making Armstrong, at age 63, the oldest person to ever accomplish that feat. In the process, Armstrong dislodged The Beatles "Can't Buy Me Love" from the number-one position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.
The title song was sung in the 1999 film Dick by actor Dan Hedaya, playing President Richard Nixon.[43]
The red satin, sequin-bedecked costume, designed by Freddy Wittop, that Channing wore during Hello, Dolly! was donated to the Smithsonian by Channing and theatrical producer Manny Kladitis, following the thirtieth anniversary tour of the show. It is currently on display at the National Museum of American History.[44] While Miss Channing's Harmonia Gardens gown is in the Smithsonian, the remainder of the original Freddy Wittop costumes are now housed in the permanent collection of the Costume World Broadway Collection, a theatrical museum dedicated to Broadway costuming located in Pompano Beach, Florida.[45]
Footnotes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Grammy Hall of Fame Award
2.Jump up ^ Whitburn, Joel. Top Pop Albums (2010), Record Research, ISBN 0-89820-183-7, p.973
3.^ Jump up to: a b "Hello Dolly! - New Wimbledon Theatre" IndieLondon, March 2008
4.Jump up ^ "Article on the show and the ladies who played Dolly" Curtain Up
5.^ Jump up to: a b c Kenrick, John.Musicals101 "Hello, Dolly! article" Musicals101.com
6.Jump up ^ Gilvey, John Anthony. Before the Parade Passes by: Gower Champion and the Glorious American Musical (2005), St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-33776-0, p. 117
7.Jump up ^ Gilvey, p. 149
8.Jump up ^ Bloom, p. 152.
9.Jump up ^ Kantor, p. 302
10.Jump up ^ Suskin, Show Tunes, p. 263
11.Jump up ^ " 'Hello, Dolly!' Listing" tams-witmark.com, accessed March 29, 2012
12.Jump up ^ Sullivan, Dan. " 'Rosencrantz' and 'Hallelujah, Baby!' Garner Tonys: Zoe Caldwell and Balsam Capture Acting Honors", The New York Times, April 22, 1968, p.58
13.Jump up ^ Bovson article
14.Jump up ^ Green, Stanley. Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre, Da Capo Press, 1980, ISBN 0-306-80113-2, p. 183
15.Jump up ^ "Long Runs on Broadway" playbill.com, retrieved July 1, 2010
16.Jump up ^ Bloom, Ken, and Vlastnik, Frank. Broadway Musicals: The 101 Greatest Shows of all Time, pp. 302. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, New York, 2004. ISBN 1-57912-390-2
17.Jump up ^ "1965 London production" BroadwayWorld.com
18.Jump up ^ "'Hello, Dolly!' listing" thisistheatre.com, retrieved July 1, 2010
19.Jump up ^ "Hello, Dolly!'" listing openairtheatre.org, retrieved July 1, 2010
20.Jump up ^ The Latin American Musical Comedy Stars: Silvia Pinal
21.Jump up ^ "YouTube video"
22.Jump up ^ Information about a documentary chronicling Martin's Asian tour in Hello, Dolly! imdb.com
23.Jump up ^ Green, Stanley."Encyclopedia Of The Musical Theatre" (1980), Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80113-2, p. 183
24.Jump up ^ Edmonds, Richard."'Hello Dolly!' review" thestage.co.uk, 8 February 2008
25.Jump up ^ Taubman, Howard. "Hello Dolly!". The New York Times, 1964
26.^ Jump up to: a b c d Suskin, Steven. Opening Night on Broadway: A Critical Quotebook of the Golden Era of the Musical Theatre, pp. 297-301. Schirmer Books, New York, 1990. ISBN 0-02-872625-1
27.Jump up ^ "New York Drama Critics Past Awards, 1964" dramacritics.org, accessed March 29, 2012
28.Jump up ^ " 'Hello Dolly' Listing, 1964-1970" Internet Broadway Database, accessed March 29, 2012
29.Jump up ^ "Tony Awards, 1964" broadwayworld.com, accessed March 29, 2012
30.Jump up ^ "Tony Award Winners, 1964" infoplease.com, accessed March 29, 2012
31.Jump up ^ "Tony Awards, 1968" broadwayworld.com, accessed March 29, 2012
32.Jump up ^ "Pearl Bailey Listing, Awards and Nominations" Internet Broadway Database, accessed March 29, 2012
33.Jump up ^ "Tony Award Winners, 1968" infoplease.com, accessed March 29, 2012
34.Jump up ^ "Drama Desk, 1969-1970" dramadesk.org, accessed March 29, 2012
35.Jump up ^ Flinn, Caryl. "Chapter 17" Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (2007), University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-22942-8, p.376
36.Jump up ^ " 'Hello, Dolly!' Tony Awards Listing" broadwayworld.com, accessed March 29, 2012
37.Jump up ^ "Tony Awards 1996" broadwayworld.com, accessed March 29, 2012
38.Jump up ^ Evans, Greg. "50th Tonys raise 'Rent' with 'Class' ", Daily Variety, June 3, 1996, p.1
39.Jump up ^ "Olivier Winners 2010" olivierawards.com, accessed March 29, 2012
40.Jump up ^ Release date of 1994 revival album Amazon.com, retrieved June 26, 2010
41.Jump up ^ "'Hello, Dolly!' Louis Armstrong Listing" allmusic.com, accessed April 2, 2012
42.Jump up ^ Ruhlmann, William. "Song Review" allmusic.com, accessed April 2, 2012
43.Jump up ^ "Movie/Video Review. 'Dick' " All-Reviews.com, accessed April 2, 2012
44.Jump up ^ ""Hello, Dolly" Dress". National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2008-06-19.
45.Jump up ^ "Broadway Collection" costumeworld.com, accessed April 2, 2012
References[edit]
Bloom, Ken; Frank Vlastnik (2004-10-01). Broadway Musicals: The 101 Greatest Shows of All Time. New York, New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. pp. 152–155. ISBN 1-57912-390-2.
Botto, Louis (2002-09-01). Robert Viagas, ed. At This Theatre. Applause Books. ISBN 1-55783-566-7.
Bovsun, Mara. From 'Hello, Dolly!': Dolly Gallagher Levi. barbra-archives.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-08.
Kantor, Michael; Laurence Maslon (2004). Broadway: the American musical. New York, New York: Bulfinch Press. ISBN 0-8212-2905-2.
Hello, Dolly! imagi-nation.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-08.
Suskin, Steven (1999-01-01). Show Tunes. New York: Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19-512599-1.
External links[edit]
Internet Broadway Database listing for all productions
Charles Nelson Reilly's autobiographical film, in which he discusses Hello Dolly
Playbill list of longest-running Broadway shows (plays and musicals)
TUTS study guide
Synopsis,Casting,Choreography,Scenes and Settings
1964 New York Times review of original production


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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello,_Dolly!_(musical)









Hello, Dolly! (film)
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Hello, Dolly!
HelloDollyFilmPoster.jpg
Original film poster by Richard Amsel

Directed by
Gene Kelly
Produced by
Ernest Lehman
Screenplay by
Ernest Lehman
Based on
Hello, Dolly!
 by Michael Stewart
Starring
Barbra Streisand
Walter Matthau
Michael Crawford
Marianne McAndrew
E. J. Peaker
 and Louis Armstrong
Music by
Jerry Herman
Cinematography
Harry Stradling Sr.
Edited by
William Reynolds
Production
 company
Chenault Productions

Distributed by
20th Century Fox
Release dates
December 16, 1969

Running time
148 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$25 million
Box office
$26 million (theatrical rental)
Hello, Dolly! is a 1969 romantic comedy musical film based on the Broadway production of the same name. The film follows the story of Dolly Levi (a strong-willed matchmaker), as she travels to Yonkers, New York, to find a match for the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder. In doing so she convinces his niece, his niece's intended, and Horace's two clerks to travel to New York City.
Directed by Gene Kelly and adapted and produced by Ernest Lehman, the cast includes Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau (in his only movie musical), Michael Crawford, Danny Lockin, Tommy Tune, Fritz Feld, Marianne McAndrew, E. J. Peaker and Louis Armstrong (whose recording of the title tune had become a number-one single in May 1964). The film was photographed in 65 mm Todd-AO by Harry Stradling, Sr.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Musical numbers
4 Production 4.1 Filming
4.2 Music
5 Release 5.1 US premieres
5.2 Critical reception
5.3 Box office
5.4 Home Media
5.5 Awards and nominations
6 Cultural influence
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

Plot[edit]
In 1890, all of New York City is excited because widowed, brassy Dolly Levi is in town ("Call On Dolly"). Dolly makes a living through matchmaking and numerous sidelines ("Just Leave Everything to Me"). She is currently seeking a wife for grumpy Horace Vandergelder, the well-known "half-a-millionaire", but it becomes clear that Dolly intends to marry Horace herself. Dolly travels to Yonkers, New York to visit Horace. Ambrose Kemper, a young artist, wants to marry Horace's weepy niece, Ermengarde, but Horace opposes this because Ambrose's vocation does not guarantee a steady living. Horace, who is the owner of Vandergelder's Hay and Feed, explains to his two clerks, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, that he is going to get married because "It Takes a Woman" to cheerfully do all the household chores. He plans to travel to New York City to propose to Irene Molloy, who owns a hat shop there. Dolly arrives in Yonkers and sends Horace ahead to the city. Before leaving he tells Cornelius and Barnaby to mind the store.
Cornelius decides that he and Barnaby need to get out of Yonkers. Dolly knows two ladies in New York they should call on: Irene Molloy and her shop assistant, Minnie Fay. She enters Ermengarde and Ambrose in the upcoming polka competition at the fancy Harmonia Gardens Restaurant in New York City, so Ambrose can demonstrate his ability to be a bread winner to Uncle Horace. Cornelius, Barnaby, Ambrose, Ermengarde and Dolly take the train to New York ("Put on Your Sunday Clothes"). Irene and Minnie open their hat shop for the afternoon. Irene does not love Horace Vandergelder and declares that she will wear an elaborate hat to impress a gentleman ("Ribbons Down My Back"). Cornelius and Barnaby arrive at the shop and pretend to be rich. Horace and Dolly arrive and Cornelius and Barnaby hide. Minnie screams when she finds Cornelius hiding in an armoire. Horace is about to open the armoire himself, but Dolly "searches" it and pronounces it empty. After hearing Cornelius sneeze, Horace storms out upon realizing there are men hiding in the shop, although he is unaware that they are his clerks. Dolly arranges for Cornelius and Barnaby, who are still pretending to be rich, to take the ladies out to dinner to the Harmonia Gardens to make up for their humiliation. She teaches Cornelius and Barnaby how to dance since they always have dancing at such establishments ("Dancing"). The clerks and the ladies go to watch the Fourteenth Street Association Parade together. Alone, Dolly asks her first husband Ephram's permission to marry Horace, requesting a sign. She resolves to move on with life ("Before the Parade Passes By"). After meeting an old friend, Gussie Granger, on a float in the parade, Dolly catches up with the annoyed Vandergelder as he is marching in the parade. She tells him the heiress Ernestina Semple (changed from the stage version's Ernestina Money) would be perfect for him and asks him to meet her at the Harmonia Gardens that evening.
Cornelius is determined to get a kiss before the night is over. Since the clerks have no money to hire a carriage, they tell the girls that walking to the restaurant shows that they've got "Elegance". In a quiet flat, Dolly prepares for the evening ("Love is Only Love"). At the Harmonia Gardens Restaurant, Rudolph, the head waiter, whips his crew into shape for Dolly Levi's return. Horace arrives to meet his date, who is really Dolly's friend Gussie. As it turns out, she is not rich or elegant as Dolly implied, and she soon leaves after being bored by Horace, just as she and Dolly planned.
Cornelius, Barnaby and their dates arrive and are unaware that Horace is also at the restaurant. Dolly makes her triumphant return to the Harmonia Gardens and is greeted in style by the staff ("Hello, Dolly!"). She sits in the now-empty seat at Horace's table and proceeds to tell him that no matter what he says, she will not marry him. Fearful of being caught, Cornelius confesses to the ladies that he and Barnaby have no money, and Irene, who knew they were pretending all along, offers to pay for the meal. She then realizes that she left her handbag with all her money in it at home. The four try to sneak out during the polka contest, but Horace recognizes them and also spots Ermengarde and Ambrose. In the ensuing confrontation, Vandergelder fires Cornelius and Barnaby (although they claim to have already quit) and they are forced to flee as a riot breaks out. Cornelius professes his love for Irene because "It Only Takes a Moment". Horace declares that he wouldn't marry Dolly if she were the last woman in the world. Dolly angrily bids him farewell; while he's bored and lonely, she'll be living the high life ("So Long, Dearie").
The next morning, back at the hay and feed store, Cornelius and Irene, Barnaby and Minnie, and Ambrose and Ermengarde each come to collect the money Vandergelder owes them. Chastened, he finally admits that he needs Dolly in his life, but she is unsure about the marriage until Ephram sends her a sign. Vandergelder spontaneously repeats a saying of Ephram's: "Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread about, encouraging young things to grow." Cornelius becomes Horace's business partner at the store, and Barnaby fills in Cornelius' old position. Horace tells Dolly life would be dull without her, and she promises that she'll "never go away again" ("Finale").
Cast[edit]


Barbra Streisand as Dolly Levi
Walter Matthau as Horace Vandergelder
Michael Crawford as Cornelius Hackl
Marianne McAndrew as Irene Molloy
E. J. Peaker as Minnie Fay
Danny Lockin as Barnaby Tucker
Joyce Ames as Ermengarde Vandergelder
Tommy Tune as Ambrose Kemper

Judy Knaiz as Gussie Granger/Ernestina Semple
David Hurst as Rudolph Reisenweber
Fritz Feld as Fritz, German waiter
Richard Collier as Joe, Vandergelder's barber
J. Pat O'Malley as Policeman in park
Louis Armstrong as Orchestra leader
Tucker Smith (uncredited) as Dancer
Jennifer Gan (uncredited) as Miss Bolivia

Musical numbers[edit]


1."Call On Dolly"
2."Just Leave Everything To Me"
3."Main Titles (Overture)"
4."It Takes a Woman"
5."It Takes a Woman (Reprise)"
6."Put on Your Sunday Clothes"
7."Ribbons Down My Back"
8."Dancing"
9."Before the Parade Passes By"

1."Intermission"
2."Elegance"
3."Love is Only Love"
4."Hello, Dolly!"
5."It Only Takes a Moment"
6."So Long, Dearie"
7."Finale"
8."End Credits"

Production[edit]
Filming[edit]
The town of Garrison, New York, was the filming site for scenes in "Yonkers".[1] In the opening credits, the passenger train is traveling along the Hudson River. Provided by the Strasburg Rail Road, the train is pulled by Pennsylvania Railroad 1223 (now located in the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania) retrofitted to resemble a New York Central & Hudson River locomotive. The locomotive used in "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" was restored specifically for the film and can be seen at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, Pennsylvania.
The Poughkeepsie (Metro-North station) trackside platform was used at the beginning when Dolly was on her way to Yonkers.
The church scene was filmed on the grounds of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, but the church's facade was constructed only for the film. New York City scenes were filmed on the 20th Century-Fox lot in California. Some of the exteriors still exist.
Music[edit]
Most of the original Broadway production's score was preserved for the film; however, "Just Leave Everything to Me" and "Love Is Only Love" were not in the stage show. Jerry Herman wrote "Just Leave Everything to Me" especially for Streisand; it effectively replaced "I Put My Hand In" from the Broadway production. However, an instrumental version of parts of "I Put My Hand In" can be heard in the film during the dance competition at the Harmonia Gardens.[2] Herman had previously written "Love is Only Love" for the stage version of Mame, but it was cut before its Broadway premiere. It occurred in the story as Mame tried to explain falling in love to her young nephew Patrick. A brief prologue of "Mrs. Horace Vandergelder" was added to the song to integrate it into this film.[3]
Working under the musical direction of Lionel Newman and Lennie Hayton, the very large team of orchestrators included film stalwarts Herbert W. Spencer and Alexander Courage; the original Broadway production arranger, Philip J. Lang, making a rare film outing; and pop arrangers Don Costa and Frank Comstock. All of the actors did their own singing, except for Marianne McAndrew (Irene Molloy) whose singing was dubbed by Melissa Stafford and Gilda Maiken.[4] Choreography was by Michael Kidd.
Release[edit]
US premieres[edit]
The film premiered in New York at Rivoli Theater on December 16, 1969 and at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on December 19. Production had wrapped more than a year earlier, but release was significantly delayed for legal reasons.[2] A clause in the 1965 film sale contract specified that the film could not be released until June 1971 or when the show closed on Broadway, whichever came first. In 1969, the show was still running. Eager to release the film to recoup its cost, Fox negotiated and paid an "early release" escape payment to release the film "Dolly" at an estimated $1–2 million.[2]
Critical reception[edit]
Critical reaction was mixed. Vincent Canby in his New York Times review said that the producer and director "merely inflated the faults to elephantine proportions."[5]
Box office[edit]
The film grossed $33.2 million at the box office in the United States,[6] earning a theatrical rental (the distributor's share of the box office after deducting the exhibitor's cut)[7][8] of $15.2 million,[9][10] ranking it in the top five highest-grossing films of the 1969–1970 season.[10][11][12] In total, it earned $26 million in theatrical rentals for Fox,[6] against its $25.335 million production budget.[9] Despite performing well at the box office, it still lost its backers an estimated $10 million.[12]
Home Media[edit]
In April 2013, the movie was released in Blu-ray format.
Awards and nominations[edit]
Academy Awards
The film won three Academy Awards and was nominated for another four.[13][14]


WonBest Art Direction - Set Decoration – John DeCuir, Jack Martin Smith, and Herman A. Blumenthal (Art Direction); Walter M. Scott, George James Hopkins, and Raphael Bretton (Set Decoration)
Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture – Lennie Hayton and Lionel Newman
Best Sound – Jack Solomon and Murray Spivack

NominatedBest Picture – Ernest Lehman
Best Cinematography – Harry Stradling Sr. (posthumous nomination)
Best Costume Design – Irene Sharaff
Best Film Editing – William H. Reynolds

Other awards23rd British Academy Film Awards[15] BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role – Barbra Streisand – Nomination
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role – Walter Matthau – Nomination (also for his role in The Secret Life of an American Wife)
BAFTA Award for Best Art Direction – John Decuir – Nomination
BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography – Harry Stradling – Nomination
27th Golden Globe Awards Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy Nomination
Golden Globe Award for Best Director – Gene Kelly – Nomination
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy – Barbra Streisand – Nomination
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture – Marianne McAndrew – Nomination
Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress – Marianne McAndrew – Nomination
Directors Guild of America Awards 1970 Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film – Gene Kelly – Nomination
American Cinema Editors Best Edited Feature Film – William H. Reynolds – Won

Cultural influence[edit]
Songs as well as footage from scenes "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" and "It Only Takes a Moment", were prominently featured in the 2008 Disney-Pixar film, WALL-E.
The songs "Elegance" and "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" are heard through any day at the Main Street section of the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World
See also[edit]
Hello, Dolly! stage play
The Matchmaker
WALL-E
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Hello, Dolly!". IMDb. IMDb.com, Inc. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
2.^ Jump up to: a b c Kurtti, Jeff (1996). The Great Hollywood Musical Trivia Book. New York: Applause Books. pp. 143–166. ISBN 1-55783-222-6.
3.Jump up ^ Konder, George C. Hello, Dolly!: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Album (CD Re-issue). Liner notes dated September 1994. Philips Records, 810 368-2
4.Jump up ^ List of Dubbers
5.Jump up ^ Canby, Vincent (December 18, 1969). "'Hello, Dolly!' (1969): On Screen, Barbra Streisand Displays a Detached Cool". The New York Times. Retrieved March 9, 2010.
6.^ Jump up to: a b "Box Office Information for Hello, Dolly!". The Numbers. Nash Information Services. Archived from the original on October 18, 2012. Retrieved February 26, 2012.
7.Jump up ^ Cones, John W. (1997). The feature film distribution deal: a critical analysis of the single most important film industry agreement. Southern Illinois University Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-8093-2082-0.
8.Jump up ^ "Box Office Tracking By Time – Key Terminology: Gross". Box office Mojo. Retrieved September 21, 2013.
9.^ Jump up to: a b Solomon, Aubrey (2002), Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History, Scarecrow Filmmakers Series 20, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 216 (background for figures), 231 (theatrical rental) & 256 (budget), ISBN 9780810842441
10.^ Jump up to: a b Williams, Linda Ruth; Hammond, Michael (2006). Contemporary American Cinema. McGraw-Hill. p. 176. ISBN 9780335218318.
11.Jump up ^ Krämer, Peter (2005). The new Hollywood: from Bonnie and Clyde to Star Wars. Wallflower Press. p. 44. ISBN 9781904764588.
12.^ Jump up to: a b LoBianco, Lorraine. "Hello, Dolly! (1969) – Articles". TCM database. Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved April 7, 2013.
13.Jump up ^ "The 42nd Academy Awards (1970) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved August 26, 2011.
14.Jump up ^ "Hello, Dolly!". The New York Times. Retrieved December 27, 2008.
15.Jump up ^ "BAFTA Awards (1970)". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hello, Dolly! (film).
Hello, Dolly! at the Internet Movie Database
Hello, Dolly! at the TCM Movie Database
Hello, Dolly! at AllMovie
Hello, Dolly! at Rotten Tomatoes
New York Times review
2003 review of the DVD release
Barbra Archives DOLLY Pages: Posters & Behind the Scenes, Locations, DOLLY Sights and Sounds


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Fiddler on the Roof
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This article is about the 1964 musical. For the film, see Fiddler on the Roof (film).

Fiddler on the Roof
Fiddler on the roof poster.jpg
Original Broadway Windowcard evoking the artwork of Marc Chagall, source of the title.

Music
Jerry Bock
Lyrics
Sheldon Harnick
Book
Joseph Stein
Basis
Tevye and his Daughters by Sholem Aleichem
Productions
1964 Broadway
 1967 West End
 1971 film
 1976 Broadway revival
 1981 Broadway revival
 1983 West End revival
 1990 Broadway revival
 1994 West End revival
 2003 UK tour
 2004 Broadway revival
 2007 West End revival
 2008 UK tour
 2009 US Tour
Awards
Tony Award for Best Musical
Tony Award for Best Score
Tony Award for Best Book
Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in the Pale of Imperial Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem. The story centers on Tevye, the father of five daughters, and his attempts to maintain his family and Jewish religious traditions while outside influences encroach upon their lives. He must cope both with the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters—each one's choice of husband moves further away from the customs of his faith—and with the edict of the Tsar that evicts the Jews from their village.
The original Broadway production of the show, which opened in 1964, had the first musical theatre run in history to surpass 3,000 performances. Fiddler held the record for the longest-running Broadway musical for almost 10 years until Grease surpassed its run. It remains Broadway's sixteenth longest-running show in history. The production was extraordinarily profitable and highly acclaimed. It was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning nine, including Best Musical, score, book, direction and choreography. It spawned four Broadway revivals, a highly successful 1971 film adaptation, and the show has enjoyed enduring international popularity. It is also a very popular choice for school and community productions.[1]


Contents  [hide]
1 Background
2 Productions 2.1 Original productions
2.2 Broadway revivals
2.3 London revivals
2.4 UK tours
2.5 Australian and U.S. tours
2.6 International productions
3 Synopsis 3.1 Act I
3.2 Act II
4 Musical numbers
5 Principal characters
6 Film adaptation
7 Cultural influence 7.1 Parodies
7.2 Covers
7.3 Other versions
8 Awards
9 References
10 Bibliography
11 External links

Background[edit]
[icon] This section requires expansion. (March 2009)
Fiddler on the Roof was originally titled Tevye. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem that he wrote in Yiddish and published in 1894.[2] The musical's title stems from the painting "The Fiddler" by Marc Chagall,[3] one of many surreal paintings he created of Eastern European Jewish life, often including a fiddler. The Fiddler is a metaphor for survival, through tradition and joyfulness, in a life of uncertainty and imbalance.
Harold Prince replaced the original producer Fred Coe and brought in director/choreographer Jerome Robbins.[4]
Productions[edit]
Original productions[edit]
Following its tryout in Detroit in July and August 1964,[5] the original Broadway production opened on September 22, 1964, at the Imperial Theatre, transferred in 1967 to the Majestic Theatre and in 1970 to The Broadway Theatre, and ran for a record-setting total of 3,242 performances. The production was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins – his last original Broadway staging.[6] The set, designed in the style of Marc Chagall's paintings, was by Boris Aronson.[7] A colorful logo for the production, also inspired by Chagall's work, was designed by Tom Morrow.
The cast included Zero Mostel as Tevye the milkman, Maria Karnilova as his wife Golde (each of whom won a Tony for their performances), Beatrice Arthur as Yente the matchmaker, Austin Pendleton as Motel, Bert Convy as Perchik the student revolutionary, Gino Conforti as the fiddler, and Julia Migenes as Hodel. Joanna Merlin originated the role of Tzeitel, which was later assumed by Bette Midler during the original run. Carol Sawyer was Fruma Sarah, Adrienne Barbeau took a turn as Hodel, and Pia Zadora played the youngest daughter, Bielke. Both Peg Murray and Dolores Wilson made extended appearances as Golde, while other stage actors who have played Tevye include Herschel Bernardi, Theodore Bikel and Harry Goz (in the original Broadway run), and Leonard Nimoy. Mostel's understudy in the original production, Paul Lipson, went on to appear as Tevye in more performances than any other actor, clocking over 2,000 performances in the role in the original run and several revivals.[8] Florence Stanley took over the role of Yente later in the run. The production earned $1,574 for every dollar invested in it.[9]
The original West End production opened on February 16, 1967, at Her Majesty's Theatre and played for 2,030 performances. It starred Chaim Topol, who would also play Tevye in the 1971 film adaptation and several revivals over the next four decades, and Miriam Karlin as Golde. Alfie Bass, Lex Goudsmit and Barry Martin eventually took over as Tevye. The show was revived in London for short seasons in 1983 at The Apollo Victoria Theatre and in 1994 at The London Palladium.
Broadway revivals[edit]
The first Broadway revival opened on December 28, 1976, and ran for 176 performances at the Winter Garden Theatre. Zero Mostel starred as Tevye. Robbins directed and choreographed. A second Broadway revival opened on July 9, 1981, and played for a limited run (53 performances) at Lincoln Center's New York State Theater. It starred Herschel Bernardi as Tevye and Karnilova as Golde. Other cast members included Liz Larsen, Fyvush Finkel, Lawrence Leritz and Paul Lipson. Robbins directed and choreographed. The third Broadway revival opened on November 18, 1990, and ran for 241 performances at the George Gershwin Theatre. Topol starred as Tevye, and Marcia Lewis was Golde. Robbins' production was reproduced by Ruth Mitchell and choreographer Sammy Dallas Bayes. The production won the Tony Award for Best Revival.
A fourth Broadway revival opened on February 26, 2004, and ran for 36 previews and 781 performances at the Minskoff Theatre. Alfred Molina, and later Harvey Fierstein, starred as Tevye, and Randy Graff, and later Andrea Martin and Rosie O'Donnell, was Golde. Barbara Barrie and later Nancy Opel played Yente. Lea Michele played Sprintze.[10] It was directed by David Leveaux. This production replaced Yente's song "The Rumor" with a song for Yente and two other women called "Topsy-Turvy". The production was nominated for six Tonys but did not win any.
A fifth Broadway revival is scheduled for the fall of 2015, with concept and choreography based on the original by Jerome Robbins. Bartlett Sher is set to direct, and Danny Burstein is in negotiation for the role of Tevye.[11]
London revivals[edit]
Fiddler was first revived in London in 1983 at the Apollo Victoria Theatre (a four-month season starring Topol) and again in 1994 at the London Palladium for two months and then on tour, again starring Topol, and directed and choreographed by Sammy Dallas Bayes, recreating the Robbins production.[12]
After a two-month tryout at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, a London revival opened on May 19, 2007, at the Savoy Theatre starring Henry Goodman as Tevye, Beverley Klein as Golde, Alexandra Silber as Hodel, Damian Humbley as Perchik and Victor McGuire as Lazar Wolf. The production was directed by Lindsay Posner. Robbins' choreography was recreated by Sammy Dallas Bayes (who did the same for the 1990 Broadway revival), with additional choreography by Kate Flatt.[13]
UK tours[edit]
A 2003 national tour played for seven months, with a radical design, directed by Julian Woolford and choreographed by Chris Hocking. The production featured a minimalist setting, and the costumes and set were monochromatic. Fruma-Sarah was represented by a 12 foot puppet. This production was revived in 2008 starring Joe McGann and toured until September 2008.[14]
Another tour of the UK will begin early September 2013 in Southampton starring Paul Michael Glaser as Tevye with direction and choreography by Craig Revel Horwood
Australian and U.S. tours[edit]
For two years, beginning in 2005, Topol recreated his role as Tevye in an Australian production, with seasons in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Wellington and Auckland.
Topol in 'Fiddler on the Roof': The Farewell Tour opened on January 20, 2009, in Wilmington, Delaware. Topol left the tour in November 2009 due to torn muscles in his arms. He was replaced by Harvey Fierstein.[15]
International productions[edit]
Among the many versions produced around the world is a Hebrew language staging produced by the Israeli impresario Giora Godik in the 1960s.[16] The Hebrew version of "Fiddler on the Roof" was so successful that Godik decided to produce a second version, this time in Yiddish, the language in which the original Sholem Aleichem stories upon which the musical was based were written. The translation was by Shraga Friedman.[17]
Un Violinista sobre el Tejado was produced in Spanish at Panama's National Theatre of Panama from October 11 to 15, 2012, starring Aaron Zebede as Tevye.[18]
Un violon sur le toît was produced in French at Paris's théâtre Marigny from November 1969 to May 1970, resuming from September to January 1971 (a total of 292 performances) with Ivan Rebroff as Tevye and Maria Murano as Golde. Another adaptation was produced in 2005.[19]
The Stratford Shakespeare Festival produced the musical from April to October 2013 at the Festival Theatre directed and choreographed by Donna Feore. It starred Scott Wentworth as Tevye.[20]
Synopsis[edit]
Act I[edit]
Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman with five daughters, explains the customs of the Jews in the Russian shtetl of Anatevka in 1905, where their lives are as precarious as the perch of a fiddler on a roof ("Tradition"). At Tevye's home, everyone is busy preparing for the Sabbath meal. His sharp-tongued wife, Golde, orders their daughters, Tzeitel, Hodel, Chava, Shprintze and Bielke, about their tasks. Yente, the village matchmaker, arrives to tell Golde that Lazar Wolf, the wealthy butcher, a widower older than Tevye, wants to wed Tzeitel, the eldest daughter. The next two daughters, Hodel and Chava, are excited about Yente's visit, but Tzeitel is unenthusiastic ("Matchmaker, Matchmaker"). A girl from a poor family must take whatever husband Yente brings, but Tzeitel wants to marry her childhood friend, Motel the tailor.



The Fiddler by Marc Chagall, from which the musical takes its name
Tevye is delivering milk, pulling the cart himself, as his horse is lame. He asks God, whom would it hurt "If I Were a Rich Man"? Avram, the bookseller, has news from the outside world about pogroms and expulsions. A stranger, Perchik, hears their conversation and scolds them for doing nothing more than talk. The men dismiss Perchik as a radical, but Tevye invites him home for the Sabbath meal and offers him food and a room in exchange for tutoring his two youngest daughters. Golde tells Tevye to meet Lazar after the Sabbath but does not tell him why, knowing that Tevye does not like Lazar. Tzeitel is afraid that Yente will find her a husband before Motel asks Tevye for her hand. But Motel resists: he is afraid of Tevye's temper, and tradition says that a matchmaker arranges marriages. Motel is also very poor and is saving up to buy a sewing machine before he approaches Tevye, to show that he can support a wife. The family gathers for the "Sabbath Prayer."
After the Sabbath, Tevye meets Lazar at Mordcha's inn, assuming mistakenly that Lazar wants to buy his cow. Once the misunderstanding is cleared up, Tevye agrees to let Lazar marry Tzeitel – with a rich butcher, his daughter will never want for anything. All join in the celebration of Lazar's good fortune; even the Russian youths at the inn join in the celebration and show off their dancing skills ("To Life"). Outside the inn, Tevye happens upon the Russian Constable, who has jurisdiction over the Jews in the town. The Constable warns him that there is going to be a "little unofficial demonstration" in the coming weeks (a euphemism for a minor pogrom). The Constable has sympathy for the Jewish community but is powerless to prevent the violence.
The next morning, after Perchik's lessons with her young sisters, Tevye's second daughter Hodel mocks Perchik's Marxist interpretation of a Bible story. He, in turn, criticizes her for hanging on to the old traditions of Judaism, noting that the world is changing. To illustrate this, he dances with her, defying the prohibition against opposite sexes dancing together. The two begin to fall in love. Later, a hungover Tevye announces that he has agreed that Tzeitel will marry Lazar Wolf. Golde is overjoyed, but Tzeitel is devastated and begs Tevye not to force her. Motel arrives and tells Tevye that he is the perfect match for Tzeitel and that he and Tzeitel gave each other a pledge to marry. He promises that Tzeitel will not starve as his wife. Tevye is stunned and outraged at this breach of tradition, but impressed at the timid tailor's display of backbone. After some soul-searching ("Tevye's Monologue"), Tevye agrees to let them marry, but he worries about how to break the news to Golde. An overjoyed Motel celebrates with Tzeitel ("Miracle of Miracles").
In bed with Golde, Tevye pretends to be waking from a nightmare. Golde offers to interpret his dream, and Tevye "describes" it ("Tevye's Dream"). Golde's grandmother Tzeitel returns from the grave to bless the marriage of her namesake, but to Motel, not to Lazar Wolf. Lazar's formidable late wife, Fruma-Sarah, rises from her grave to warn, in graphic terms, of severe retribution if Tzeitel marries Lazar. The superstitious Golde is terrified, and she quickly counsels that Tzeitel must marry Motel. While returning from town, Tevye's third daughter, the bookish Chava, is teased and intimidated by some Russian youths, but one of them, Fyedka, protects her, dismissing the others. He offers Chava the loan of a book, and a secret relationship begins.
The wedding day of Tzeitel and Motel arrives, and all the Jews join the ceremony ("Sunrise, Sunset") and the celebration ("The Wedding Dance"). Lazar gives a fine gift, but an argument arises with Tevye over the broken agreement. Perchik ends the tiff by breaking another tradition: he crosses the barrier between the men and women to dance with Tevye's daughter Hodel. The celebration ends abruptly when a group of Russians rides into the village to perform the "demonstration". They disrupt the party, damaging the wedding gifts and wounding Perchik, who attempts to fight back, and wreak more destruction in the village. Tevye instructs his family to clean up the mess.
Act II[edit]



Fiddler On the Roof by Lev Segal in Netanya
Months later, Perchik tells Hodel he must return to Kiev to work for the revolution. He proposes marriage, admitting that he loves her, and says that he will send for her. She agrees ("Now I Have Everything"). They tell Tevye that they are engaged, and he is appalled that they are flouting tradition by making their own match, especially as Perchik is leaving. When he forbids the marriage, Perchik and Hodel inform him that they do not seek his permission, only his blessing. After more soul searching, Tevye relents – the world is changing, and he must change with it ("Tevye's Rebuttal"). He informs the young couple that he gives them his blessing and his permission.
Tevye explains these events to an astonished Golde. "Love", he says, "it's the new style." Tevye asks Golde, despite their own arranged marriage, "Do You Love Me?" After dismissing Tevye's question as foolish, she eventually admits that, after 25 years of living and struggling together and raising five daughters, she does. Meanwhile, Yente tells Tzeitel that she saw Chava with Fyedka. News spreads quickly in Anatevka that Perchik has been arrested and exiled to Siberia ("The Rumor/I Just Heard"), and Hodel is determined to join him there. At the railway station, she explains to her father that her home is with her beloved, wherever he may be, although she will always love her family ("Far From the Home I Love").
Time passes. Motel has purchased a used sewing machine, and he and Tzeitel have had a baby. Chava finally gathers the courage to ask Tevye to allow her marriage to Fyedka. Again Tevye reaches deep into his soul, but marriage outside the Jewish faith is a line he will not cross. He forbids Chava to speak to Fyedka again. When Golde brings news that Chava has eloped with Fyedka, Tevye wonders where he went wrong ("Chavaleh Sequence"). Chava returns and tries to reason with him, but he refuses to speak to her and tells the rest of the family to consider her dead. Meanwhile, rumors are spreading of the Russians expelling Jews from their villages. While the villagers are gathered, the constable arrives to tell everyone that they have three days to pack up and leave the town. In shock, they reminisce about "Anatevka" and how hard it will be to leave what has been their home for so long.
As the Jews leave Anatevka, Chava and Fyedka stop to tell her family that they are also leaving for Krakow, unwilling to remain among the people who could do such things to others. Tevye still will not talk to her, but when Tzeitel says goodbye to Chava, Tevye prompts her to add "God be with you". Motel and Tzeitel go to Poland as well but will join the rest of the family when they have saved up enough money. As Tevye, Golde and his two youngest daughters leave the village for America, the fiddler begins to play. Tevye beckons with a nod, and the fiddler follows them out of the village.
Musical numbers[edit]
Main article: Fiddler on the Roof songs
Act IPrologue: Tradition – Tevye and the Company
Matchmaker, Matchmaker – Tzeitel, Hodel and Chava
If I Were a Rich Man – Tevye
Sabbath Prayer – Tevye, Golde and the Company
To Life – Tevye, Lazar Wolf and the Company
Tevye's Monologue – Tevye
Miracle of Miracles – Motel
Tevye's Dream – Tevye, Golde, Grandma Tzeitel, Fruma-Sarah
 and the Company
Sunrise, Sunset – Tevye, Golde, Perchik, Hodel and the Company
The Bottle Dance – Instrumental
 Act IIEntr'acte – Orchestra
Now I Have Everything – Perchik and Hodel
Tevye's Rebuttal – Tevye
Do You Love Me? – Tevye and Golde
The Rumor/I Just Heard§ – Yente and villagers
Far From the Home I Love – Hodel
Chavaleh (Little Bird) – Tevye
Anatevka – The Company

§ The 2004 revival featured a song sung by Yente and some women of the village (Rivka and Mirala) titled "Topsy Turvy", discussing the disappearing role of the matchmaker in society. The number replaced "The Rumor/I Just Heard."
Principal characters[edit]
Tevye, a poor milkman with five daughters. Devout and a firm believer in the traditions of his faith. Finds many of his convictions tested by the actions of his three oldest daughters.
Golde, Tevye's sharp-tongued wife. Respects his status as head of the family, but has a mind of her own.
Tzeitel, their oldest daughter, about nineteen. Loves Motel, and wants to marry him even though he's poor.
Hodel, their daughter, about seventeen. Has (as Tevye says) her father's wit and her mother's sharp tongue. Falls in love with Perchik.
Chava, their daughter, about fifteen. Enjoys reading, something that Golde doesn't understand. Falls in love with Fyedka.
Shprintze, their daughter, about twelve
Bielke, their youngest daughter, about nine
Motel Kamzoil, a poor but honest and hardworking tailor who loves, and later marries, Tzeitel.
Perchik, a student and determined Bolshevik revolutionary who is exiled to Siberia. Falls in love with Hodel.
Fyedka, a young Christian man, understanding and good-hearted. Attracted to Chava because he shares her passion for reading.
Lazar Wolf, a wealthy butcher. Married to Fruma-Sarah, widowed. Attempts to arrange a match with Tzeitel.
Yente, the gossipy village matchmaker who matches Tzeitel and Lazar.
Fruma-Sarah, Lazar Wolf's dead wife, who rises from the grave in Tevye's "nightmare"
Grandma Tzeitel, Golde's dead grandmother, also featured in the "nightmare".
Mordcha, the innkeeper.
Rabbi, the village rabbi.
Constable, the head of the Russian authority in Anatevka.
Film adaptation[edit]
Main article: Fiddler on the Roof (film)
The film version was released in 1971, directed and produced by Norman Jewison, and Joseph Stein adapted his own book for the script of the film. The casting of Chaim Topol over Zero Mostel for the role of Tevye caused controversy at first.[citation needed] The film received an overwhelmingly positive reaction from film critics, audiences and fans of the musical.[citation needed] It became the highest-grossing film of 1971.[citation needed] Fiddler received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for Jewison, Best Actor in a Leading Role for Topol, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Leonard Frey (as Motel; Frey had appeared in the original Broadway production as the rabbi's son). It eventually won three, including best score/adaptation for arranger-conductor John Williams.[21]
Cultural influence[edit]
The musical's popularity has led to numerous references in popular media and elsewhere.[22] The show or its songs have been parodied and covered widely:
Parodies[edit]
Parodies relating to the show have included Antenna on the Roof (Mad Magazine #156, January 1973), which speculated about the lives of Tevye's descendants living in an assimilated 1970s suburban America.[22] The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society published a musical theatre and album parody of Fiddler on the Roof called A Shoggoth on the Roof, which incorporates the works of H. P. Lovecraft.[23] In the film Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Robin Williams parodies "Matchmaker".[24]
References to the musical on television have included a 2005 episode of Gilmore Girls titled "Jews and Chinese Food", involving a production of the musical.[25] A skit by The Electric Company about a village fiddler with a fear of heights, so he is deemed "Fiddler on the Chair". In the Family Guy episode "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" (2003), William Shatner is depicted as playing Tevye in a scene from Fiddler.[26] The second episode of Muppets Tonight, in 1996, featured Garth Brooks doing a piece of "If I were a Rich Man" in which he kicks several chickens off the roof. "The Rosie Show", a 1996 episode of The Nanny, parodied the dream scene, when Mr. Sheffield fakes a dream to convince Fran not to be a regular on a TV show. A 2011 episode of NBC's Community, entitled "Competitive Wine Tasting", included a parody of Fiddler titled, "Fiddler, Please!", with an all-black cast dressed in Fiddler on the Roof costumes singing "It's Hard to Be Jewish in Russia, Yo". Chabad.org kicked off their 2008 "To Life" Telethon with a pastiche of the fiddle solo and bottle dance from the musical[27] called "Telethon!" rather than "Tradition!"[28]
Broadway references have included Spamalot, where a "Grail dance" sends up the "bottle dance" in Fiddler's wedding scene.[29] The Producers (2001) includes a musical number in the style of Jerry Bock that features an actual fiddler on a roof. Also in 2001, Chicago's Improv Olympic produced a well-received parody, "The Roof Is on Fiddler", that used most of the original book of the musical but replaced the songs with 1980's pop songs.[30] The original Broadway cast of the musical Avenue Q and the Broadway 2004 revival cast of Fiddler on the Roof collaborated for a Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit and produced an approximately 10-minute-long show, "Avenue Jew", that incorporated characters from both shows, including puppets.
Covers[edit]
Songs from the musical have been covered by notable artists. For example, in 1964, jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley recorded the album Fiddler on the Roof, which featured jazz arrangements of eight songs from the musical. Allmusic awarded the album 4 stars and states "Cannonball plays near his peak; this is certainly the finest album by this particular sextet".[31] In 1999, Knitting Factory Records released Knitting on the Roof, a compilation CD featuring covers of Fiddler songs by alternative bands such as The Residents, Negativland, and The Magnetic Fields.[32][33] Indie rock band Bright Eyes recorded an adaptation of "Sunrise, Sunset" on their 2000 album Fevers and Mirrors. Allmusic gave the album a favorable review,[34] and the online music magazine Pitchfork Media ranked it at number 170 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s.[35] In 2005, Melbourne punk band Yidcore released a reworking of the entire show called Fiddling on Ya Roof.[36]
Gwen Stefani and Eve covered "If I Were a Rich Man" as "Rich Girl" for Stefani's 2004 debut solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. in 2004. The song was inspired by the 1993 British Louchie Lou & Michie One ragga version "of the same name.[37] Stefani's version reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it remained for over six months.[38] It was certified gold by the RIAA[39] and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.[40] It was also covered in 2008 and 2009 by the Capitol Steps, poking fun at Illinois politics, especially then-Governor Rod Blagojevich.[41] The Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps performs the "Bottle Dance" from Fiddler as a "recurring trademark", including at the Drum Corps International World Championships.[42]
Other versions[edit]
The song Sunrise, Sunset, is often played at weddings, and in 2011 Sheldon Harnick wrote two versions of the song, suitable for same-sex weddings, with minor word changes. For example, for male couples, changes include "When did they grow to be so handsome".[43]
Awards[edit]
Main article: List of awards and nominations for the musical ''Fiddler on the Roof''
Fiddler's original Broadway production in 1964 was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning nine, including Best Musical, score, and book, and Robbins won for best direction and choreography. Mostel and Karnilova won as best leading actor and actress. In 1972, the show won a special Tony on becoming the longest-running musical in Broadway history.
Its revivals have also been honored. At the 1981 Tony Awards, Bernardi was nominated as best actor. Ten years later, the 1991 revival won for best revival, and Topol was nominated as best actor. The 2004 revival was nominated for six Tony Awards and three Drama Desk Awards but won none. The 2007 West End revival was nominated for Olivier Awards for best revival, and Goodman was nominated as best actor.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ TIME magazine reported in its May 26, 2008, issue, p. 51, that this musical ranked as the seventh most frequently produced musical by U.S. high schools in 2007.
2.Jump up ^ Information from the MTI website
3.Jump up ^ Miri Ben-Shalome, Kaleidoscope with Stewart Lane speaking to Miri Ben-Shalom on his Fiddler on the Roof production, All About Jewish Theatre, accessed 6 December 2007.
4.Jump up ^ Fiddler on the Roof. Additional Facts, MTI, accessed May 6, 2010
5.Jump up ^ "Show Archive", Broadway in Detroit, accessed January 15, 2014
6.Jump up ^ He staged Jerome Robbins' Broadway, a "greatest hits" collection of some of his most famous stagings, at the Imperial Theatre on February 26, 1989, which ran for 633 performances.
7.Jump up ^ Rich, p. 172
8.Jump up ^ Mel Gussow (1996-01-05). "Paul Lipson, 82, Who Appeared As Tevye Over 2,000 Times". 'The New York Times (paid archive). Retrieved 2008-12-22.
9.Jump up ^ Kantor, p. 302: "The 1960s was the decade that nurtured long-running blockbusters in unprecedented quantities: ten musicals passed the rarefied 1,000 performance mark, three of them passed the 2,000 mark (Hello, Dolly!, a Merrick smash, grossed $27 million on Broadway), and one, Fiddler on the Roof, passed the 3,000 mark, earning back $1,574 for every dollar put into it."
10.Jump up ^ Fiddler on the Roof (2004), IBDB database, accessed July 22, 2012
11.Jump up ^ Gioia, Michael. "Fiddler on the Roof Will Return to Broadway in 2015; Bartlett Sher Will Direct", Playbill, March 6, 2014
12.Jump up ^ Information on the 1994 production
13.Jump up ^ Information about the 2007 London production of Fiddler on the Roof
14.Jump up ^ thisistheatre listing for 2008 tour
15.Jump up ^ Jones, Kenneth. "Harvey Fierstein to Replace Topol in Touring Fiddler on the Roof", playbill.com, November 11, 2009
16.Jump up ^ Nahshon, Edna. "Israeli Theater: The revival of the Hebrew Language". All About Jewish Theatre, accessed January 14, 2011
17.Jump up ^ Almagor, Dan; (translated to English by Jay Shir). "Musical Plays on the Hebrew Stage". All About Jewish Theater, accessed January 14, 2011
18.Jump up ^ Un Violinista sobre el Tejado, Teatro Nacional de Panama, 2012
19.Jump up ^ "Un violon sur le toît", Académie Nationale de l'Opérette, January 2, 2012 (French)
20.Jump up ^ http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/OnStage/productions.aspx?id=20167&prodid=46997 "Fiddler on the Roof at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival", accessed August 30, 2013
21.Jump up ^ "The 44th Academy Awards (1972) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
22.^ Jump up to: a b Solomon, Alisa. "Tevye, Today and Beyond", Part 2 of 2, The Jewish Daily Forward, September 8, 2006, accessed March 30, 2012
23.Jump up ^ A Shoggoth on the Roof, H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, March 30, 2012
24.Jump up ^ Willistein, Paul. "Mrs. Doubtfire Offers Williams At His Best", The Morning Call, November 25, 1993, accessed March 30, 2012
25.Jump up ^ "Episode Recap: Gilmore Girls: 'Jews and Chinese Food'", TV.com, accessed March 30, 2012
26.Jump up ^ "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein", San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, 2009, accessed April 3, 2012
27.Jump up ^ Bottledancers.com
28.Jump up ^ Tolife.com
29.Jump up ^ Demers, Ben. "Monty Python’s Spamalot", DCTheatreScene.com, March 15, 2012
30.Jump up ^ Jones, Chris. "Parody hits the Roof", Chicago Tribune, June 28, 2001, accessed January 25, 2012
31.Jump up ^ Yanow, S. "Cannonball Adderley's Fiddler on the Roof", Allmusic, accessed March 30, 2012
32.Jump up ^ Kim, Wook. "Music Review: Knitting on the Roof", Entertainment Weekly, January 7, 2000, accessed March 30, 2012
33.Jump up ^ Layne, Joslyn. "Review: Knitting on the Roof", Allmusic, accessed March 30, 2012
34.Jump up ^ Fevers and Mirrors, Allmusic, accessed March 30, 2012
35.Jump up ^ Pitchfork staff (September 28, 2009). "The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s: 200-151". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved March 30, 2012.
36.Jump up ^ Shand, John. "Yidcore: Eighth Day Slice/Fiddlin' on Ya Roof", Sydney Morning Herald, October 20, 2005, accessed March 30, 2012
37.Jump up ^ Ives, Brian; Bottomley, C. (January 5, 2005). "Gwen Stefani: The Solo Express". VH1. MTV Networks. Retrieved May 22, 2007.
38.Jump up ^ "Rich Girl – Gwen Stefani". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved October 21, 2010.
39.Jump up ^ "Gold & Platinum". Recording Industry Association of America. March 29, 2005. Retrieved April 20, 2010.
40.Jump up ^ "Complete list of 2006 Grammy winners". The Baltimore Sun. Tribune Company. February 9, 2006. Retrieved March 14, 2007.
41.Jump up ^ Lariviere, John. "The Capitol Steps", Talkin' Broadway, accessed March 30, 2012
42.Jump up ^ Boo, Michael. "Fanfare: Five great DCI color guard moments", Drum Corps International News, April 6, 2011, accessed March 30, 2012
43.Jump up ^ Jones, Arnold Wayne. "'Sunrise, Sunset' gets gay lyric", Dallas Voice, October 6, 2011, accessed August 5, 2013
Bibliography[edit]
Altman, Richard The Making of a Musical: Fiddler on the Roof. (1971). Crown Publishers.
Kantor, Michael; Laurence Maslon (2004). Broadway: the American musical. New York, New York: Bulfinch Press. ISBN 0-8212-2905-2.
Rich, Frank. The Theatre Art of Boris Aronson (1987), Knopf ISBN 0-394-52913-8
Playbill article about the original Broadway production
Whitfield, Stephen J (2003). "Fiddling with Sholem Aleichem: A History of Fiddler on the Roof". Key texts in American Jewish culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-3221-3.
External links[edit]
Fiddler on the Roof at the Internet Broadway Database
Fiddler on the Roof JR. at the Music Theatre International website
Broadway.tv article noting that Mostel’s script is held at The New York Library of The Performing Arts
Fiddler on the Roof at Ovrtur
YouTube video: "Sunrise, Sunset," from the Japanese stage production.
Longest-running plays on Broadway, Off-Broadway, London, Toronto, Melbourne, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin
List of longest-running Broadway productions from Playbill.com
Preceded by
Life with Father Longest-running Broadway show
 1970 – 1979 Succeeded by
Grease


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Fiddler on the Roof (film)
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 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2014)

Fiddler on the Roof
Fiddler on the roof.jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Norman Jewison
Produced by
Norman Jewison
Uncredited:
Walter Mirisch
Screenplay by
Joseph Stein
Based on
Tevye and His Daughters
 by Sholem Aleichem
Starring
Chaim Topol
Norma Crane
Leonard Frey
Molly Picon
Paul Mann
Music by
Jerry Bock
Cinematography
Oswald Morris
Edited by
Antony Gibbs
Robert Lawrence
Production
 company
The Mirisch Production Company

Distributed by
United Artists
Release dates
November 3, 1971

Running time
179 minutes[1]
Country
United States
Language
English
 Hebrew
 Russian
Budget
$9 million
Box office
$83,387,607[2]
Fiddler on the Roof is a 1971 American musical comedy-drama film produced and directed by Norman Jewison. It is an adaptation of the 1964 Broadway musical of the same name, with music composed by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and screenplay by Joseph Stein. The film won three Academy Awards, including one for arranger-conductor John Williams. It was nominated for several more, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Chaim Topol as Tevye, and Best Supporting Actor for Leonard Frey, who played Mottel Kamzoil the Tailor (both had originally acted in the musical; Topol as Tevye in the London production and Frey in a minor part as Mendel, the rabbi's son). The decision to cast Topol, instead of Zero Mostel, as Tevye was a somewhat controversial one, as the role had originated with Mostel and he had made it famous. Years later, Jewison explained that he felt Mostel's larger-than-life personality, while fine on stage, would cause film audiences to see him (i.e., Zero Mostel, the actor) rather than the character of Tevye.
The film centers on the Tevye family, a Jewish family living in the town of Anatevka, in Russian Empire, in 1905. Anatevka is broken into two sections: a small Orthodox Jewish section; and a larger Russian Orthodox Christian section. Tevye notes that, "We don't bother them, and so far, they don't bother us." Throughout the film, Tevye breaks the fourth wall by talking at times, directly to the audience or to the heavens (to God), for the audience's benefit. Much of the story is also told in musical form.
Tevye is not wealthy, despite working hard, like most Jews in Anatevka, and also due to having many children. He and his sharp tongued wife, Golde, have five daughters and cannot afford to give them much in the way of dowries. According to their tradition, they have to rely on the village matchmaker, Yente, to find them husbands. Life in the little town of Anatevka is very hard and Tevye speaks not only of the difficulties of being poor but also of the Jewish community's constant fear of harassment from their non-Jewish neighbors. In addition, Tevye has a lame horse, that adds to the misery of being poor, and has to pull the wagon by himself.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot 1.1 Act 1
1.2 Act 2
2 Cast
3 Musical numbers
4 Production
5 Differences from the Broadway musical
6 Release 6.1 Roadshow presentation
6.2 Reception
6.3 Awards
7 References
8 External links

Plot[edit]
Act 1[edit]
The film opens with Tevye explaining to the audience that what keeps the Jews of Anatevka going is the balance they achieve through following their ancient traditions. He also explains that the lot of the Jews in Russia are as precarious as a fiddler on a roof: trying to scratch out a pleasant tune, while not breaking their necks. The fiddler appears throughout the film as a metaphoric reminder of the Jews' ever-present fears and danger, and also as a symbol of the traditions Tevye is trying to hold onto as his world changes around him. While in town, Tevye meets Perchik, a radical Marxist from Kiev. Tevye invites Perchik to stay with him and his family, and as a deal, offers him food, in exchange for Perchik tutoring his daughters.
Through Yente, a matchmaker, Tevye arranges a marriage for his oldest daughter, Tzeitel, to Lazar Wolf, a wealthy butcher. However, Tzeitel is in love with her childhood sweetheart, Mottel (pronounced "mottle") Kamzoil the tailor, and begs her father not to make her marry the much older butcher. Initially angry because he has already made an "agreement" with Wolf, Tevye realizes that Tzeitel loves Mottel and yields to his daughter's demands. To get Tzeitel and Tevye out of the agreement with Lazar, Tevye claims to have a nightmare, which he repeats to his wife Golde. In the nightmare, he says that Golde's deceased Grandmother Tzeitel told him that Tzeitel is supposed to marry Mottel, as it was decided in heaven. Also in the nightmare, Lazar Wolf's late wife, Fruma-Sarah, warns Tevye that if Tzeitel marries Lazar, she will kill Tzeitel after three weeks of marriage. Golde concludes that the dream was a message to be followed from their ancestors, and Tzeitel and Mottel arrange to be married.
Meanwhile, after one of Perchik's lessons with Bielke and Shprintze (the youngest of Tevye's daughters), Tevye's second daughter, Hodel, mocks Perchik's interpretation of the story of Leah he told her sisters. He, in turn, criticizes her for hanging on to the old traditions of her religion and tells her that the world is changing. To illustrate this, he dances with her, because the opposite sexes dancing together is considered forbidden to Orthodox Jews. The two are shown to be falling in love, and Perchik tells Hodel that they just changed an old tradition.
The constable is basically sympathetic to the Jewish villagers, though not enough to give up his job in their defense. He resists when ordered to put on a "spontaneous" anti-Jewish demonstration but gives in to keep his job. Before Tzeitel's wedding, he warns Tevye of the impending demonstration.
Later, at Tzeitel and Mottel's wedding, an argument breaks out over whether a girl should be able to choose her own husband. Perchik addresses the crowd and says that, since they love each other, it should be left for the couple to decide and creates further controversy by asking Hodel to dance with him. The two begin to dance, and gradually, the crowd warms to the idea — with Tevye and Golde joining, then Mottel and Tzeitel. The wedding then proceeds with great joy. Suddenly, the military presence in the town and the constable arrive and begin a pogrom, attacking the Jews and their property. The constable stops the attack on the wedding celebration after the "radical" Perchik is wounded in the scuffle with the Tsar's men; however, he allows the pogrom to continue in the form of massive property damage to the village of Anatevka.
Act 2[edit]
A few months later, as Perchik prepares to leave Anatevka to work for the revolution, he proposes to Hodel and she accepts. When they tell Tevye, he is furious that they have decided to marry without his permission and with Perchik leaving Hodel behind in Anatevka, but again he relents because they love each other. This time, Tevye tells Golde the truth — and as a side effect they are prompted to re-evaluate their own arranged marriage and relationship, realizing that, in their own way, they do love each other. Weeks later, when Perchik is arrested in Kiev and is exiled to Siberia, Hodel decides to join him there. She promises Tevye that she and Perchik will be married under a canopy there.
Not too long afterwards, Tzeitel and Mottel become parents, and Mottel finally buys the sewing machine for which he has long scrimped and saved. By now they are becoming, in their own right, respected members of the community, and a close, almost parent-child relationship is developing between Mottel and Tevye and Golde — who, not so long ago, had scorned Mottel as a nobody.
Meanwhile, Tevye's third daughter Chava has fallen in love with a young Russian peasant— a Russian Orthodox Christian — named Fyedka. She eventually works up the courage to ask Tevye to allow her to marry him. Horrified, Tevye forbids her to see him again, as well as to not have any contact or to mention his name again, but they elope and are married in a Russian Orthodox church, as Golde would find out when she meets up with the priest upon hearing about the marriage. Grief-stricken, she runs off to find Tevye doing his rounds and tells him everything. In a soliloquy reminiscent of those spoken by Tevye concerning his other daughters but with a radically different conclusion, Tevye concludes that he cannot accept Chava marrying a non-Jew, in effect abandoning the Jewish faith, so he disowns her. He then urges Golde to go home to the other children.
Finally, the Jews of Anatevka are notified that they have to leave the village or be forced out by the government; they have three days. Tevye, his family and friends begin packing up to leave, heading for various parts of the United States and other places: Yente the matchmaker to Ottoman Palestine, Lazar Wolf to Chicago and Tzeitel and Mottel to Warsaw (until they make enough money to join the rest of the family in New York). Chava and her husband Fyedka come to Tevye's house and tell her family that they are leaving too — unable to stay in a place that would force innocent people out. They head to Krakow, Poland. Tevye shows signs of forgiving Chava by murmuring under his breath "And God be with you", silently urging Tzeitel to repeat his words to Chava. Golde calls out to Chava and Fyedka, telling them where they will be living in New York.
The mass departure of the Jews from Anatevka takes place while the Constable silently watches. The community forms their circle for one last time before scattering in their different directions. Just before the closing credits, Tevye spots the fiddler and motions to him to come along, symbolizing that even though he must leave his town, his traditions will always be with him. The film ends with the fiddler following Tevye down the road, playing the "Tradition" theme.
Cast[edit]
Chaim Topol as Tevye
Norma Crane as Golde, his wife
Leonard Frey as Mottel Kamzoil, the tailor, Tzeitel's eventual husband
Molly Picon as Yente, the matchmaker
Paul Mann as Lazar Wolf, the butcher, Tzeitel's older suitor
Rosalind Harris as Tzeitel, the oldest daughter
Michele Marsh as Hodel, the second daughter
Neva Small as Chava, the third daughter
Michael Glaser as Perchik, the revolutionary, Hodel's eventual husband
Raymond Lovelock as Fyedka, a Christian, Chava's eventual husband
Elaine Edwards as Shprintze, the fourth daughter
Candy Bonstein as Bielke. the fifth daughter
Shimen Rushkin as Mordcha
Zvee Scooler as Rabbi
Louis Zorich as Constable
Alfie Scopp as Avram
Howard Goorney as Nachum
Barry Dennen as Mendel
Ruth Madoc as Fruma-Sarah, the butcher's late wife
Patience Collier as Grandmother Tzeitel
Tutte Lemkow as Fiddler
Marika Rivera as Rifka
Musical numbers[edit]
1."Prologue / Tradition" - Tevye and Company
2."Main Title"
3."Matchmaker" - Tzeitel, Hodel, Chava, Shprintze, and Bielke
4."If I Were a Rich Man" - Tevye
5."Sabbath Prayer" - Tevye, Golde, and Chorus
6."To Life" - Tevye, Lazar Wolf, and Male Company
7."Tevye's Monologue (Tzeitel and Mottel)" - Tevye
8."Miracle of Miracles" - Mottel
9."Tevye's Dream" - Tevye, Golde, Grandmother Tzeitel, Rabbi, Fruma-Sarah, and Chorus
10."Sunrise, Sunset" - Tevye, Golde, Perchik, Hodel, and Chorus
11."Wedding Celebration / The Bottle Dance"
12."Entr'acte"
13."Tevye's Monologue (Hodel and Perchik)" - Tevye
14."Do You Love Me?" - Tevye and Golde
15."Far from the Home I Love" - Hodel
16."Chava Ballet Sequence (Chava)" - Tevye
17."Tevye's Monologue (Chava and Fyedka)" - Tevye
18."Anatevka" - Tevye, Golde, Lazar Wolf, Yente, Mendel, Mordcha, and Company
19."Finale"
Production[edit]
Principal photography was done at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England. Most of the exterior shots were done in SFR Yugoslavia - specifically in Mala Gorica, Lekenik, and Zagreb within the Yugoslav constituent republic of Croatia. Isaac Stern provided the violin solos.
Differences from the Broadway musical[edit]
The film follows the plot of the stage play very closely, retaining nearly all of the play's dialogue, although it omits the songs "Now I Have Everything" and "The Rumor (I Just Heard)". Lyrical portions of "Tevye's Dream (Tailor Mottel Kemzoil)", were omitted to avoid repetition. Also, the song "Tradition" omits the dialogue between Reb Nachum the beggar and Lazar Wolf, and the dialogue of Yente attempting to match Avram's son with an almost-blind daughter was omitted. In "Tradition", the argument between two men, about whether a sold horse is actually a mule was changed to whether a horse claimed to be six years old was actually twelve. Tevye whispers to one of the men that "it was really twelve years old", thus starting the heated argument again.
Three scenes were added to the film:
The Constable gets orders from his superior for the "demonstration" against the Jews (referred to by the superior as "Christ-killers") in Anatevka
Perchik is arrested at a workers' rally in Kiev
Golde goes to the priest to look for Chava (described by her in the stage production)
A new song intended to be sung by Perchik was recorded ("Any Day Now"), but it was omitted from the final print and is included in the 2004 re-released soundtrack. When the film was re-released in 1979, 32 minutes were cut, including the songs "Far from the Home I Love" and "Anatevka".
Release[edit]
Roadshow presentation[edit]
Because the film follows the stage musical so closely, and the musical did not have an overture, the filmmakers chose to eliminate the customary film overture played before the beginning of most motion pictures shown in a roadshow-style presentation. However, there is an intermission featuring entr'acte music, and exit music is played at the end after the closing credits.
Reception[edit]
The film was a big hit, earning United Artists profits of $6.1 million, plus distribution profits of $8 million.[3]
Awards[edit]
The film won three Academy Awards in 1972 and two Golden Globes in 1971.[4] It won Academy Awards for Best Song Score Adaptation, Best Cinematography, and Best Sound (Gordon McCallum, David Hildyard).[5]
It also won the Golden Globe for Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Topol's acting.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (U)". British Board of Film Classification. August 19, 1971. Retrieved April 21, 2013.
2.Jump up ^ Movie Box Office Figures. LDS Film. Retrieved April 15, 2013.
3.Jump up ^ Tino Balio, United Artists: The Company The Changed the Film Industry, Uni of Wisconsin Press, 1987 p 194
4.Jump up ^ "Fiddler on the Roof – Cast, Crew, Director and Awards". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-10-31.
5.Jump up ^ "The 44th Academy Awards (1972) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
External links[edit]
Fiddler on the Roof at the Internet Movie Database
Fiddler on the Roof at the TCM Movie Database
Fiddler on the Roof at Box Office Mojo
Fiddler on the Roof at Rotten Tomatoes


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Categories: 1971 films
1970s comedy-drama films
1970s musical comedy films
American comedy-drama films
American musical comedy films
American musical drama films
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
English-language films
Film scores by John Williams
Films about Jews and Judaism
Films based on musicals
Films directed by Norman Jewison
Films featuring a Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe winning performance
Films set in Russia
Films set in 1905
Films shot in Croatia
Films shot in England
Films shot in London
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Films that won the Best Sound Mixing Academy Award
Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
Hebrew-language films
Interfaith romance films
Pinewood Studios films
Russian-language films
United Artists films
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Funny Lady
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search


Funny Lady
Funny lady movie poster.jpg
Theatrical poster

Directed by
Herbert Ross
Produced by
Ray Stark
Written by
Jay Presson Allen
Arnold Schulman
Starring
Barbra Streisand
James Caan
Omar Sharif
Roddy McDowall
Ben Vereen
Music by
Fred Ebb
John Kander
Peter Matz
Cinematography
James Wong Howe
Edited by
Marion Rothman
 Maury Winetrobe
Production
 company
Rastar

Distributed by
Columbia Pictures
Release dates
March 15, 1975

Running time
136 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Box office
$40,055,897[1]
Funny Lady is a 1975 musical film starring Barbra Streisand, James Caan, Omar Sharif, Roddy McDowall, and Ben Vereen.
A sequel to the 1968 film Funny Girl, it is a highly fictionalized account of the later life and career of comedienne Fanny Brice and her marriage to songwriter and impresario Billy Rose. The screenplay was by Jay Presson Allen and Arnold Schulman, based on a story by Schulman. The primary score was by John Kander and Fred Ebb, whose first success as a team had been the song "My Coloring Book," which had been written for Kaye Ballard, but was recorded by Streisand in 1962, who popularized it. It was directed by Herbert Ross.


Contents  [hide]
1 Cast
2 Production
3 Box office
4 Awards
5 Soundtrack
6 References 6.1 Bibliography
7 External links

Cast[edit]
Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice
James Caan as Billy Rose
Omar Sharif as Nick Arnstein
Roddy McDowall as Bobby Moore
Ben Vereen as Bert Robbins
Production[edit]
Although she was contractually bound to make one more film for producer Ray Stark (Fanny Brice's one-time son-in-law), Streisand balked at doing the project. She told Stark "that it would take litigation to make her do a sequel." However, Streisand liked the script, which showed Fanny to be "...tougher, more acerbic, more mature...", and she agreed to do the film.[2][3]
The first actor to read for the role of Billy Rose was Robert Blake. Other actors were mentioned, including Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, but ultimately James Caan was chosen. Streisand explained: "It comes down to whom the audience wants me to kiss. Robert Blake, no. James Caan, yes."[3]
Stark, unhappy with the scenes shot by the original cinematographer, lured an ailing James Wong Howe out of retirement to complete the film. It proved to be his final project, and it earned him an Academy Award nomination.[4]
Studio heads forced Ross to trim the film to a manageable 136 minutes prior to its release. Much of Vereen's performance ended up on the cutting room floor, together with a recreation of Brice's "Baby Snooks" radio show and dramatic scenes involving her and her daughter.[5]
In addition to Howe, Oscar nominations went to Ray Aghayan and Bob Mackie for Best Costume Design, John Kander and Fred Ebb for Best Original Song ("How Lucky Can You Get?"), Peter Matz for Best Scoring of an Original Song Score and/or Adaptation, and the sound crew. Streisand, Caan, and Vereen all received Golden Globe Award nominations, as did Kander and Ebb and the film itself, but it was shut out of any wins in both competitions.[6]
Box office[edit]
The film grossed $40,055,897 at the U.S. box office, making it the eighth highest grossing picture of 1975.
James Caan thought there were "too many cooks messing around" the film, although he liked his performance.[7]
Awards[edit]
The film was nominated for five Academy Awards:[8]
Academy Award for Cinematography
Academy Award for Costume Design
Academy Award for Music (Scoring: Original Song Score and Adaptation)
Academy Award for Music (Original Song)
Academy Award for Best Sound (Richard Portman, Don MacDougall, Curly Thirlwell, Jack Solomon)
It was also nominated for six Golden Globe awards including Best Picture Musical/Comedy, Best Actress for Barbra Streisand, and Best Actor for James Caan.
Soundtrack[edit]
The soundtrack entered the Billboard Album Chart at number 6 and was certified gold.[9]
The original 1975 Arista soundtrack, with all songs by Kander and Ebb, unless otherwise noted:[10]
Side 1
"How Lucky Can You Get?"
"So Long, Honey Lamb"
"I Found a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store)" (Harry Warren, Billy Rose, Mort Dixon)
"Isn't This Better?"
"Me and My Shadow" (Billy Rose, Al Jolson, Dave Dreyer)
"If I Love Again" (Ben Oakland, J. P. Murray)
"I Got a Code in my Doze" (Billy Rose, Arthur Fields, Fred Hall)
"(It's Gonna Be A) Great Day" (Vincent Youmans, Edward Eliscu, Billy Rose)
Side 2
"Blind Date"
"Am I Blue?" (Harry Akst, Grant Clarke)
"It's Only a Paper Moon/I Like Him" and "It's Only a Paper Moon/I Like Her" ("It's Only a Paper Moon" by Harold Arlen, E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, Billy Rose; "I Like Him/I Like Her" by Kander and Ebb)
"More Than You Know" (Vincent Youmans, Edward Eliscu, Billy Rose)
"Clap Hands, Here Comes Charley" (Ballard Macdonald, Joseph Meyer, Billy Rose)
"Let's Hear It For Me"
The CD versions in print since 1998 are slightly different, relisted to match the order in the film, and with a couple of alternate versions and a bonus track:[11]
"Blind Date"
"More Than You Know"
"It's Only A Paper Moon / I Like Him"
"It's Only A Paper Moon / I Like Her"
"I Found A Million Dollar Baby (In A Five And Ten Cent Store)"
"So Long, Honey Lamb"
"I Got A Code In My Doze"
"Clap Hands, Here Comes Charley"
"(It's Gonna Be A) Great Day" (alternate version, slightly longer and with a different vocal)[12]
"How Lucky Can You Get"
"Am I Blue"
"Isn't This Better"
"If I Love Again"
"Let's Hear It For Me" (with introduction not included on the original album)
"Me And My Shadow"
"How Lucky Can You Get (Single Mix)"
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Funny Lady, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved January 22, 2012.
2.Jump up ^ Waldman, p.120-121
3.^ Jump up to: a b Funny Lady history tcm.com, accessed March 4, 2009
4.Jump up ^ Nickens and Swenson, pp.124-125
5.Jump up ^ Nickens and Swenson, p. 129
6.Jump up ^ Internet Movie Database listing, "Funny Lady" awards imdb.com, accessed March 3, 2009
7.Jump up ^ James Caan's career hitting tough times Siskel, Gene. Chicago Tribune (1963-Current file) [Chicago, Ill] 27 Nov 1977: e6.
8.Jump up ^ "The 48th Academy Awards (1976) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-10-02.
9.Jump up ^ http://barbra-archives.com/record/albums/funny_lady.html#billboard
10.Jump up ^ http://barbra-archives.com/record/albums/funny_lady.html#tracks1
11.Jump up ^ http://barbra-archives.com/record/albums/funny_lady.html#tracks3
12.Jump up ^ http://barbra-archives.com/record/albums/funny_lady.html#great
Bibliography[edit]
Waldman, Allison J. (2001). The Barbra Streisand Scrapbook, Citadel Press, ISBN 0-8065-2218-6
Nickens, Christopher and Swenson, Karen (2001). The Films of Barbra Streisand, Citadel Press, ISBN 0-8065-1954-1
External links[edit]
Funny Lady at the Internet Movie Database
Funny Lady at AllMovie
Barbra Archives Page on Funny Lady film, including cut scenes
Barbra Archives: "Funny Lady" Soundtrack page


[hide]
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 e
 
Films directed by Herbert Ross


Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) ·
 The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) ·
 T.R. Baskin (1971) ·
 Play It Again, Sam (1972) ·
 The Last of Sheila (1973) ·
 Funny Lady (1975) ·
 The Sunshine Boys (1975) ·
 The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) ·
 The Turning Point (1977) ·
 The Goodbye Girl (1977) ·
 California Suite (1978) ·
 Nijinsky (1980) ·
 Pennies from Heaven (1981) ·
 I Ought to Be in Pictures (1982) ·
 Max Dugan Returns (1983) ·
 Footloose (1984) ·
 Protocol (1984) ·
 The Secret of My Success (1987) ·
 Dancers (1987) ·
 Steel Magnolias (1989) ·
 My Blue Heaven (1990) ·
 True Colors (1991) ·
 Undercover Blues (1993) ·
 Boys on the Side (1995)
 

 


Categories: 1975 films
English-language films
1975 musicals
1970s musical films
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Films set in New York City
Films set in the 1930s
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Funny Girl (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search


Funny Girl
FunnyGirlPoster.jpg
Post-Oscar release poster

Directed by
William Wyler
Produced by
Ray Stark
Written by
Isobel Lennart
Based on
Funny Girl
 1964 musical
 by Isobel Lennart
Jule Styne
Bob Merrill
Starring
Barbra Streisand
Omar Sharif
Kay Medford
Music by
Jule Styne (Music)
 Bob Merrill (Lyrics)
Cinematography
Harry Stradling, Sr.
Edited by
William Sands
 Maury Winetrobe
Production
 company
Rastar

Distributed by
Columbia Pictures
Release dates
September 19, 1968

Running time
149 minutes
(Original release)[1]
 155 minutes
(2002 re-release)[2]
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$14.1 million
Box office
$58,500,000[3]
Funny Girl is a 1968 romantic musical film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart was adapted from her book for the stage musical of the same title. It is loosely based on the life and career of Broadway and film star and comedienne Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein.
The film was produced by Brice's son-in-law, Ray Stark. The score is by Bob Merrill (lyrics) and Jule Styne (music).
Barbra Streisand, reprising her Broadway role, shared the Academy Award for Best Actress with Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter.
In 2006, the American Film Institute ranked the film #16 on its list commemorating AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals. Previously it had ranked the film #41 in its 2002 list of 100 Years ... 100 Passions, the songs "People" and "Don't Rain on My Parade" at #13 and #46, respectively, in its 2004 list of 100 Years ... 100 Songs, and the line "Hello, gorgeous" at #81 in its 2005 list of 100 Years ... 100 Movie Quotes.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Musical numbers
4 Soundtrack
5 Production
6 Sequel
7 "Hello, gorgeous"
8 Jewish representation
9 Critical reception
10 Awards and nominations
11 Home media
12 References
13 External links

Plot[edit]
Set in and around New York City just prior to and following World War I, the story opens with Ziegfeld Follies star Fanny Brice (Barbra Streisand) awaiting the return of husband Nicky Arnstein (Omar Sharif) from prison, and then moves into an extended flashback focusing on their meeting and marriage.
Fanny is first seen as a stage-struck teenager who gets her first job in vaudeville and meets the suave Arnstein following her debut performance. They continue to meet occasionally over the years, becoming more romantically involved as Fanny's career flourishes and she becomes a star. Arnstein eventually seduces Fanny, who decides to abandon the Follies to be with Nicky.
After winning a fortune playing poker while traveling aboard the RMS Berengaria, Nicky agrees to marry Fanny. They move into an expensive house and have a daughter, and Fanny eventually returns to Ziegfeld and the Follies. Meanwhile, Nicky's various business ventures fail, forcing them to move into an apartment. Refusing financial support from his wife, he becomes involved in a bonds scam and is imprisoned for embezzlement for eighteen months.
Following Nick's release from prison, he and Fanny briefly reunite long enough to agree to separate.
Cast[edit]
Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice
Omar Sharif as Nick Arnstein
Kay Medford as Rose Brice
Anne Francis as Georgia James
Walter Pidgeon as Florenz Ziegfeld
Lee Allen as Eddie Ryan
Mae Questel as Mrs. Strakosh
Gerald Mohr as Branca
Frank Faylen as Keeney
Tommy Rall (uncredited) as the Prince who partnered Barbra Streisand in the Swan Lake ballet parody
Chris Cranston (uncredited) as Ziegfeld girl
Nancee Charles (uncredited) as Ballet Dancer
Musical numbers[edit]
1."Overture"
2."If a Girl Isn't Pretty" - Fanny, Rose, Mrs. Strakosh
3."I'm the Greatest Star" - Fanny
4."Rollerskate Rag" - Fanny, Rollerskate Girls
5."I'd Rather Be Blue Over You (Than Happy With Somebody Else)" - Fanny
6."Second Hand Rose" - Fanny
7."His Love Makes Me Beautiful" - Fanny, Follies Ensemble
8."People" - Fanny
9."You Are Woman, I Am Man" - Nick, Fanny
10."Don't Rain on My Parade" - Fanny
11."Entr'acte"
12."Sadie, Sadie" - Fanny, Nick
13."The Swan" - Fanny
14."Funny Girl" - Fanny
15."My Man" - Fanny
16."Exit Music"
Although originally released on her 1964 album People, the song People was re-recorded for the movie with a different tempo and additional lyrics.
In the 1985 book Barbra Streisand: The Woman, the Myth, the Music by Shaun Considine, composer Jule Styne revealed he was unhappy with the orchestrations for the film. "They were going for pop arrangements," he recalled. "They dropped eight songs from the Broadway show and we were asked to write some new ones. They didn’t want to go with success. It was the old-fashioned MGM Hollywood way of doing a musical. They always change things to their way of vision, and they always do it wrong. But, of all my musicals they screwed up, Funny Girl came out the best."[4]
Because the songs "My Man," "Second Hand Rose," and "I’d Rather Be Blue" frequently were performed by the real Brice during her career, they were interpolated into the Styne-Merrill score.
Soundtrack[edit]



 1968 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack album cover
Released on the vinyl album format in stereo in 1968, the soundtrack was subsequently released in quadraphonic sound vinyl, cassette, and compact disc. The titles "Second Hand Rose" and "Exit Music" are omitted from the commercially-released soundtrack editions.
Production[edit]
Isobel Lennart originally wrote Funny Girl as a screenplay for a drama film entitled My Man for producer Ray Stark, but when he offered it to Mary Martin, she suggested it might work better as a stage musical. Lennart consequently adapted her script for what eventually became a successful Broadway production starring Barbra Streisand.[5]
Although she had not made any films, Streisand was Stark's first and only choice to portray Brice onscreen. "I just felt she was too much a part of Fanny, and Fanny was too much a part of Barbra to have it go to someone else," he said, but Columbia Pictures executives wanted Shirley MacLaine in the role instead. MacLaine and Streisand were good friends and shared a birthday; both actresses rolled their eyes at the idea. Stark insisted if Streisand were not cast, he would not allow a film to be made, and the studio agreed to his demand.[4]
Mike Nichols, George Roy Hill, and Gene Kelly were considered to direct the film before Sidney Lumet was signed. After working on pre-production for six months, he left the project due to "creative differences" and was replaced by William Wyler, whose long and illustrious award-winning career never had included a musical film; he originally was assigned to direct The Sound of Music. Wyler initially declined Stark's offer because he was concerned his significant hearing loss would affect his ability to work on a musical. After giving it some thought, he told Stark, "If Beethoven could write his Eroica Symphony, then William Wyler can do a musical."[4]
Streisand had never heard of Wyler, and when she was told he had won the Academy Award for Best Director for Ben-Hur, she commented, "Chariots! How is he with people, like women? Is he any good with actresses?" As for Wyler, he said, "I wouldn’t have done the picture without her." Her enthusiasm reminded him of Bette Davis, and he felt she "represented a challenge for me because she’s never been in films, and she’s not the usual glamour girl."[4]



 In the film's finale, Streisand sings "My Man," a tune closely associated with Fanny Brice
Styne wanted Frank Sinatra for the role of Nick Arnstein, but the actor was willing to appear in the film only if the role was expanded and new songs were added for the character. Stark thought Sinatra was too old and preferred someone with more class like Cary Grant, even though Grant was eleven years older than Sinatra.[5] Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, Sean Connery, David Janssen, and James Garner were also considered. Egyptian Omar Sharif was cast to star opposite the Jewish Streisand after Wyler noticed him having lunch in the studio commissary. When the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt broke out, studio executives considered replacing Sharif, but both Wyler and Streisand threatened to quit if they did. Later, the publication of a still depicting a love scene between Fanny and Nick in the Egyptian press prompted a movement to revoke Sharif's citizenship. When asked about the controversy, Streisand replied, "You think the Egyptians are angry? You should see the letter I got from my Aunt Rose!"[4] Anne Francis was cast in a new role as the lead chorine in the Ziegfield Funnies.[6]
Choreographer Herbert Ross, who staged the musical numbers, had worked with Streisand in I Can Get It for You Wholesale, her Broadway debut.[4]
Principal photography began in August 1967 and was completed by December.[7] During pre-recording of the songs, Streisand had demanded extensive retakes until she was satisfied with them, and on the set she continued to display her perfectionist nature, frequently arguing with Wyler about costumes and photography. She allegedly had so many of her scenes with Anne Francis cut before the film's release that Francis sued to have her name removed from the credits, but lost.[4] Streisand later claimed she never told Wyler to cut anything & the final film reflected his choices, not hers. Francis later said "I have no feud with Barbra. But doing that film was like Gaslight. What infuriated me was the way they did things - never telling me, never talking to me, just cutting. I think they were afraid that if they were nice to me, Barbra would have been upset."[8]
Sequel[edit]
In 1975, Streisand reprised her role of Brice opposite James Caan as Brice's second husband, impresario Billy Rose, in a sequel entitled Funny Lady.
"Hello, gorgeous"[edit]
"Hello, gorgeous" are the first words uttered by Streisand in the film. After winning the Academy Award for Best Actress, Streisand's first comment when handed the Oscar statuette was "Hello, gorgeous."
Since the release of the film, "Hello, gorgeous" has been referenced in several films. The line appeared as the name of Michelle Pfeiffer's salon in Married to the Mob. The line was also uttered by the character Max Bialystock in the film and Broadway show The Producers, but the inflection used by Zero Mostel in the 1968 film is different from that used by Streisand in Funny Girl. The line is also regularly peppered through popular culture.
In 2005, the line was chosen as #81 on the American Film Institute list, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes.[9]
Jewish representation[edit]
In her book Talking Back: Images of Jewish Women in American Popular Culture, Joyce Antler writes that Streisand has created several rich images of a Jewish woman within film, Funny Girl being one of them. In Funny Girl, Antler writes, Streisand is able to portray a character that is obviously Jewish, and in this role she creates a space for the intelligent Jewish woman to be depicted. When Barbra Streisand appeared in Funny Girl in 1968, for the first time, a Jewish woman was on screen with Jewish features, a Jewish name and Jewish mannerisms. In this role the Jewish woman was presented as smart, comedic, beautiful and talented.[10]
Critical reception[edit]
In his review in Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert called Streisand "magnificent" and added, "She has the best timing since Mae West, and is more fun to watch than anyone since the young Katharine Hepburn. She doesn't actually sing a song at all; she acts it. She does things with her hands and face that are simply individual; that's the only way to describe them. They haven't been done before. She sings, and you're really happy you're there." But he thought "the film itself is perhaps the ultimate example of the roadshow musical gone overboard. It is over-produced, over-photographed and over-long. The second half drags badly. The supporting characters are generally wooden . . . That makes the movie itself kind of schizo. It is impossible to praise Miss Streisand too highly; hard to find much to praise about the rest of the film."[11]
Variety said Streisand makes "a marked impact" and continued, "The saga of the tragi-comedienne Fanny Brice of the ungainly mien and manner, charmed by the suave card-sharp Nick Arnstein, is perhaps of familiar pattern, but it is to the credit of all concerned that it plays so convincingly."[12]
David Parkinson of the film monthly Empire rated the film four out of five stars and called it "one of those films where it doesn't really matter what gets written here - you will have made your mind up about Babs one way or the other, but for the rare uninitiated, this is a fine introduction to her talents."[13]
The film currently holds a 92% 'Fresh' rating on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus stating "[Barbra] Streisand elevates this otherwise rote melodramatic musical with her ultra-memorable star turn as Fanny Brice."[14]
Awards and nominations[edit]
In addition to Streisand's Oscar win as Best Actress, the film was nominated in the categories of Best Picture, Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Medford, Best Cinematography for Stradling, Jr., Best Film Editing for Sands and Winetrobe, Best Scoring of a Musical Picture for Walter Scharf, Best Original Song for the title tune by Styne and Merrill, and Best Sound.[15] Funny Girl, along with Columbia Pictures' other Best Picture nominee and eventual winner Oliver! secured a combined total of 19 nominations; the most nominations for musicals from one studio in a year. Both of which were the only musical films of 1968 that achieved the same level of terrific enthusiasm and acclaim from critics and audiences as other big musicals of the 1960s.[citation needed]
Streisand won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and nominations went to the film, Wyler, and Styne and Merrill for the title song.
Streisand was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and nominations went to Stradling for Best Cinematography and Irene Sharaff for Best Costume Design.
Lennart won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Musical, and Wyler was nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing - Feature Film.
Home media[edit]
The film was released on Region 1 DVD on October 23, 2001. It is in anamorphic widescreen format with audio tracks in English and French and subtitles in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Georgian, Chinese, and Thai. Bonus features include Barbra in Movieland and This Is Streisand, production information, and cast filmographies. The Blu-ray edition made its world debut on April 30, 2013 with the same bonus material as the DVD release. The Blu-ray release was also concurrent with Streisand's most recent film, The Guilt Trip.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "FUNNY GIRL (U)". British Board of Film Classification. 1968-10-03. Retrieved 2012-11-17.
2.Jump up ^ "FUNNY GIRL (U)". British Board of Film Classification. 2002-01-03. Retrieved 2012-11-17.
3.Jump up ^ "Funny Girl, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved 2012-01-09.
4.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g "Funny Girl (1968) - Overview". TCM. Turner Broadcasting System. Retrieved 2014-10-23.
5.^ Jump up to: a b Taylor, Theodore, Jule: The Story of Composer Jule Styne. New York: Random House 1979. ISBN 0-394-41296-6, pp. 226-249
6.Jump up ^ Scott, Vernon (1967-08-25). ""Honey West" now in "Funny Girl"". The News-Dispatch. Retrieved 2013-10-14.
7.Jump up ^ Barbra Streisand archives
8.Jump up ^ Kleiner, Dick (1968-11-27). "Knotts Goes Romantic". The Sumter Daily Item. Retrieved 2013-10-14.
9.Jump up ^ "AFI'S 100 Greatest Movie Quotes of All Time". American Film Institute. Retrieved 2014-10-23.
10.Jump up ^ Antler, Joyce (1998). Talking Back: Images of Jewish Women in American Popular Culture. University Press of New England. pp. 10, 77, 172.
11.Jump up ^ Chicago Sun-Times review
12.Jump up ^ Variety review
13.Jump up ^ Empire review
14.Jump up ^ Funny Girl at Rotten Tomatoes
15.Jump up ^ "The 41st Academy Awards | 1969". Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2014-10-23.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Funny Girl (film).
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Funny Girl (film)
Funny Girl at the Internet Movie Database
Funny Girl at AllMovie
Funny Girl at the TCM Movie Database
Funny Girl at Box Office Mojo
Funny Girl at Rotten Tomatoes
Funny Girl at Metacritic


[hide]
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Films directed by William Wyler


Straight Shootin' (1927) ·
 Anybody Here Seen Kelly? (1928) ·
 The Shakedown (1929) ·
 Hell's Heroes (1930) ·
 A House Divided (1931) ·
 Tom Brown of Culver (1932) ·
 Counsellor at Law (1933) ·
 Glamour (1934) ·
 The Good Fairy (1935) ·
 The Gay Deception (1935) ·
 These Three (1936) ·
 Dodsworth (1936) ·
 Come and Get It (1936) ·
 Dead End (1937) ·
 Jezebel (1938) ·
 Wuthering Heights (1939) ·
 The Westerner (1940) ·
 The Letter (1940) ·
 The Little Foxes (1941) ·
 Mrs. Miniver (1942) ·
 Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944) ·
 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) ·
 Thunderbolt! (1947) ·
 The Heiress (1949) ·
 Detective Story (1951) ·
 Carrie (1952) ·
 Roman Holiday (1953) ·
 The Desperate Hours (1955) ·
 Friendly Persuasion (1956) ·
 The Big Country (1958) ·
 Ben-Hur (1959) ·
 The Children's Hour (1961) ·
 The Collector (1965) ·
 How to Steal a Million (1966) ·
 Funny Girl (1968) ·
 The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970)
 

 


Categories: 1968 films
English-language films
1960s comedy-drama films
1960s musical comedy films
1960s romantic comedy films
American films
American biographical films
American comedy-drama films
American musical comedy films
American musical drama films
American romantic musical films
Films about entertainers
Films directed by William Wyler
Films based on musicals
Films featuring a Best Actress Academy Award winning performance
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Funny Girl (musical)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search


Funny Girl
FunnyGirl1.jpg
Original Cast Album

Music
Jule Styne
Lyrics
Bob Merrill
Book
Isobel Lennart
Basis
The life of Fanny Brice
Productions
1964 Broadway
 1966 West End
Funny Girl is a musical with a book by Isobel Lennart, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The semi-biographical plot is based on the life and career of Broadway, film star and comedienne Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nick Arnstein. Its original title was My Man.
The musical was produced by Ray Stark, who was Brice's son-in-law via his marriage to her daughter Frances, and starred Barbra Streisand. The production was nominated for eight Tony Awards but, facing tough competition from Hello, Dolly!, it failed to win in any categories.


Contents  [hide]
1 Synopsis 1.1 Act I
1.2 Act II
2 Background
3 Productions
4 Cast album
5 Song list
6 Awards and nominations 6.1 Original Broadway production
7 Film adaptation
8 References
9 External links

Synopsis[edit]
The musical is set in and around New York City just prior to and following World War I. Ziegfeld Follies star Fanny Brice, awaiting the return of her husband, Nick Arnstein, from prison, reflects on their life together, and their story is told as a flashback.
Act I[edit]
Fanny is a stage-struck teen who gets her first job in vaudeville. Her mother and her friend Mrs. Strakosh try to dissuade her from show-business because Fanny is not the typical beauty ("If a Girl Isn't Pretty"). But Fanny perseveres ("I'm the Greatest Star") and is helped and encouraged by Eddie Ryan, a dancer she meets in the vaudeville shows. Once Fanny's career takes off, Eddie and Mrs. Brice lament that once she's on Broadway she'll forget about them ("Who Taught Her Everything?"). Fanny performs a supposedly romantic number in the Follies, but she turns it into a classic comic routine, ending the number as a pregnant bride ("His Love Makes Me Beautiful").
She meets the sophisticated and handsome Nick Arnstein, who accompanies Fanny to her mother's opening night party on "Henry Street". Fanny is clearly falling in love with Nick, while acknowledging their complex vulnerabilities ("People"). They meet in Baltimore and have a private dinner at a swanky restaurant and declare their feelings ("You Are Woman"). Fanny is determined to marry Nick regardless of his gambling past ("Don't Rain on My Parade").
Act II[edit]
They do marry and move to a mansion on Long Island ("Sadie, Sadie"). In the meantime, Mrs. Strakosh and Eddie propose to Mrs. Brice that she should find a man to marry, now that her daughter is supporting her ("Find Yourself a Man.") Fanny has become a major star with Ziegfeld and the Follies ("Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat"). Nick asks Ziegfeld to invest in a gambling casino, but although Ziegfeld passes, Fanny insists on investing. When the venture fails and they lose their money, Fanny tries to make light of it, which propels Nick to get involved in a shady bond deal, resulting in his arrest for embezzlement. Fanny feels helpless but stronger than ever in her love for him ("The Music That Makes Me Dance").
In the present, Fanny is waiting for Nick to arrive and has time to reflect on her situation. Nick arrives, newly released from prison, and he and Fanny decide to separate. Fanny is heartbroken, but resolves to pick up her life again ("Don't Rain on My Parade, Reprise").
Background[edit]
Ray Stark had commissioned an authorized biography of Brice, based on taped recollections she had dictated, but was unhappy with the result. It eventually cost him $50,000 to stop publication of The Fabulous Fanny, as it had been titled by the author. Stark then turned to Ben Hecht to write the screenplay for a biopic, but neither Hecht nor the ten writers who succeeded him were able to produce a version that satisfied Stark. Finally, Isobel Lennart submitted My Man, which pleased both Stark and Columbia Pictures executives, who offered Stark $400,000 plus a percentage of the gross for the property.[1]
After reading the screenplay, Mary Martin contacted Stark and proposed it be adapted for a stage musical. Stark discussed the possibility with producer David Merrick, who suggested Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim compose the score. Sondheim told Styne, "I don't want to do the life of Fanny Brice with Mary Martin. She's not Jewish. You need someone ethnic for the part." Shortly after, Martin lost interest in the project and backed out.[2]
Merrick discussed the project with Jerome Robbins, who gave the screenplay to Anne Bancroft. She agreed to play Brice if she could handle the score. Merrick suggested Styne collaborate with Dorothy Fields, but the composer was not interested. He went to Palm Beach, Florida for a month and composed music he thought Bancroft would be able to sing. While he was there, he met Bob Merrill, and he played the five melodies he already had written for him. Merrill agreed to write lyrics for them; these included "Who Are You Now?" and "The Music That Makes Me Dance." Styne was happy with the results and the two men completed the rest of the score, then flew to Los Angeles to play it for Stark, Robbins, and Bancroft, who was at odds with Merrill because of a fight the two had years before. She listened to the score, then stated, "I want no part of this. It's not for me."[2]
With Bancroft out of the picture, Eydie Gormé was considered, but she agreed to play Brice only if her husband Steve Lawrence was cast as Nick Arnstein. Since they thought he was wrong for the role, Stark and Robbins approached Carol Burnett, who said, "I'd love to do it but what you need is a Jewish girl." With options running out, Styne thought Barbra Streisand, whom he remembered from I Can Get It for You Wholesale, would be perfect. She was performing at the Bon Soir in Greenwich Village and Styne urged Robbins to see her. He was impressed and asked her to audition. Styne later recalled, "She looked awful ... All her clothes were out of thrift shops. I saw Fran Stark staring at her, obvious distaste on her face." Despite his wife's objections, Stark hired Streisand on the spot.[2]
Robbins had an argument with Lennart and told Stark he wanted her replaced because he thought she was not capable of adapting her screenplay into a viable book for a stage musical. Stark refused and Robbins quit the project.[2]
Funny Girl temporarily was shelved, and Styne moved on to other projects, including Fade Out – Fade In for Carol Burnett. Then Merrick signed Bob Fosse to direct Funny Girl, and work began on it again, until Fosse quit and the show went into limbo for several months. Then Merrick suggested Stark hire Garson Kanin. It was Merrick's last contribution to the production; shortly afterward he bowed out, and Stark became sole producer.[2]
Streisand was not enthusiastic about Kanin as a director and insisted she wanted Robbins back, especially after Kanin suggested "People" be cut from the score because it didn't fit the character. Streisand already had recorded the song for a single release, and Merrill insisted, "It has to be in the show because it's the greatest thing she's ever done." Kanin agreed to let it remain based on audience reaction to it. By the time the show opened in Boston, people were so familiar with "People" they applauded it during the overture.[2]
There were problems with the script and score throughout rehearsals, and when Funny Girl opened in Boston it was too long, even though thirty minutes already had been cut. The critics praised Streisand but disliked the show. Lennart continued to edit her book and deleted another thirty minutes before the show moved to Philadelphia, where critics thought the show could be a hit if the libretto problems were rectified.[2]
The New York opening was postponed five times while extra weeks were played out of town. Five songs were cut, and "You Are Woman," a solo for Sydney Chaplin, was rewritten as a counterpoint duet. Streisand was still unhappy with Kanin and was pleased when Robbins returned to oversee the choreography by Carol Haney.[2]
Kanin's novel Smash is based loosely on his experience directing Funny Girl.
Productions[edit]
After seventeen previews, the Broadway production opened on March 26, 1964 at the Winter Garden Theatre, subsequently transferring to the Majestic Theatre and The Broadway Theatre, where it closed on July 1, 1967 to complete its total run of 1,348 performances. The musical was directed by Garson Kanin and choreographed by Carol Haney under the supervision of Jerome Robbins. In addition to Streisand and Chaplin, the original cast included Kay Medford, Danny Meehan, Jean Stapleton, and Lainie Kazan, who also served as Streisand's understudy. Later in the run, Streisand and Chaplin were replaced by Mimi Hines and Johnny Desmond, and Hines' husband and comedy partner Phil Ford also joined the cast.
Streisand reprised her role in the 1966 West End production at the Prince of Wales Theatre directed by Lawrence Kasha. When Streisand became pregnant and had to drop out of the show, her understudy, Lisa Shane, wife of "The Italian Job" Director, Peter Collinson, took over, and continued to perform until the show closed.
A 1996 United States National tour starred Debbie Gibson as Fanny Brice and Robert Westenberg as Nick Arnstein. The planned 30-city tour started in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in October 1996, but ended prematurely in November 1996 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.[3][4][5][6]
On September 23, 2002, a concert version for the benefit of the Actors' Fund was staged at the New Amsterdam Theatre. Performers included Carolee Carmello, Kristin Chenoweth, Sutton Foster, Ana Gasteyer, Whoopi Goldberg, Jane Krakowski, Judy Kuhn, Julia Murney, LaChanze, Ricki Lake, Andrea Martin, Idina Menzel, Bebe Neuwirth, Alice Playten, Lillias White, Len Cariou, Peter Gallagher, Gary Beach, and The Rockettes.[7][8]
In regional theatre the Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, New Jersey production ran in April to May 2001 with Leslie Kritzer and Robert Cuccioli. The New York Times reviewer noted: "What makes it all the more impressive is that few actors, or theater companies outside of summer stock, dare to attempt Jule Styne's and Bob Merrill's grand spectacle that propelled Barbra Streisand's career nearly 40 years ago."[9] The Westchester Broadway Theatre production ran from March to June 2009, with Jill Abramovitz as Fanny.[10] The Drury Lane Oakbrook, Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois production ran from December 2009 to March 7, 2010. Gary Griffin was the co-director with Drury Lane artistic director William Osetek, with the cast that featured Sara Sheperd.[11]
A revival directed by Bartlett Sher had been announced to premiere at the Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, in January 2012 [12] with Lauren Ambrose starring as Fanny Brice and Bobby Canavale as Nick Arnstein,[13] and then open on Broadway in April 2012.[14] However, on November 3, 2011, producer Bob Boyett announced that this production has been postponed. He said "We have made the extremely difficult decision today to postpone our production of 'Funny Girl'. Given the current economic climate, many Broadway producing investors have found it impossible to maintain their standard level of financial commitment."[15]
Cast album[edit]
Streisand's label, Columbia Records, passed on making the cast album, so Capitol Records released it. It peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200 and achieved gold record status. The recording was issued on CD in 1987 on Capitol and then in 1992 on EMI's Broadway Angel label. The album received a commemorative 50th Anniversary edition which was released on April 29, 2014. This edition consists of a handsomely designed box set which includes an LP of the cast album as well as a remastered CD and a 48-page soft-cover collector's book full of photographs of the original Broadway production.
Song list[edit]
Act I"Overture" – Orchestra
"If a Girl Isn't Pretty" – Mrs. Strakosh, Mrs. Brice, Eddie Ryan and People
"I'm the Greatest Star" – Fanny Brice
"Cornet Man" – Fanny Brice, Snub Taylor and Keeney Chorus
"Who Taught Her Everything?" – Mrs. Brice and Eddie Ryan
"His Love Makes Me Beautiful" – Ziegfeld Tenor, Ziegfeld Girls and Fanny Brice
"I Want to Be Seen With You Tonight" – Nick Arnstein and Fanny Brice
"Henry Street" – Henry Street Neighbors
"People" – Fanny Brice
"You Are Woman" – Nick Arnstein and Fanny Brice
"Don't Rain on My Parade" – Fanny Brice
 Act II"Sadie, Sadie" – Fanny Brice and Friends
"Find Yourself a Man" – Mrs. Strakosh, Mrs. Brice and Eddie Ryan
"Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat" –Ziegfeld Company and Fanny Brice
"Who Are You Now?" –Fanny Brice
"The Music That Makes Me Dance" – Fanny Brice
"Don't Rain on My Parade" (Reprise) – Fanny Brice

Awards and nominations[edit]
Original Broadway production[edit]

Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result
1964 Tony Award Best Musical Nominated
Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical Sydney Chaplin Nominated
Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical Barbra Streisand Nominated
Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical Danny Meehan Nominated
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical Kay Medford Nominated
Best Choreography Carol Haney Nominated
Best Composer and Lyricist Jule Styne and Bob Merrill Nominated
Best Producer of a Musical Ray Stark Nominated
Film adaptation[edit]
Main article: Funny Girl (film)
The 1968 screen adaptation, directed by William Wyler, paired Streisand with Omar Sharif in the role of Arnstein. Medford repeated her stage role, and Walter Pidgeon was cast as Flo Ziegfeld. The film won Streisand the Academy Award for Best Actress, an honor she shared with Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter, as well as the Golden Globe. The film, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and several other awards, was the top grossing film of 1968.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Herman, Jan (1995). A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood's Most Acclaimed Director. New York: G.P. Putnam. ISBN 0-399-14012-3.
2.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h Taylor, Theodore (1979). Jule: The Story of Composer Jule Styne. New York: Random House. pp. 226–249. ISBN 0-394-41296-6.
3.Jump up ^ "'Funny Girl' tour, 1996". deb.org. Retrieved January 28, 2010.
4.Jump up ^ "Just Don't Call Her Debbie: For Deborah Gibson, anything is still possible". Rolling Stone. February 10, 1997.
5.Jump up ^ Jones, Chris (February 17–23, 1997). "Off Season: Tourers Hitting Road Blocks". Variety. p. 73.
6.Jump up ^ Weiskind, Ron (October 3, 1996). "'Funny Girl' Opts For Laughs Over Depth". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. p. F8.
7.Jump up ^ Gans, Andrew (May 9, 2002). "Chenoweth, Foster, Krakowski, Murphy and White Added to Funny Girl Benefit". Playbill.
8.Jump up ^ Gans, Andrew (September 27, 2002). "'Funny Girl': The Second Annual Benefit Concert for The Actors' Fund of America". Playbill.
9.Jump up ^ Ambroz, Jillian Hornbeck (April 22, 2001). "Actress Takes a Step Into Fanny Brice's Shoes". The New York Times.
10.Jump up ^ "'Funny Girl' listing". Broadway Theatre. Retrieved January 27, 2010.
11.Jump up ^ Jones, Kenneth (December 31, 2009). "Griffin and Osetek Direct Sheperd in Chicago 'Funny Girl', Beginning New Year's Eve". Playbill.
12.Jump up ^ Ng, David (March 15, 2011). "Ahmanson Theatre's 2011–12 season to include 'War Horse' and new 'Funny Girl' revival". Los Angeles Times.
13.Jump up ^ "Lauren Ambrose & Bartlett Sher Talk 'Funny Girl' Casting". Broadway World. Retrieved August 3, 2011.
14.Jump up ^ "'Funny Girl' Revival to Play Broadway's Imperial Theatre Opening April 2012". Broadway World.
15.Jump up ^ Gans, Andrew (November 3, 2011). "Los Angeles and Broadway Engagements of Funny Girl Postponed". Playbill.
External links[edit]
Funny Girl at the Internet Broadway Database


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Tales of the South Pacific
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Tales of the South Pacific
Tales of the South Pacific Michener.jpg
Hardback 1st edition cover

Author
James A. Michener
Country
United States
Language
English
Genre
Short stories
Publisher
Macmillan, New York (1st edition)

Publication date
 January 28, 1947
Media type
Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Tales of the South Pacific is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book, which is a collection of sequentially related short stories about World War II, written by James A. Michener in 1946 and published in 1947. The stories were based on observations and anecdotes he collected while stationed as a lieutenant commander in the US Navy on the island of Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides Islands (now known as Vanuatu).


Contents  [hide]
1 Book
2 Musical adaptation: South Pacific 2.1 Other uses
3 References
4 External links

Book[edit]
The stories take place in the environs of the Coral Sea and the Solomon Islands. Michener as narrator gives a first-person voice to several of the stories as an unnamed "Commander," performing duties similar to those he performed himself in World War II.
The stories are interconnected by recurring characters and several loose plot lines. One plot line in particular is the preparations for and execution of a fictitious amphibious invasion, code-named "Alligator." The focus of the stories is, however, the interactions between Americans and a variety of colonial, immigrant, and indigenous characters.
The chronology of the stories begins with the building of an airfield on Norfolk Island before the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942, and goes through the early 1944 invasion of one of Michener's fictional islands. Although the stories are primarily about the U.S. Navy, most of the action is shore-based, and none concerns ships larger than an LCI.
Musical adaptation: South Pacific[edit]
The highly successful musical play South Pacific by Rodgers and Hammerstein, which opened on Broadway on April 7, 1949, was based on the stories in Tales of the South Pacific. In particular, the stories used were "Fo' Dolla'," about Bloody Mary, Liat, and Lieutenant Joe Cable; and "Our Heroine," about Nellie Forbush and Emile de Becque. Characters from other stories, such as Bill Harbison, Bus Adams, and Luther Billis, play minor or supporting roles.
Characters from the stories were merged and simplified to serve the format of the musical. For example, while the coastwatcher in the musical is portrayed as an American Marine (Lt. Cable) assisted by an expatriate French plantation owner (Emile de Becque), in the original story "The Cave" he is an English expatriate assisted by native islanders. The coastwatcher in the story is a disembodied voice on a short-wave radio, identifying himself only as "The Remittance Man," and is never seen by the other characters in the story until a search-and-rescue party finds his head impaled on a stake. The character of Emile de Becque in the short story has eight mixed-race illegitimate daughters by four different women, none of whom he married, when he meets the nurse Ensign Nellie Forbush. In the musical, he has two legitimate mixed-race children by a woman whom he had married and who had died.
Other uses[edit]
American television producer Bob Mann wanted Michener to co-create a weekly television anthology series from "Tales of the South Pacific," with Michener as narrator. Rodgers and Hammerstein, however, owned all dramatic rights to the novel and did not give up ownership.[1] Michener did lend his name to a different and unrelated television series, "Adventures in Paradise," in 1959.[2]
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Hayes, John Michael. James A. Michener: A Biography, p. 158; Bobbs-Merrill 1984
2.Jump up ^ Hayes, p. 159
External links[edit]
Photos of the first edition of Tales of the South Pacific


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South Pacific (1958 film)
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This article is about the 1958 film. For the Broadway musical, see South Pacific (musical). For the television film, see South Pacific (2001 film).

South Pacific
Poster of the movie South Pacific.jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Joshua Logan
Produced by
Buddy Adler
Screenplay by
Paul Osborn
Based on
South Pacific
 by Oscar Hammerstein II
 Joshua Logan
Tales of the South Pacific
 by James A. Michener
Starring
Rossano Brazzi
Mitzi Gaynor
John Kerr
Juanita Hall
France Nuyen
Ray Walston
Music by
Richard Rodgers (music)
Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics)
Cinematography
Leon Shamroy
Edited by
Robert L. Simpson
Distributed by
20th Century Fox
The Samuel Goldwyn Company (1983 re-release)
Release dates
March 19, 1958

Running time
171 minutes[1]
Country
United States
Language
English
 French
Budget
$5.61 million[2][3]
Box office
$36,800,000[4]
South Pacific is a 1958 American romantic musical film adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, and based on James A. Michener's Tales of the South Pacific. The film, directed by Joshua Logan, starred Rossano Brazzi, Mitzi Gaynor, John Kerr and Ray Walston in the leading roles with Juanita Hall as Bloody Mary, the part that she had played in the original stage production.


Contents  [hide]
1 Cast
2 Musical numbers
3 Production
4 Release
5 Soundtrack
6 Awards and nominations
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

Cast[edit]
Rossano Brazzi as Emile de Becque Giorgio Tozzi as Emile's singing voice
Mitzi Gaynor as Ensign Nellie Forbush
John Kerr as Lieutenant Joseph Cable, USMC Bill Lee as Cable's singing voice (uncredited)
Ray Walston as Luther Billis
Juanita Hall as Bloody Mary Muriel Smith as Bloody Mary's singing voice (uncredited)
France Nuyen as Liat
Russ Brown as Captain George Brackett
Jack Mullaney as The Professor
Ken Clark as Stewpot Thurl Ravenscroft as Stewpot's singing voice
Floyd Simmons as Commander Bill Harbison
Candace Lee as Ngana
Warren Hsieh as Jerome
Tom Laughlin as Lieutenant Buzz Adams
Francis Kahele as Henry, Emile's servant
Robert Jacobs and John Gabriel as Communications men
Richard Harrison as Co-Pilot
Ron Ely as Navigator
Richard H. Cutting as Admiral Kester
Joe Bailey as U.S. commander
Buck Class and Richard Kiser as Fighter pilots
Musical numbers[edit]
Note: The film opens with an orchestral overture lasting 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
1."Bloody Mary"
2."There Is Nothing Like a Dame"
3."Bali Ha'i"
4."A Cock-Eyed Optimist"
5."Twin Soliloquies"
6."Some Enchanted Evening"
7."Dites-moi"
8."I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair"
9."I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy"
10."Younger Than Springtime"
11."Happy Talk"
12."Honey Bun"
13."My Girl Back Home"
14."You've Got to Be Carefully Taught"
15."This Nearly Was Mine"
16."Finale"
Production[edit]
Following the success of the film version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (1955), the producers decided to tackle a big-screen adaptation of South Pacific as their next project.
The film was produced by "South Pacific Enterprises", a company created specifically for the production, owned by Rodgers, Hammerstein, Logan, Magna Theatre Corporation (owners of the Todd-AO widescreen process the film would be photographed in), and Leland Hayward, producer of the original stage production.[5] 20th Century Fox partially invested in the production in exchange for some distribution rights. Additionally, all the departments and department heads were Fox's.
The producers' original plan was to have Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin, the two leads of the original Broadway cast, reprise their roles for the film, but Pinza died. Had he survived long enough to perform in the film, the producers would have cast Martin.[6] Instead, Doris Day was offered the part of Nellie, but passed; Elizabeth Taylor tested for the same role, but was rejected by Rodgers after she suffered stage fright in her audition. Logan later heard her sing but was unable to persuade Rodgers to change his mind.[6] Ultimately, Mitzi Gaynor, who had prior work in musical films, and had tested twice for Nellie, was cast in the role.[6] Rossano Brazzi was cast as Emile, a role that was first offered to such established stars as Charles Boyer, Vittorio De Sica and Fernando Lamas.[5] Walston, a noted Broadway musical actor, played the part of Seabee Luther Billis, which he previously played on stage in London.[6]
Hanalei Bay on Kauai, one of the Hawaiian Islands, together with Portinatx Beach and the island of Es Vedrà in Ibiza (Balearic Islands) served as the filming locations for the film, with special effects providing distant views of the fantastic island Bali Ha'i (Es Vedrà). A second unit filmed aerial views of Fijian islands while some sources claim footage of Tioman Island, off Malaysia's south east coast, were also featured, though this seems unlikely given the logistics involved. Location filming provided sweeping shots of tropical island scenes, as well as a new sequence not in the stage version, in which Billis, having parachuted from a damaged plane, has a boat dropped on him, then comes under a series of attacks, following his fatalistic "Oh, it's going to be one of those days, huh?"[citation needed]
The film includes the use of colored filters during many of the song sequences,[7] which has been a source of criticism for the film. Director Joshua Logan wanted these filters to produce subtle changes, but 20th Century Fox, the company that would distribute the 35mm version, made them extreme changes; since tickets to the film were pre-sold (it was a roadshow attraction), there was no time to correct this.[6]
All of the songs from the stage production were retained for the film. A song entitled "My Girl Back Home", sung by Lt. Cable and Nellie, cut from the Broadway show, was added.[8]
One of the differences between the film version and the Broadway version of the musical is that the first and second scenes of the play are switched around, together with all the songs contained in those two scenes. The stage version begins with Nellie and Emile's first scene together on the plantation, then proceeds to show Bloody Mary, Lieutenant Joe Cable, and the Seabees on the beach, while in the film version Lieutenant Cable is shown at the very beginning being flown by plane to the island, where the Seabees and Bloody Mary have their first musical numbers. (The first musical number in the film is "Bloody Mary", sung by the Seabees, while in the stage version it is "Dites-moi", sung by Emile's children.) Emile is not shown in the film until about thirty minutes into it; in the film, Nellie first appears during the scene with the Seabees. Because of the switch, the show's most famous song, Some Enchanted Evening, is not heard until nearly forty-five minutes into the film, while in the show it is heard about fifteen minutes after Act I starts.
Juanita Hall sang in the stage production and took part in the recording of the stage production cast album. However, she had her singing dubbed for the film version by Muriel Smith, who played Bloody Mary in the London stage production.[6] Metropolitan Opera star Giorgio Tozzi provided the singing voice for the role of Emile de Becque in the film.[6] John Kerr starred as 2nd Lt. Joseph Cable, USMC and his singing voice was dubbed by Bill Lee.[6] Ken Clark, who played Stewpot, was dubbed by Thurl Ravenscroft (who sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" and was the voice of Tony the Tiger). Gaynor and Walston were the only principal cast members whose own singing voices were used.
Release[edit]
Criticism of the color filters did not prevent the film from topping the box office of 1958. It earned $6.4 million in rentals in North America. [9] In London, the film played continuously at the Dominion Theatre for nearly four-and-a-half years.[10] South Pacific had the honor of being the highest-grossing Rodgers and Hammerstein musical film until The Sound of Music was released seven years later.[6]
The 65mm Todd-AO cinematography (by Leon Shamroy) was nominated for an Academy Award, as were the music adaptation and the sound. South Pacific won for Best Sound.
The soundtrack album has spent more weeks at #1 in the UK Albums Chart than any other album, spending 115 weeks at the top in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It spent 70 consecutive weeks at the top of the chart and was #1 for the whole of 1959.
Magna Theatre Corporation, which originally owned a stake in the film, handled the distribution of the roadshow presentations, while Fox distributed the film for its general (wide) release.[5] The film was re-released by The Samuel Goldwyn Company in 1983.[5] Originally shown in a nearly three-hour roadshow version, later cut to two-and-a-half hours for general release. The three-hour version, long feared lost, was rediscovered in a 70mm print owned by a collector. This print was screened in Bradford, England at the National Museum of Photography, Film, and Television on March 14, 2005.[11] When Fox (which by that time owned partial distribution rights to the film, including home video) learned of the print's existence, it took it to the United States to reinstate the fourteen missing minutes and attempt to restore as much of the color as possible.[12] A 2-disc DVD set of both the longer and shorter versions was released in the USA on Region 1 on November 7, 2006 and earlier on UK region 2 on 20 March 2006.
"Some Enchanted Evening" was ranked #28 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Songs (2004).
On March 31, 2009, South Pacific became the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical available on high definition Blu-ray Disc.[13]
Soundtrack[edit]
Main article: South Pacific (soundtrack)
Awards and nominations[edit]
Academy Awards (31st)Cinematography (Color) (nominated)
Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture) (nominated)
Sound (Fred Hynes) (won)[14][15]
Golden Globe Awards (16th)Best Motion Picture – Musical (nominated)
Best Motion Picture Actress – Comedy/Musical (Mitzi Gaynor) (nominated)
See also[edit]
List of American films of 1958
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "SOUTH PACIFIC (U)". British Board of Film Classification. 1958-03-28. Retrieved 2012-11-17.
2.Jump up ^ "South Pacific (1958)". Box Office Mojo website. Box Office Mojo, LLC. Retrieved 2008-11-02.
3.Jump up ^ Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1. p251
4.Jump up ^ "Box office/business for South Pacific (1958)". IMDb.com. IMDb.com, Inc. Retrieved 2008-11-02.
5.^ Jump up to: a b c d Notes for South Pacific. TCM.com
6.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Articles for South Pacific. TCM.com
7.Jump up ^ widescreen movies.org
8.Jump up ^ widescreenmovies.org
9.Jump up ^ "All Time Domestic Champs", Variety, 6 January 1960 p 34
10.Jump up ^ Widescreen Movies
11.Jump up ^ "South Pacific". Widescreen Weekend 2005 report. in70mm.com. 2005-03-14. Archived from the original on 2008-06-17. Retrieved 2008-11-02.
12.Jump up ^ "FotoKem Restores South Pacific". in70mm News. www.in70mm.com. 2006-01-26. Retrieved 2008-11-02.
13.Jump up ^ http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=2178
14.Jump up ^ "The 31st Academy Awards (1959) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-21.
15.Jump up ^ "Academy Awards Database". Oscars.org. AMPAS. Retrieved 2008-11-02.
External links[edit]
South Pacific at the Internet Movie Database
South Pacific at the TCM Movie Database
South Pacific at AllMovie


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South Pacific (2001 film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the 2001 television film. For the 1958 film, see South Pacific (1958 film). For the musical, see South Pacific (musical).

South Pacific
South Pacific.jpg
DVD cover

Distributed by
Buena Vista
Directed by
Richard Pearce
Produced by
Christine A. Sacani
Written by
Oscar Hammerstein II
Joshua Logan
James A. Michener
 Lawrence D. Cohen
Starring
Glenn Close
Harry Connick, Jr.
Rade Sherbedgia
Ilene Graff
Natalie Mendoza
Music by
Richard Rodgers
Michael Small
Cinematography
Stephen F. Windon
Budget
$15 million
Country
United States
Language
English
Original channel
American Broadcasting Company
Release date
March 26, 2001
Running time
135 minutes
Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific is a made-for-television movie, directed by Richard Pearce in 2001. This ABC production starred Glenn Close, Harry Connick, Jr. and Rade Šerbedžija (billed in U.S. as Rade Sherbedgia). It was broadcast in 2001 and also released on DVD.


Contents  [hide]
1 Production
2 Cast
3 Reception
4 DVD
5 Soundtrack
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Production[edit]
South Pacific was filmed primarily in Australia, with some scenes shot in Moorea, an island close to Tahiti. Sixteen songs are featured in the movie. This version omitted the well-known song "Happy Talk", and cut the even more popular song "Bali Hai" in half. Several new scenes, such as Nellie and Emile's very first meeting at the officer's club, were added, and a new character was created to serve as Nellie's best friend and confidante. The sex scenes between Liat and Lt. Cable were also dealt with more frankly than in the original.
Cast[edit]
Glenn Close - Nellie Forbush
Harry Connick, Jr. - Lt. Joseph Cable
Rade Sherbedgia - Emile de Becque
Jack Thompson - Captain George Brackett
Lori Tan Chinn - Bloody Mary
Ilene Graff - Singing Ngana
Natalie Mendoza - Liat
Simon Burke - Harbison
Steve Bastoni - Lt. Buzz Adams
Kimberley Davies - Luann
Robert Pastorelli - Luther Billis
Craig Ball - Austin
Damon Herriman - Professor
Salvatore Coco - DeVito
Peter Lamb - Bruno
Reception[edit]
The movie, and Close, were praised by the critic for The New York Times, who wrote, "Ms. Close, lean and more mature, hints that a touch of desperation lies in Nellie's cockeyed optimism. 'I'm stuck like a dope with a thing like hope' means one thing when you are in your 20's, something else when you are not." He also noted that the movie "is beautifully produced, better than the stagy 1958 film. ... The other cast members, including Ms. Close, also sing well."[1] The New York Post reviewer wrote that "Notions of racism toward the islanders were glossed over in the 1958 movie, but in tonight's remake, the racial themes are brought to the surface, to the production's advantage ... there's a heightened sense of drama and tension in the remake because the war is closer at hand ... the rewards are great."[2]
The Washington Post reviewer noted:

[M]ost of the songs have been preserved, although, ironically, "Happy Talk" is gone, reportedly because it was deemed offensive – portraying natives of the region as simpleminded sillybillies .... Also removed, whether easily or not, is "My Girl Back Home" .... And yet there are musical highlights that all but leap from the screen, probably the highest being Close's infectious "Wonderful Guy". Cuts made in "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" for the '58 movie have been restored, and the arrangement includes a bit of Andrews Sistersly harmonizing that works well.... Close is, of course, a better actor on her worst days than Gaynor was on her best, and though she's older than is usual for someone playing nurse Nellie Forbush, she brings radiance, warmth and stature to the part. She also tears merrily into Nellie's numbers.[3]
The film was criticized by some, for example theatre critic and historian John Kenrick[4] because the order of the songs was changed, and also because Rade Sherbedgia, unlike previous Emiles, did not have an operatic singing voice. Playbill reported that "Internet chat room visitors have grumbled that Close is too old for the role of Nellie Forbush, who, in the song, 'A Cock-Eyed Optimist', is described as 'immature and incurably green'", but also that "[co-producer] Cohen said the 'May–December' romance plot point ... has less resonance with audiences today and it was cut. Nellie is ageless, in effect."[5]
In the 2008 Oxford Companion to the American Musical, Thomas Hischak wrote:

South Pacific (ABC-TV 2001) was an odd mixture of faithful Rodgers and Hammerstein and some headstrong changes that give one pause. Glenn Close's Nellie was neither young nor a hick, exuding more sophistication than an Empress. Rade Serbedzija was a short, scruffy, beach bum of an Emile who sang with a tenor voice. Whether this was foolhardy casting or a refreshing interpretation is a matter of opinion.[6]
DVD[edit]
A DVD was released on August 28, 2001. Special features include deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes look at the making of the movie. In 2013, the film was reissued on DVD by Mill Creek Entertainment in a double-feature DVD set including the 1993 TV remake of Gypsy.
Soundtrack[edit]

South Pacific: Original TV Soundtrack

Soundtrack album by Richard Rodgers

Released
March 20, 2001
Recorded
Studio 301, Sydney, Australia
Genre
Film/Soundtrack
Label
Columbia Records/Sony Music
Producer
Michael Gore, Paul Bogaev
A soundtrack from the TV production was released on March 20, 2001.
1."Overture"
2."There Is Nothing Like a Dame"
3."A Cock-Eyed Optimist" - Glenn Close
4."Bloody Mary"
5."Bali Ha'i"
6."Twin Soliloquies" - Glenn Close
7."Some Enchanted Evening" - Rade Šerbedžija
8."Dites-Moi"
9."Younger Than Springtime" - Harry Connick, Jr.
10."I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" - Glenn Close, Ilene Graff
11.Some Enchanted Evening (Reprise) - Glenn Close
12."I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy" - Glenn Close, Ilene Graff
13."You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" - Harry Connick Jr.
14."This Nearly Was Mine"
15."Honey Bun" - Glenn Close, Ilene Graff
16."Finale Ultimo" - Glenn Close
17."My Girl Back Home" - Glenn Close, Harry Connick Jr.



See also[edit]
List of television films produced for American Broadcasting Company
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Salamon, Julie. "Being Corny as Kansas Isn't So Simple Anymore", The New York Times, March 26, 2001, p. 8, Section E
2.Jump up ^ Buckman, Adam. "Bali High - Four-Star Rating For Glenn Close In South Pacific", The New York Post, March 26, 2001, p. 71
3.Jump up ^ Shales, Tom. "South Pacific: Becalmed but Benign", The Washington Post, March 26, 2001, p. C1
4.Jump up ^ Kenrick, John.[1] Musicals101.com
5.Jump up ^ Jones, Kenneth. "Glenn Close TV Movie of South Pacific Gets DVD and Video Release". Playbill.com, August 29, 2001
6.Jump up ^ Hischak, Thomas S."'South Pacific' (ABC-TV 2001" The Oxford Companion to the American Musical:Theatre, Film, and Television, Oxford University Press US, 2008, ISBN 0-19-533533-3, p. 701
External links[edit]
[2]
South Pacific at the Internet Movie Database
South Pacific at AllMovie


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South Pacific (musical)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

This is a featured article. Click here for more information.
This article is about the 1949 Broadway musical. For the 1958 film, see South Pacific (1958 film). For the 2001 film, see South Pacific (2001 film).

South Pacific
South Pacific Playbill.jpg
Original Playbill cover: Martin and Pinza

Music
Richard Rodgers
Lyrics
Oscar Hammerstein II
Book
Oscar Hammerstein II
Joshua Logan
Basis
Tales of the South Pacific
 by James A. Michener
Productions
1949 Broadway
 1950 U.S. tour
 1951 West End
 1988 West End revival
 2001 West End revival
 2007 U.K. tour
 2008 Broadway revival
 2009 U.S. tour
Awards
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Tony Award for Best Musical
Tony Award for Best Original Score
Tony Award for Best Author
Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical
South Pacific is a musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The work premiered in 1949 on Broadway and was an immediate hit, running for 1,925 performances. The story is based on James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, combining elements of several of the stories. Rodgers and Hammerstein believed that they could write a musical based on Michener's work that would be financially successful and, at the same time, would send a strong progressive message on racism.
The plot centers on an American nurse stationed on a South Pacific island during World War II who falls in love with a middle-aged expatriate French plantation owner but struggles to accept his mixed-race children. A secondary romance, between a U.S. lieutenant and a young Tonkinese woman, explores his fears of the social consequences should he marry his Asian sweetheart. The issue of racial prejudice is candidly explored throughout the musical, most controversially in the lieutenant's song, "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught". Supporting characters, including a comic petty officer and the Tonkinese girl's mother, help to tie the stories together. Because he lacked military knowledge, Hammerstein had difficulty writing that part of the script; the director of the original production, Logan, assisted him and received credit as co-writer of the book.
The original Broadway production enjoyed immense critical and box-office success, became the second-longest running Broadway musical to that point (behind Rodgers and Hammerstein's earlier Oklahoma!), and has remained popular ever since. After they signed Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin as the leads, Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote several of the songs with the particular talents of their stars in mind. The piece won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1950. Especially in the Southern U.S., its racial theme provoked controversy, for which its authors were unapologetic. Several of its songs, including "Bali Ha'i", "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair", "Some Enchanted Evening", "There Is Nothing Like a Dame", "Happy Talk", "Younger Than Springtime" and "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy", have become popular standards.
The production won ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Libretto, and it is the only musical production to win Tony Awards in all four acting categories. Its original cast album was the bestselling record of the 1940s, and other recordings of the show have also been popular. The show has enjoyed many successful revivals and tours, spawning a 1958 film and television adaptations. The 2008 Broadway revival was a critical success, ran for 996 performances and won seven Tonys, including Best Musical Revival.


Contents  [hide]
1 Background
2 Creation 2.1 Inception
2.2 Composition
2.3 Casting and out-of-town previews
2.4 Original production
3 Synopsis 3.1 Act I
3.2 Act II
4 Principal roles and notable performers
5 Songs 5.1 Additional songs
6 Revivals 6.1 20th century
6.2 21st century
7 Reception and success 7.1 Critical reception
7.2 Box office and awards
8 Themes and cultural effect 8.1 Race
8.2 Sex and gender roles
8.3 Cultural effect
9 Music and recordings 9.1 Musical treatment
9.2 Recordings
10 Film and television versions
11 Notes and references 11.1 Bibliography
12 Further reading
13 External links

Background[edit]
Main article: Tales of the South Pacific
Although book editor and university instructor James Michener could have avoided military service in World War II as a birthright Quaker, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in October 1942. He was not sent to the South Pacific theater until April 1944, when he was assigned to write a history of the Navy in the Pacific and was allowed to travel widely. He survived a plane crash in New Caledonia; the near-death experience motivated him to write fiction, and he began listening to the stories told by soldiers. One journey took him to the Treasury Islands, where he discovered an unpleasant village populated by "scrawny residents and only one pig" called Bali-ha'i.[1] Struck by the name, Michener wrote it down and soon began to record his version of the tales on a battered typewriter.[2] On a plantation on the island of Espiritu Santo, he met a woman named Bloody Mary; she was small, almost toothless, her face stained with red betel juice. Punctuated with profanity learned from GIs, she complained endlessly to Michener about the French colonial government, which refused to allow her and other Tonkinese to return to their native Vietnam, lest the plantations be depopulated. She told him also of her plans to oppose colonialism in French Indochina.[n 1] These stories, collected into Tales of the South Pacific, won Michener the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.[2]
There are nineteen stories in Tales of the South Pacific. The stories stand independently but revolve around the preparation for an operation by the American military to dislodge the Japanese from a nearby island. This operation, dubbed Alligator, occurs in the penultimate story, "The Landing at Kuralei". Many of the characters die in that battle – the last story is called "The Cemetery at Huga Point." The stories are thematically linked in pairs: the first and final stories are reflective, the second and eighteenth involve battle, the third and seventeenth involve preparation for battle, a pattern which continues numerically. The tenth story, at the center, however, is not paired with any other. This story, "Fo' Dolla' ", was one of only four of his many works that Michener later admitted to holding in high regard. It was the one that attracted Rodgers and Hammerstein's attention for its potential to be converted into a stage work.[3]
"Fo' Dolla' ", set in part on the island of Bali-ha'i, focuses on the romance between a young Tonkinese woman, Liat, and one of the Americans, Marine Lieutenant Joe Cable, a Princeton graduate and scion of a wealthy Main Line family. Pressed to marry Liat by her mother, Bloody Mary, Cable reluctantly declines, realizing that the Asian girl would never be accepted by his family or Philadelphia society. He leaves for battle (where he will die) as Bloody Mary proceeds with her backup plan, to affiance Liat to a wealthy French planter on the islands. Cable struggles, during the story, with his own racism: he is able to overcome it sufficiently to love Liat, but not enough to take her home.[4]
Another source of the musical is the eighth story, "Our Heroine", which is thematically paired with the twelfth, "A Boar's Tooth", as both involve American encounters with local cultures. "Our Heroine" tells of the romance between Navy nurse Nellie Forbush, from rural Arkansas, and a wealthy, sophisticated planter, Frenchman Emile De Becque.[n 2] After falling in love with Emile, Nellie (who is introduced briefly in story #4, "An Officer and a Gentleman") learns that Emile has eight daughters, out of wedlock, with several local women. Michener tells us that "any person ... who was not white or yellow was a nigger" to Nellie, and while she is willing to accept two of the children (of French-Asian descent) who remain in Emile's household, she is taken aback by the other two girls who live there, evidence that the planter had cohabited with a darker Polynesian woman. To her great relief, she learns that this woman is dead, but Nellie endangers her relationship with Emile when she is initially unable to accept that Emile "had nigger children."[5] Nellie overcomes her feelings and returns to spend her life with her plantation owner.[6]
Additional elements of South Pacific had their genesis in others of Michener's nineteen tales. One introduces the character of Bloody Mary; another tells of a British spy hidden on the Japanese-controlled island who relays information about Japanese movements to Allied forces by radio. Michener based the spy, dubbed "the Remittance Man", on Captain Martin Clemens, a Scot, who unlike his fictional counterpart, survived the war. The stories also tell of the seemingly endless waiting that precedes battle, and the efforts of the Americans to repel boredom, which would inspire the song "There Is Nothing Like a Dame".[7] Several of the stories involve the Seabee, Luther Billis, who in the musical would be used for comic relief and also to tie together episodes involving otherwise unconnected characters.[8]
Creation[edit]
Inception[edit]
In the early 1940s, composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, each a longtime Broadway veteran, joined forces and began their collaboration by writing two musicals that became massive hits, Oklahoma! (1943) and Carousel (1945).[9] An innovation for its time in integrating song, dialogue and dance, Oklahoma! would serve as "the model for Broadway shows for decades".[10] In 1999, Time magazine named Carousel the best musical of the century, writing that Rodgers and Hammerstein "set the standards for the 20th century musical".[11] Their next effort, Allegro (1947), was a comparative disappointment, running for less than a year, although it turned a small profit.[12] After this, the two were determined to achieve another hit.[13]
According to director Joshua Logan, a friend of both theatre men, he and Leland Hayward mentioned Michener's best-selling book to Rodgers as a possible basis for the duo's next play,[14] but the composer took no action. Logan recalled that he then pointed it out to Hammerstein, who read Michener's book and spoke to Rodgers; the two agreed to do the project so long as they had majority control, to which Hayward grudgingly agreed.[15] Michener, in his 1992 memoirs, however, wrote that the stories were first pitched as a movie concept to MGM by Kenneth MacKenna, head of the studio's literary department. MacKenna's half brother was Jo Mielziner, who had designed the sets for Carousel and Allegro. Michener states that Mielziner learned of the work from MacKenna and brought it to the attention of Hammerstein and Rodgers, pledging to create the sets if they took on the project.[16]
Hayward attempted to buy the rights from Michener outright, offering $500; Michener declined. Although playwright Lynn Riggs had received 1.5% of the box office grosses for the right to adapt Green Grow the Lilacs into Oklahoma!, Michener never regretted accepting one percent of the gross receipts from South Pacific. As Rodgers and Hammerstein began their work on the adaptation, Michener worked mostly with the lyricist, but Rodgers was concerned about the implications of the setting, fearing that he would have to include ukuleles and guitars, which he disliked. Michener assured him that the only instrument he had ever heard the natives play was an emptied barrel of gasoline, drummed upon with clubs.[17]
Composition[edit]

Two men in business suits sit in theatre seats amiably discussing what they are watching

 Rodgers (left) and Hammerstein
Soon after their purchase of the rights, Rodgers and Hammerstein decided not to include a ballet, as in their earlier works, feeling that the realism of the setting would not support one. Concerned that an adaptation too focused on "Fo' Dolla' ", the story of the encounter between Cable and Liat, would be too similar to Madama Butterfly, Hammerstein spent months studying the other stories and focused his attention on "Our Heroine", the tale of the romance between Nellie and Emile. The team decided to include both romances in the musical play. It was conventional at the time that if one love story in a musical was serious, the other would be more lighthearted, but in this case both were serious and focused on racial prejudice. They decided to increase the role played by Luther Billis in the stories, merging experiences and elements of several other characters into him. Billis's wheeling and dealing would provide comic relief.[18] They also shortened the title to South Pacific – Rodgers related that the producers tired of people making risqué puns on the word "tales".[19]
In early drafts of the musical, Hammerstein gave significant parts to two characters who eventually came to have only minor roles, Bill Harbison and Dinah Culbert. Harbison is one of the major characters in Tales of the South Pacific; a model officer at the start, he gradually degenerates to the point where, with battle imminent, he requests his influential father-in-law to procure for him a transfer to a post in the United States. Hammerstein conceived of him as a rival to Emile for Nellie's affections, and gave him a song, "The Bright Young Executive of Today". As redrafts focused the play on the two couples, Harbison became less essential, and he was relegated to a small role as the executive officer to the commander of the island, Captain Brackett. Dinah, a nurse and friend of Nellie, is also a major character in Michener's work, and was seen as a possible love interest for Billis, though any actual romance was limited by Navy regulations forbidding fraternization between officers (all American nurses in World War II were commissioned officers) and enlisted men. "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" originated as a duet for Dinah and Nellie, with Dinah beginning the song and developing its theme.[20] According to Lovensheimer, Nellie's and Dinah's "friendship became increasingly incidental to the plot as the writing continued. Hammerstein eventually realized that the decision to wash Emile out of her hair had to be Nellie's. Only then did the scene have the dramatic potential for Nellie's emotional transition" as she realizes her love for Emile. In the final version, Dinah retains one solo line in the song.[21]
Joshua Logan, in his memoirs, stated that after months of effort in the first half of 1948, Hammerstein had written only the first scene, an outline, and some lyrics. Hammerstein was having trouble due to lack of knowledge of the military, a matter with which Logan, a veteran of the armed forces, was able to help. The dialogue was written in consultation between the two of them, and eventually Logan asked to be credited for his work. Rodgers and Hammerstein decided that while Logan would receive co-writing credit on the book, he would receive no author's royalties. Logan stated that a contract putting these changes into force was sent over to his lawyer with instructions that unless it was signed within two hours, Logan need not show up for rehearsals as director.[22] Logan signed, although his lawyer did not then tell him about the ultimatum.[23] Through the decades that followed, Logan brought the matter up from time to time, demanding compensation, but when he included his version of the events in his 1976 memoirs, it was disputed by Rodgers (Hammerstein had died in 1960).[23] Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest suggests that Logan was compensated when South Pacific was filmed in 1958, as Logan received a substantial share of the profits as director.[n 3][24] According to Michener biographer Stephen J. May, "it is difficult to assess just how much of the final book Josh Logan was responsible for. Some estimates say 30 to 40 percent. But that percentage is not as critical perhaps as his knowledge of military lore and directing for the theatre, without which the creation of South Pacific would have collapsed during that summer of 1948."[25]
Rodgers composed the music once he received the lyrics from Hammerstein. A number of stories are told of the speed with which he wrote the music for South Pacific 's numbers. "Happy Talk" was said to have been composed in about twenty minutes; when Hammerstein, who had sent the lyrics by messenger, called to check whether Rodgers had received them, his partner informed him that he had both lyrics and music. Legend has it he composed "Bali Ha'i" in ten minutes over coffee in Logan's apartment; what he did create in that time frame was the three-note motif which begins both song and musical. Hammerstein's lyrics for "Bali Ha'i" were inspired by the stage backdrop which designer Jo Mielziner had painted. Feeling that the island of Bali Ha'i did not appear mysterious enough, Mielziner painted some mist near the summit of its volcano. When Hammerstein saw this he immediately thought of the lyric, "my head sticking up from a low-flying cloud" and the rest of the song followed easily from that.[26]
Casting and out-of-town previews[edit]

Publicity portrait of a man in his mid-fifties with curly hair (Pinza)

 Ezio Pinza
In May 1948, Rodgers received a telephone call from Edwin Lester of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. Lester had signed former Metropolitan Opera star Ezio Pinza for $25,000 to star in a new show, Mr. Ambassador. The show had not been written, and it never would be.[27] Lester hoped that Rodgers would take over Pinza's contract. Pinza had become bored as the Met's leading lyric bass, and having played the great opera houses, sought other worlds to conquer. Rodgers immediately saw Pinza as perfect for the role of Emile.[28] Lester carefully broached the subject to Pinza and his wife/business manager and provided them with a copy of Tales of the South Pacific. When Pinza read the book, he told Lester, "Sell me right away!"[29] Pinza's contract for South Pacific included a clause limiting his singing to 15 minutes per performance.[29] With Pinza's signing, Rodgers and Hammerstein decided to make his the lead male role, subordinating the story of the pair of young lovers. It was unusual on Broadway for the romantic lead to be an older male.[30]

Portrait of a woman in her mid-thirties, with long curly hair and wearing an old-fashioned blouse with string tie

Mary Martin
For the role of Nellie, Rodgers sought Mary Martin, who had nearly been cast to originate the role of Laurey in Oklahoma! [30] Martin was playing the title role in the touring company of Annie Get Your Gun. After Hammerstein and Rodgers saw her play in Los Angeles in mid-1948, they asked her to consider the part. Martin was reluctant to sing opposite Pinza's powerful voice; Rodgers assured her he would see to it the two never sang at the same time,[31] a promise he mostly kept.[32] Rodgers and Martin lived near each other in Connecticut, and after her tour Rodgers invited Martin and her husband, Richard Halliday, to his home to hear the three songs for the musical that he had completed, none of them for Nellie.[33] "Some Enchanted Evening" especially struck Martin, and although disappointed the song was not for her, she agreed to do the part.[32] Although Nellie and Emile were already fully developed characters in Michener's stories, during the creation of South Pacific, Rodgers, Hammerstein and Logan began to adapt the roles specifically to the talents of Martin and Pinza and to tailor the music for their voices.[34]
Martin influenced several of her songs. While showering one day during rehearsals, she came up with the idea for a scene in which she would shampoo her hair onstage. This gave rise to "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair".[35] Built around a primitive shower that Logan remembered from his time in the military, the song became one of the most talked-about in South Pacific.[36] To introduce another of Martin's numbers to her, Rodgers called her over to his apartment, where he and Hammerstein played "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy" for her. When Martin essayed it for herself, she sang the final 26 words, as intended, with a single breath, and fell off her piano bench. Rodgers gazed down at her, "That's exactly what I want. Never do it differently. We must feel you couldn't squeeze out another sound."[37]
The producers held extensive auditions to fill the other roles.[38] Myron McCormick was cast as Billis; according to Logan, no one else was seriously considered. The two roles which gave the most trouble were those of Cable and Bloody Mary.[39] They tried to get Harold Keel for the role of Cable (he had played Curly in the West End production of Oklahoma!) only to find that he had signed a contract with MGM under the name Howard Keel.[40] William Tabbert was eventually cast as Cable, though Logan instructed him to lose 20 pounds (9.1 kg). African-American singer Juanita Hall was cast as Bloody Mary; Logan recalled that at her audition, she took a squatting pose which proclaimed, "I am Bloody Mary and don't you dare cast anyone else!"[39] Betta St. John, who under the name Betty Striegler had replaced Bambi Linn as Louise in Carousel, took the role of Liat.[40] Logan directed (he and Hayward co-produced with Rodgers and Hammerstein), Mielziner did the stage design, Trude Rittmann and Robert Russell Bennett prepared the orchestration, and Elizabeth Montgomery of Motley Theatre Design Group designed the costumes.[38] Salvatore Dell'Isola served as music director.[41]
Original production[edit]
Rehearsals began at Broadway's Belasco Theatre on February 2, 1949. There was no formal chorus; each of the nurses and Seabees was given a name, and, in the case of the men, $50 to equip themselves with what clothing they felt their characters would wear from the military surplus shops which lined West 42nd Street. Don Fellows, the first Lt. Buzz Adams, drew on his wartime experience as a Marine to purchase a non-regulation baseball cap and black ankle boots.[42] Martin and Pinza had not known each other, but they soon formed a strong friendship.[43] Of the mood backstage, "everyone agreed: throughout the rehearsals Logan was fiery, demanding, and brilliantly inventive."[44] He implemented lap changes (pioneered by Rodgers and Hammerstein in Allegro), whereby the actors coming on next would already be on a darkened part of the stage as one scene concluded. This allowed the musical to continue without interruption by scene changes, making the action almost seamless. He soon had the Seabees pacing back and forth like caged animals during "There Is Nothing Like a Dame", a staging so effective it was never changed during the run of the show.[44] One Logan innovation that Rodgers and Hammerstein reluctantly accepted was to have Cable remove his shirt during the blackout after he and Liat passionately embrace on first meeting, his partial nakedness symbolizing their lovemaking.[45] As originally planned, Martin was supposed to conclude "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy" with an exuberant cartwheel across the stage. This was eliminated after she vaulted into the orchestra pit, knocking out Rittman.[46]
There were no major difficulties during the four weeks of rehearsal in New York; Martin later remembered that the "gypsy run-through" for friends and professional associates on a bare stage was met with some of the most enthusiastic applause she could remember. One of the few people having trouble was Pinza, who had difficulty adjusting to the constant alterations in the show – he was used to the operatic world, where a role rarely changed once learned. Pinza's mispronunciations of English exasperated Logan, and driving to New Haven for the first week of previews, Pinza discussed with his wife the possibility of a return to the Met, where he knew audiences would welcome him. She told him to let South Pacific 's attendees decide for themselves. When the tryouts began in New Haven on March 7, the play was an immediate hit; the New Haven Register wrote, "South Pacific should make history".[47]
Nevertheless, a number of changes were made in New Haven and in the subsequent two weeks of previews in Boston. The show was running long; Logan persuaded his friend, playwright Emlyn Williams, to go over the script and cut extraneous dialogue.[48] There were wide expectations of a hit; producer Mike Todd came backstage and advised that the show not be taken to New York "because it's too damned good for them".[49] The show moved to Boston, where it was so successful that playwright George S. Kaufman joked that people lining up there at the Shubert Theatre "don't actually want anything ... They just want to push money under the doors."[50]

Four middle-aged men are gathered around to listen to a woman sing from a book

 From left: Logan, Rodgers, Hammerstein, Martin and Michener
South Pacific opened on Broadway on April 7, 1949, at the Majestic Theatre.[51] The advance sale was $400,000, and an additional $700,000 in sales was made soon after the opening. The first night audience was packed with important Broadway, business, and arts leaders. The audience repeatedly stopped the show with extended applause, which was sustained at length at the final curtain. Rodgers and Hammerstein had preferred, in the past, not to sponsor an afterparty, but they rented the St. Regis Hotel's roof and ordered 200 copies of The New York Times in the anticipation of a hit. Times critic Brooks Atkinson gave the show a rave review.[52]
Three days after the opening, Pinza signed a contract with MGM to star in films once his obligation to appear in the show expired. He left the show June 1, 1950, replaced by Ray Middleton, though Pinza missed a number of shows due to illness before that. Martin recalled that, unused to performing eight shows a week, the former opera star would sing full out early in the week, leaving himself little voice towards the end, and would have his understudy go on.[53][54] Nevertheless, during the year he was in the show, and although aged 58, he was acclaimed as a sex symbol; George Jean Nathan wrote that "Pinza has taken the place of Hot Springs, Saratoga, and hormone injections for all the other old boys".[54]
A national tour began in Cleveland, Ohio, in April 1950; it ran for five years and starred Richard Eastham as Emile, Janet Blair as Nellie and Ray Walston as Billis, a role Walston would reprise in London and in the 1958 film. For the 48,000 tickets available in Cleveland, 250,000 requests were submitted, causing the box office to close for three weeks to process them.[55] Jeanne Bal and Iva Withers were later Nellies on this tour.[56] A scaled-down version toured military bases in Korea in 1951; by the request of Hammerstein and Rodgers, officers and enlisted soldiers sat together to view it.[54]
Martin left the Broadway production in 1951 to appear in the original London West End production; Martha Wright replaced her. Despite the departure of both original stars, the show remained a huge attraction in New York.[57] Cloris Leachman also played Nellie during the New York run; George Britton was among the later Emiles.[58] The London production ran from November 1, 1951 for 802 performances at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Logan directed; Martin and Wilbur Evans starred, with Walston as Billis, Muriel Smith as Bloody Mary and Ivor Emmanuel in the small role of Sgt. Johnson.[59][60] Sean Connery and Martin's son Larry Hagman, both at the start of their careers, played Seabees in the London production;[61] Julie Wilson eventually replaced Martin.[62] On January 31, 1952, King George VI attended the production with his daughter Princess Elizabeth and other members of the Royal Family.[63] He died less than a week later.[64]
The Broadway production transferred to the Broadway Theatre in June 1953 to accommodate Rodgers and Hammerstein's new show, Me and Juliet, although South Pacific had to be moved to Boston for five weeks because of schedule conflicts.[65] When it closed on January 16, 1954, after 1,925 performances, it was the second-longest-running musical in Broadway history, after Oklahoma!. At the final performance, Myron McCormick, the only cast member remaining from the opening, led the performers and audience in "Auld Lang Syne"; the curtain did not fall but remained raised as the audience left the theatre.[66]
Synopsis[edit]
Act I[edit]

refer to caption

 Billis (Myron McCormick) and Bloody Mary (Juanita Hall) haggle over grass skirts as Bali Ha'i looms in the background
On a South Pacific island during World War II, two half-Polynesian children,[n 4] Ngana and Jerome, happily sing as they play together ("Dites-Moi"). Ensign Nellie Forbush, a naïve U.S. Navy nurse from Little Rock, Arkansas, has fallen in love with Emile de Becque, a middle-aged French plantation owner, though she has known him only briefly. Even though everyone else is worried about the outcome of the war, Nellie tells Emile that she is sure everything will turn out all right ("A Cockeyed Optimist"). Emile also loves Nellie, and each wonders if the other reciprocates those feelings ("Twin Soliloquies"). Emile expresses his love for Nellie, recalling how they met at the officers' club dance and instantly were attracted to each other ("Some Enchanted Evening"). Nellie, promising to think about their relationship, returns to the hospital. Emile calls Ngana and Jerome to him, revealing to the audience that they are his children, unbeknownst to Nellie.
Meanwhile, the restless American Seabees, led by crafty Luther Billis, lament the absence of available women – Navy nurses are commissioned officers and off-limits to enlisted men. There is one civilian woman on the island, nicknamed "Bloody Mary", a sassy middle-aged Tonkinese vendor of grass skirts, who engages the sailors in sarcastic, flirtatious banter as she tries to sell them her wares ("Bloody Mary"). Billis yearns to visit the nearby island of Bali Ha'i – which is off-limits to all but officers – supposedly to witness a Boar's Tooth Ceremony (at which he can get an unusual native artifact); the other sailors josh him, saying that his real motivation is to see the young French women there. Billis and the sailors further lament their lack of feminine companionship ("There Is Nothing Like a Dame").

A smiling woman with a topknot and strings of shells around her neck

 Juanita Hall as Bloody Mary in the original Broadway production
U.S. Marine Lieutenant Cable arrives on the island from Guadalcanal, having been sent to take part in a dangerous spy mission whose success could turn the tide of the war against Japan. Bloody Mary tries to persuade Cable to visit "Bali Ha'i", mysteriously telling him that it is his special island. Billis, seeing an opportunity, urges Cable to go. Cable meets with his commanding officers, Captain George Brackett and Commander William Harbison, who plan to ask Emile to help with the mission because he used to live on the island where the mission will take place. They ask Nellie to help them find out more about Emile's background, for example, his politics and why he left France. They have heard, for instance, that Emile committed a murder, and this might make him less than desirable for such a mission.
After thinking a bit more about Emile and deciding she has become attracted on the basis of little knowledge of him, Nellie tells the other nurses that she intends to spurn him ("I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair"). When he arrives unexpectedly and invites Nellie to a party where he will introduce her to his friends, however, she accepts. Emile declares his love for Nellie and asks her to marry him. When she mentions politics, he speaks of universal freedom, and describes fleeing France after standing up against a bully, who died accidentally as the two fought. After hearing this, Nellie agrees to marry Emile. After he exits, Nellie joyously gives voice to her feelings ("I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy").

In a "war room", three military men watch a worried man in civilian dress

 Emile (Pinza) decides whether to go with Cable (William Tabbert) and place his hoped-for life with Nellie at risk
Cable's mission is to land on a Japanese-held island and report on Japanese ship movements. The Navy officers ask Emile to be Cable's guide, but he refuses their request because of his hopes for a new life with Nellie. Commander Harbison, the executive officer, tells Cable to go on leave until the mission can take place, and Billis obtains a boat and takes Cable to Bali Ha'i. There, Billis participates in the native ceremony, while Bloody Mary introduces Cable to her beautiful daughter, Liat, with whom he must communicate haltingly in French. Believing that Liat's only chance at a better life is to marry an American officer, Mary leaves Liat alone with Cable. The two are instantly attracted to each other and make love ("Younger Than Springtime"). Billis and the rest of the crew are ready to leave the island, yet must wait for Cable who, unbeknownst to them, is with Liat ("Bali Ha'i" (reprise)). Bloody Mary proudly tells Billis that Cable is going to be her son-in-law.
Meanwhile, after Emile's party, Nellie and he reflect on how happy they are to be in love (Reprises of "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy", "Twin Soliloquies", "Cockeyed Optimist" and "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair"). Emile introduces Nellie to Jerome and Ngana. Though she finds them charming, she is shocked when Emile reveals that they are his children by his first wife, a dark-skinned Polynesian woman, now deceased. Nellie is unable to overcome her deep-seated racial prejudices and tearfully leaves Emile, after which he reflects sadly on what might have been ("Some Enchanted Evening" (reprise)).
Act II [edit]

Three women and three men on stage in a chorus number

 The "Thanksgiving Follies", from the original production.
It is Thanksgiving Day. The GIs and nurses dance in a holiday revue titled "Thanksgiving Follies". In the past week, an epidemic of malaria has hit the island of Bali Ha'i. Having visited Bali Ha'i often to be with Liat, Cable is also ill, but escapes from the hospital to be with Liat. As Liat and Cable spend more time together, Bloody Mary is delighted. She encourages them to continue their carefree life on the island ("Happy Talk") and urges them to marry. Cable, aware of his family's prejudices, says he cannot marry a Tonkinese girl. Bloody Mary furiously drags her distraught daughter away, telling Cable that Liat must now marry a much older French plantation owner instead. Cable laments his loss. ("Younger Than Springtime" (reprise)).
For the final number of the Thanksgiving Follies, Nellie performs a comedy burlesque dressed as a sailor singing the praises of "his" sweetheart ("Honey Bun"). Billis plays Honey Bun, dressed in a blond wig, grass skirt and coconut-shell bra. After the show, Emile asks Nellie to reconsider. She insists that she cannot feel the same way about him since she knows about his children's Polynesian mother. Frustrated and uncomprehending, Emile asks Cable why he and Nellie have such prejudices. Cable, filled with self-loathing, replies that "it's not something you're born with", yet it is an ingrained part of their upbringing ("You've Got to Be Carefully Taught"). He also vows that if he gets out of the war alive, he won't go home to the United States; everything he wants is on these islands. Emile imagines what might have been ("This Nearly Was Mine"). Dejected and feeling that he has nothing to lose, he agrees to join Cable on his dangerous mission.

Emile and Nellie grasp hands as Emile's two children look on.

 The final tableau from the original production
The mission begins with plenty of air support. Offstage, Billis stows away on the plane, falls out when the plane is hit by anti-aircraft fire, and ends up in the ocean waiting to be rescued; the massive rescue operation inadvertently becomes a diversion that allows Emile and Cable to land on the other side of the island undetected. The two send back reports on Japanese ships' movements in the "Slot", a strategic strait; American aircraft intercept and destroy the Japanese ships. When the Japanese Zeros strafe the Americans' position, Emile narrowly escapes, but Cable is killed.
Nellie learns of Cable's death and that Emile is missing. She realizes that she was foolish to reject Emile because of the race of his children's mother. Bloody Mary and Liat come to Nellie asking where Cable is; Mary explains that Liat refuses to marry anyone but him. Nellie comforts Liat. Cable and Emile's espionage work has made it possible for a major offensive, Operation Alligator, to begin. The previously idle fighting men, including Billis, go off to battle.
Nellie spends time with Jerome and Ngana and soon comes to love them. While the children are teaching her to sing "Dites-Moi," suddenly Emile's voice joins them. Emile has returned to discover that Nellie has overcome her prejudices and has fallen in love with his children. Emile, Nellie and the children rejoice ("Dites-Moi" (reprise)).


Principal roles and notable performers[edit]

Character
Description
Original Broadway cast[67]
Notable stage performers
Nellie Forbush An unsophisticated young U.S. Navy nurse Mary Martin Janet Blair, Martha Wright, Julie Wilson, Cloris Leachman, Mindy Carson, Florence Henderson, Iva Withers, Gemma Craven, Lauren Kennedy, Helena Blackman, Kelli O'Hara, Laura Osnes, Carmen Cusack, Samantha Womack, Lisa McCune
Emile de Becque A middle-aged expatriate French planter Ezio Pinza Ray Middleton, Richard Eastham, Wilbur Evans, George Britton, William Chapman, Giorgio Tozzi, Robert Goulet, Justino Díaz, Philip Quast, Dave Willetts, Paulo Szot, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Rod Gilfry
Lt. Joseph Cable, U.S.M.C. A young Marine officer William Tabbert Matthew Morrison, David Carroll
Liat A young Tonkinese woman Betta St. John Carol Lawrence, Lia Chang
Bloody Mary Liat's mother; an island wheeler-dealer Juanita Hall Muriel Smith, Sylvia Syms, Bertice Reading, Loretta Ables Sayre, Kate Ceberano, Armelia McQueen, Christine Anu
Seabee Luther Billis An entrepreneurial sailor Myron McCormick Ray Walston, Danny Burstein, Alex Ferns, Eddie Perfect
Ngana Emile's daughter Barbara Luna 
Jerome Emile's son Michael De Leon/Noel De Leon 
Capt. George Brackett, U.S.N. Military commander of the island Martin Wolfson 
Cmdr. William Harbison, U.S.N. Brackett's executive officer Harvey Stephens 
Songs[edit]
Act IOverture – Orchestra
"Dites-Moi" – Ngana and Jerome
"A Cockeyed Optimist" – Nellie
"Twin Soliloquies" – Nellie and Emile
"Some Enchanted Evening" – Emile
"Bloody Mary" – Sailors, Seabees and Marines
"There Is Nothing Like a Dame" – Sailors, Seabees and Marines
"Bali Ha'i" – Bloody Mary, Billis and Cable
"I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" – Nellie and Nurses
"I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy" – Nellie and Nurses
"Younger Than Springtime" – Cable
Finale: Act I ("Some Enchanted Evening") – Emile
 Act IIEntr'acte – Orchestra
Soft shoe dance – Nurses and Seabees
"Happy Talk" – Bloody Mary
"Honey Bun" – Nellie and Girls
"You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" – Cable
"Honey Bun" (reprise) – Billis
"This Nearly Was Mine" – Emile
"Some Enchanted Evening" (reprise) – Nellie
Finale ("Dites-Moi") – Nellie, Ngana, Jerome and Emile

Additional songs[edit]

A man about fifty and a younger woman (Martin), in formal dress, hold each other closely as they look upwards and to the right. They are seated on a divan or loveseat

Ray Middleton and Mary Martin as Emile and Nellie in the original production (1950)
A number of songs were extensively modified, or were omitted, in the weeks leading up to the initial Broadway opening. They are listed in the order of their one-time placement within the show:
"Bright Canary Yellow", a short song for Nellie and Emile, was placed just before "A Cockeyed Optimist", of which the opening line, "When the sky is a bright canary yellow" was intended to play off of the earlier song.[68]
"Now Is the Time" (Emile) was placed in the beach scene (Act I, Scene 7) just after Emile tells Nellie why he killed the man in France. It was to be reprised after "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught", but it was felt that for Emile to remain on stage while singing of immediate action was self-contradictory. It was replaced in Act I by a reprise of "Some Enchanted Evening"; in Act II it was initially replaced by "Will You Marry Me?" (later repurposed for Pipe Dream) on March 24, 1949, and then by "This Nearly Was Mine" on March 29, just over a week before the Broadway opening on April 7.[69]
"Loneliness of Evening" (Emile) was cut before the Broadway opening. It was to occur in the first backstage scene (Act II, Scene 2) prior to "Happy Talk" and was sung to the same melody as "Bright Canary Yellow". Its melody can be heard in the 1958 film as Emile reads aloud the card with the flowers he has brought backstage for Nellie to the Thanksgiving show; the second stanza was repurposed and sung by the Prince in the 1965 TV production of Cinderella.[70]
A reprise of "Younger Than Springtime" that follows Cable's rejection of Liat, was added after January 1949.[71] It followed two separate attempts at songs for Cable. One song, designated as "My Friend" was a duet for Cable and Liat, included such lyrics as "My friend, my friend, is coming around the bend" and was rejected by Logan as one of the worst he'd ever heard. Rodgers and Hammerstein's second attempt to place a song there, "Suddenly Lovely", was considered by Logan too lightweight and was later repurposed for The King and I as "Getting to Know You".[72] The melody for "Younger than Springtime" was from a song, "My Wife", intended for Allegro but not used.[73]
"Honey Bun" was not included in the January 1949 libretto (a note marks that the lyrics will be supplied later).[71]
"My Girl Back Home" (Cable) preceded "You've Got to be Carefully Taught" in the original score but was cut before the first Broadway production. It appears in the movie version as a duet for Nellie and Cable. It was reinstated for the 2002 London revival, for Cable.[74]
"You've Got to be Carefully Taught" originally had several singing lines for Emile following the conclusion of the lyrics for Cable.[74]
Revivals[edit]
20th century[edit]

A woman in her thirties with short, parted hair in a black-and-white portrait shot. She wears a khaki shirt.

Florence Henderson as Nellie, 1967
A limited run of South Pacific by the New York City Center Light Opera Company opened at New York City Center on May 4, 1955, closing on May 15, 1955. It was directed by Charles Atkin, and had costumes by Motley and sets by Mielziner. The cast included Richard Collett as Emile, Sandra Deel as Nellie, Carol Lawrence as Liat, Sylvia Syms as Bloody Mary and Gene Saks as the Professor.[75] A second limited run of the same production with a different cast opened at City Center on April 24, 1957, closing on May 12, 1957. It was directed by Jean Dalrymple, and the cast included Robert Wright as Emile, Mindy Carson as Nellie and Hall reprising the role of Bloody Mary.[76] That production was given again in 1961, this time with Ann McLerie and William Chapman in the lead roles.[77]
There have been many stock or summer revivals of South Pacific. One, in 1957 at Long Island's Westbury Music Fair, occurred at the same time that Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus was resisting the integration of Central High School by the Little Rock Nine. Nellie's pronouncement that she was from Little Rock was initially met with boos. Logan refused to allow Nellie's hometown to be changed, so a speech was made before each performance asking for the audience's forbearance, which was forthcoming.[78]
There were two revivals at Lincoln Center. Richard Rodgers produced the 1967 revival, which starred Florence Henderson and Giorgio Tozzi, who had been Rossano Brazzi's singing voice in the 1958 film.[79] Joe Layton was the director.[77] The cast album was issued on LP and later on CD.[79][80] The musical toured North America from 1986 to 1988, headlined by Robert Goulet and Barbara Eden, with David Carroll as Cable, Armelia McQueen as Bloody Mary and Lia Chang as Liat, first directed by Geraldine Fitzgerald and then Ron Field.[81] A New York City Opera production in 1987 featured alternating performers Justino Díaz and Stanley Wexler as Emile, and Susan Bigelow and Marcia Mitzman as Nellie.[82]
A 1988 West End revival starred Gemma Craven and Emile Belcourt, supported by Bertice Reading, among others, and was directed by Roger Redfern. It ran at the Prince of Wales Theatre from January 20, 1988 to January 14, 1989.[83]
21st century[edit]
A new production with slight revisions to the book and score was produced by the Royal National Theatre at the company's Olivier Theatre in London for a limited run from December 2001 through April 2002, timed to celebrate the centenary of Richard Rodgers' birth. Trevor Nunn directed, with musical staging by Matthew Bourne and designs by John Napier. Lauren Kennedy was Nellie, and Australian actor Philip Quast played Emile,[84] Borrowing from the 1958 film, this production placed the first Emile-Nellie scene after the introduction of Cable, Billis and Bloody Mary.[85]
A British touring production of South Pacific opened at the Blackpool Grand Theatre on August 28, 2007. The tour ended at the Cardiff New Theatre on July 19, 2008.[86] It starred Helena Blackman as Nellie and Dave Willetts as Emile. Julian Woolford directed, with choreography by Chris Hocking. This production was most noted for its staging of the overture, which charted Nellie's journey from Little Rock, Arkansas, to the South Pacific. On entering the theatre, the audience first saw a map of the U.S., not the theater of war.[87]
A Broadway revival of South Pacific opened on April 3, 2008 at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater. Bartlett Sher directed, with musical staging by Christopher Gattelli and associate choreographer Joe Langworth. The opening cast starred Kelli O'Hara as Nellie, Paulo Szot as Emile and Matthew Morrison as Lt. Cable, with Danny Burstein as Billis and Loretta Ables Sayre as Bloody Mary.[88] Laura Osnes replaced O'Hara during her seven-month maternity leave, beginning in March 2009,[89] and also between January and August 2010.[90][91] Szot alternated with David Pittsinger as Emile.[92] The production closed on August 22, 2010, after 37 previews and 996 regular performances.[93]
With a few exceptions, the production received rave reviews.[94] Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times:

I know we're not supposed to expect perfection in this imperfect world, but I'm darned if I can find one serious flaw in this production. (Yes, the second act remains weaker than the first, but Mr. Sher almost makes you forget that.) All of the supporting performances, including those of the ensemble, feel precisely individualized, right down to how they wear Catherine Zuber's carefully researched period costumes.[95]
The production, with most of the original principals, was taped and broadcast live in HD on August 18, 2010 on the PBS television show Live from Lincoln Center.[96]
A production based on the 2008 Broadway revival opened at the Barbican Theatre in London on August 15, 2011 and closed on October 1, 2011.[97] Sher again directed, with the same creative team from the Broadway revival. Szot and Welsh National Opera singer Jason Howard alternated in the role of Emile, with Samantha Womack as Nellie, Ables Sayre as Bloody Mary and Alex Ferns as Billis. The production received mostly positive reviews.[98] A U.K tour followed, with Womack, Ables Sayre and Ferns.[99]
A U.S. national tour based on the 2008 revival began in San Francisco at the Golden Gate Theatre on September 18, 2009. Sher directed, and the cast starred Rod Gilfry (Emile) and Carmen Cusack (Nellie).[100] The Sher production was also produced by Opera Australia at the Sydney Opera House from August to September 2012 and then at Princess Theatre, Melbourne through October 2012. It starred Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Emile, Lisa McCune as Nellie, Kate Ceberano as Bloody Mary and Eddie Perfect as Billis.[101] The production then played in Brisbane for the 2012 holiday season, with Christine Anu as Bloody Mary,[102] and resumed touring in Australia in September 2013.[103][104]
Reception and success[edit]
Critical reception[edit]
Reviewers gave the original production uniformly glowing reviews; one critic called it "South Terrific".[105] The New York Herald Tribune wrote:

The new and much-heralded musical, South Pacific, is a show of rare enchantment. It is novel in texture and treatment, rich in dramatic substance, and eloquent in song, a musical play to be cherished. Under Logan's superb direction, the action shifts with constant fluency. ... [He] has kept the book cumulatively arresting and tremendously satisfying. The occasional dances appear to be magical improvisations. It is a long and prodigal entertainment, but it seems all too short. The Rodgers music is not his finest, but it fits the mood and pace of South Pacific so felicitously that one does not miss a series of hit tunes. In the same way the lyrics are part and parcel of a captivating musical unity.[106]
The New York Daily Mirror critic wrote, "Programmed as a musical play, South Pacific is just that. It boasts no ballets and no hot hoofing. It has no chorus in the conventional sense. Every one in it plays a part. It is likely to establish a new trend in musicals." The review continued: "Every number is so outstanding that it is difficult to decide which will be the most popular."[106] The review in New York World-Telegram found the show to be "the ultimate modern blending of music and popular theatre to date, with the finest kind of balance between story and song, and hilarity and heartbreak."[106] Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times especially praised Pinza's performance: "Mr. Pinza's bass voice is the most beautiful that has been heard on a Broadway stage for an eon or two. He sings ... with infinite delicacy of feeling and loveliness of tone." He declared that "Some Enchanted Evening", sung by Pinza, "ought to become reasonably immortal."[106] Richard Watts, Jr. of the New York Post focused on Mary Martin's performance, writing, "nothing I have ever seen her do prepared me for the loveliness, humor, gift for joyous characterization, and sheer lovableness of her portrayal of Nellie Forbush ... who is so shocked to find her early racial prejudices cropping up. Hers is a completely irresistible performance."[106]
When South Pacific opened in London in November 1951, the reviews were mixed. London's Daily Express praised the music but disliked other elements of that show, writing, "We got a 42nd Street Madame Butterfly, the weakest of all the Hammerstein-Rodgers musicals.[61][107] The Daily Mail suggested, "The play moved so slowly between its songs that it seemed more like South Soporific."[61] The Times applauded the songs but indicated that "before the end the singing and the dancing have dwindled to almost nothing, while the rather sad little tale is slowly and conventionally wound up."[108] The Manchester Guardian, however, noted the anticipation in advance of the opening and concluded that "there was no disappointment ... the show bounces the audience and well deserves the cheers."[109] Drama critic Kenneth Tynan of The Spectator wrote that South Pacific was "the first musical romance which was seriously involved in an adult subject ... I have nothing to do but thank Logan, Rodgers and Hammerstein and climb up from my knees, a little cramped from the effort of typing in such an unusual position."[61]
A 2006 review asserted: "Many are the knowledgeable and discriminating people for whom Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, brilliantly co-written and staged by Joshua Logan, was the greatest musical of all."[110] In 1987, however, John Rockwell of The New York Times reviewed the City Opera production, commenting that while South Pacific had been innovative for 1949, "Sondheim has long since transcended its formal innovations, and the constant reprises of the big tunes sound mechanical. In 1949, South Pacific epitomized the concerns of the day – America's responsibilities in the world and the dangers of racism. ... At its 1967 State Theater revival, the show struck many as dated. It still seems that way, with M*A*S*H having contemporized this same setting".[111] A 2008 Huffington Post review criticized the play as having an Orientalist and Western-centric storyline in which stereotypical natives take on "exotic background roles" in relation to Americans, and it characterized the relationship between Cable and Liat as underage prostitution, charging that she "speaks not a word in the whole musical, only smiles and takes the Yankee to bed."[112] South Pacific is the only major American musical set in World War II,[113] but former Marine Robert Leckie wrote his memoir of that conflict, Helmet for My Pillow, after he walked out of a performance: "I have to tell the story of how it really was. I have to let people know the war wasn't a musical."[114]
Box office and awards[edit]
Main article: List of awards and nominations for the musical ''South Pacific''
South Pacific opened on Broadway with $400,000 in advance sales. People were so eager to obtain tickets that the press wrote about the lengths people had gone to in getting them. Because "house seats" were being sold by scalpers for $200 or more, the attorney general's office threatened to close the show. However, the parties who provided the scalpers with the tickets were never identified, and the show ran without interference. The production had a $50,600 weekly gross, and ran for 1,925 performances. The national tour began in 1950 and grossed $3,000,000 in the first year, making $1,500,000 in profit. The original cast album, priced at $4.85, sold more than a million copies.[115]
The original production of South Pacific won ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Male Performer (Pinza), Best Female Performer (Martin), Best Supporting Male Performer (McCormick), Best Supporting Female Performer (Hall), Best Director (Logan), Best Book and Best Score.[116] In 1950, the musical won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the second musical to do so after Of Thee I Sing, which won in 1932. Rodgers became the first composer of musical comedy to win the Pulitzer, as composer George Gershwin had not been recognized for Of Thee I Sing.[117] The Pulitzer Prize was initially given only to Rodgers and Hammerstein; Logan was later recognized in an amended announcement, much to his annoyance.[50]
The 2001 London revival garnered a Laurence Olivier Award for Philip Quast (Emile).[118] The 2008 revival won seven Tony Awards, including Best Revival (Sher and Szot also won, and the show won in all four design categories), and five Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Musical Revival. The late Robert Russell Bennett was also honored that season for "his historic contribution to American musical theatre in the field of orchestrations, as represented on Broadway this season by Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific."[119][120] The 2011 London production received three Olivier Award nominations, including Best Musical Revival, but won none.[121][122]
Themes and cultural effect[edit]
Race[edit]
Part of the reason why South Pacific is considered a classic is its confrontation of racism. According to professor Philip Beidler, "Rodgers and Hammerstein's attempt to use the Broadway theater to make a courageous statement against racial bigotry in general and institutional racism in the postwar United States in particular" forms part of South Pacific 's legend.[123] Although Tales of the South Pacific treats the question of racism, it does not give it the central place that it takes in the musical. Andrea Most, writing on the "politics of race" in South Pacific, suggests that in the late 1940s, American liberals, such as Rodgers and Hammerstein, turned to the fight for racial equality as a practical means of advancing their progressive views without risking being deemed communists.[124] Trevor Nunn, director of the 2001 West End production, notes the importance of the fact that Nellie, a southerner, ends the play about to be the mother in an interracial family: "It's being performed in America in 1949. That's the resonance."[125]
From the early drafts, Hammerstein and Logan made the issue of racial prejudice central to the story. Hammerstein repeatedly rewrote the Act II backstage scene where Emile, Nellie and Cable confront the question of the Americans' racism.[126] As critic Robert Butler pointed out in his educational companion to the 2001 London production, "if one young person has a prejudice, it might be a character flaw; if two young people share a prejudice, it tells us something about the society in which they grew up".[113] In one draft, Emile advises that the Americans are no better than the Axis Powers, in their prejudice, and suggests they go home to sing songs about how all are created free and equal. Lovensheimer states that a postwar American audience would have found such onstage sentiments to be offensive. In the staged version, Emile's expressions are limited to two lines arguing that prejudice is not inborn.[126]

A crouching man in military uniform watches a young woman and a middle-aged one make hand gestures to him

 "Happy Talk": Cable (William Tabbert) watches Liat (Betta St. John) and Bloody Mary (Hall).
At the heart of this scene is Cable's song "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught", in which Cable realizes the sources of his own racism. Its frank lyrics made it perhaps the most controversial element of the show.[127] Michener recalled in his memoirs that a delegation of New Englanders had approached him after a New Haven tryout and urged him to recommend the song's removal to Rodgers and Hammerstein. When Michener told Hammerstein, he laughed and replied, "That's what the show is about!"[128] Boston drama critic Elliot Norton, after seeing the show in tryouts, strongly recommended its removal, or at least that Cable sing it less "briskly", as there was much bigotry in Boston; Logan replied that that was all the more reason for leaving it unaltered.[129] Several New York reviewers expressed discomfort with the song; Wolcott Gibbs wrote of "something called 'You've Got to Be Taught', a poem in praise of tolerance that somehow I found a little embarrassing" while John Mason Brown opined that he was "somewhat distressed by the dragged-in didacticism of such a plea for tolerance as 'You've Got to Be Taught'".[130] After the Broadway opening, Hammerstein received a large number of letters concerning "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught". Judging by the letters that remain among his papers in the Library of Congress, the reaction was mixed. One correspondent wrote "What can I say to a man who writes, 'You've got to be taught to hate and fear?' ... Now that I know you, I feel that my informants didn't praise you enough."[131] Nevertheless, another wrote, "I feel the inclusion of the song particularly in the album and to some extent in the show itself is not helpful to the cause of brotherhood, your intent to the contrary notwithstanding".[131]
When the tour of the show reached a racially segregated theatre in Wilmington, Delaware, Rodgers and Hammerstein threatened to cancel the performances there unless seating was integrated, which it was.[132] In 1953, with the tour in Atlanta, there was controversy over "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught". Two Georgia state legislators, Senator John D. Shepard and Representative David C. Jones, objected to the song, stating that though South Pacific was a fine piece of entertainment, that song "contained an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow", and explained, "Intermarriage produces half-breeds. And half-breeds are not conducive to the higher type of society. ... In the South, we have pure blood lines and we intend to keep it that way." They stated that they planned to introduce legislation to outlaw such communist-inspired works. The Northern press had a field day; Hammerstein, when asked for comment, responded that he did not think the legislators were representing their constituents very well, and that he was surprised at the suggestion that anything kind and decent must necessarily originate in Moscow.[132][133] In part because of the song, touring companies of South Pacific had difficulty getting bookings in the Deep South.[134]

Pinza, in a white suit, walks along holding a mixed-race boy, about 7 or 8 years old, while listening to a slightly older girl who walks next to him.

 Emile (Pinza) with his children.
In the final scene of Act I, Nellie rejects Emile because of his part-Polynesian children. In so doing, Nellie fails to live up to the American ideal that "all men are created equal", which Emile had earlier affirmed.[125] This scene was also toned down by Hammerstein; in early drafts, Nellie, initially unable to force out a word to describe Emile's first wife, after he supplies the word "Polynesian", responds with "colored". This pronouncement, which makes Nellie less sympathetic as a character, was restored for the 2008 Lincoln Center production. As Frank Rich of The New York Times commented, "it's upsetting because Nellie isn't some cracker stereotype – she's lovable ... But how can we love a racist?"[135] Most argues that even Emile is tainted by racism, as his lifestyle is dependent on the maintenance of a system whereby he benefits from underpaid native labor – Bloody Mary is able to attract workers to make grass skirts for sale to GIs because, as she puts it, "French planters stingy bastards!"[136]
Sex and gender roles[edit]
Nellie Forbush, in her journey from Little Rock, Arkansas, to serving as a Navy nurse and on to the domesticity of the final scene of South Pacific, parallels the experience of many American women of the period. They entered the workforce during the war, only to find afterwards a societal expectation that they give up their jobs in favor of men, with their best route to financial security being marriage and becoming a housewife. One means of securing audience acceptance of Nellie's choices was the sanitization of her sexual past from her counterpart in the Michener work – that character had a 4-F boyfriend back in Arkansas and a liaison with Bill Harbison while on the island.[137][138]

A military scene. A woman dressed as a nurse holds a skirt she has just received from an enlisted man; she is pleased while he appears self-deprecating. Other enlisted men, many bare-chested, watch.

 Nellie (Martin) praises the laundry skills of Billis (McCormick) as his friends look on.
The male characters in South Pacific are intended to appear conventionally masculine. In the aftermath of World War II, the masculinity of the American soldier was beyond public question. Cable's virility with Liat is made evident to the audience. Although Billis operates a laundry – Nellie particularly praises his pleats – and appears in a grass skirt in the "Thanksgiving Follies", these acts are consistent with his desire for money and are clearly intended to be comic. His interest in the young ladies on Bali H'ai establishes his masculinity. Lovensheimer writes that Billis is more defined by class than by sexuality, evidenced by the Seabee's assumption, on learning that Cable went to college in New Jersey, that it was Rutgers (the state's flagship public university), rather than Ivy League Princeton, and by his delight on learning that the rescue operation for him had cost $600,000 when his uncle had stated he would never be worth a dime.[139][140]
Meryle Secrest, in her biography of Rodgers, theorizes that South Pacific marks a transition for the pair "between heroes and heroines who are more or less evenly matched in age and stories about powerful older men and the younger women who are attracted to them".[141] Lovensheimer, however, points out that this pattern really only holds for two of their five subsequent musicals, The King and I and The Sound of Music, and in the former, the love between Anna and the King is not expressed in words. He believes a different transition took place: that their plots, beginning with South Pacific, involve a woman needing to enter and accept her love interest's world to be successful and accepted herself. He notes that both Oklahoma! and Carousel involve a man entering his wife's world, Curly in Oklahoma! about to become a farmer with expectations of success, whereas Billy Bigelow in Carousel fails to find work after leaving his place as a barker. Lovensheimer deems Allegro to be a transition, where the attempts of the lead female character to alter her husband Joe's world to suit her ambition lead to the breakup of their marriage. He argues that the nurse Emily, who goes with Joe in his return to the small town where he was happy, is a forerunner of Nellie, uprooting her life in Chicago for Joe.[142]
Secrest notes that much is overlooked in the rush to have love conquer all in South Pacific, "questions of the long-term survival of a marriage between a sophisticate who read Proust at bedtime and a girl who liked Dinah Shore and did not read anything were raised by Nellie Forbush only to be brushed aside. As for the interracial complexities of raising two Polynesian children, all such issues were subsumed in the general euphoria of true love."[143] Lovensheimer too wonders how Nellie will fare as the second Madame de Becque, "little Nellie Forbush from Arkansas ends up in a tropical paradise, far from her previous world, with a husband, a servant, and two children who speak a language she does not understand".[144]
Cultural effect[edit]

Martin, wearing a swimsuit, stands in an improvised shower stall as water pours down on her.

Mary Martin washed her hair onstage eight times a week.
A mammoth hit, South Pacific sparked huge media and public attention. South Pacific was one of the first shows for which a variety of souvenirs were available: fans could buy South Pacific neckties, or for women, lipstick and scarves. Fake ticket stubs could be purchased for use as status symbols.[117] There were South Pacific music boxes, dolls, fashion accessories and even hairbrushes for use after washing men from hair.[145] Martin's on-stage shower prompted an immediate fashion craze for short hair that could be managed through once-a-day washing at home, rather than in a beauty salon, and for the products which would allow for such care.[146] The songs of South Pacific could be heard on the radio, and they were popular among dance bands and in piano lounges.[117] Mordden comments that South Pacific contained nothing but hit songs; Rodgers and Hammerstein's other successful works always included at least one song which did not become popular.[147]
The cast album, recorded ten days after the show's opening, was an immediate hit. Released by Columbia Records, it spent 69 weeks at #1 on Billboard and a total of 400 weeks on the charts, becoming the best-selling record of the 1940s.[117] It was one of the early LP records, with a turntable speed of 33⅓ rpm, and helped to popularize that technology – previously, show albums and operas had been issued on sets of 78 rpm records, with high prices and much less music on a single disc. In the years to come, the LP would become the medium of choice for the "longhair" music niche of show, opera and classical performances.[148]
An indirect effect of the success of the show was the career of James Michener. His one percent of the show as author of the source material, plus the income from a share which the duo allowed him to buy on credit, made him financially independent and allowed him to quit his job as an editor at Macmillan and to become a full-time writer.[149][150] Over the next five decades, his lengthy, detailed novels centering on different places would dominate the bestseller lists.[151]
Music and recordings[edit]
Musical treatment[edit]
The role of Nellie Forbush was the first time with Hammerstein that Rodgers made the leading female role a belter, rather than a lyric soprano like Laurey in Oklahoma! and Julie in Carousel.[n 5] According to Mordden, "Nellie was something new in R&H, carrying a goodly share of the score on a 'Broadway' voice".[152]
Nellie does not sing together with Emile, because Rodgers promised Martin that she would not have to compete vocally with Pinza,[n 6] but the composer sought to unite them in the underlying music. A tetrachord, heard before we see either lead, is played during the instrumental introduction to "Dites-Moi ", the show's first song. Considered as pitch classes, that is, as pitches without characterization by octave or register, the motif is C-B-A-G. It will be heard repeatedly in Nellie's music, or in the music (such as "Twin Soliloquies") that she shares with Emile, and even in the bridge of "Some Enchanted Evening". Lovensheimer argues that this symbolizes what Nellie is trying to say with her Act II line "We're the same sort of people fundamentally – you and me".[153]
Originally, "Twin Soliloquies" came to an end shortly after the vocal part finishes. Logan found this unsatisfying and worked with Trude Rittmann to find a better ending to the song. This piece of music, dubbed "Unspoken Thoughts", continues the music as Nellie and Emile sip brandy together, and is called by Lovensheimer "the one truly operatic moment of the score".[154] "This Nearly Was Mine" is a big bass solo for Emile in waltz time, deemed by Rodgers biographer William G. Hyland as "one of his finest efforts".[155] Only five notes are used in the first four bars, a phrase which is then repeated with a slight variation in the following four bars. The song ends an octave higher than where it began, making it perfect for Pinza's voice.[155]
Two songs, "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" and "Honey Bun" are intended to imitate American popular songs of the 1940s. In the former, the triple recitation of the song title at intervals suggests a big band arrangement of the wartime era, while in the bridge, the final eight bars (repeating the lyrics from the bridge's first eight bars) gives a suggestion of swing. The sections beginning "If the man don't understand you" and "If you laugh at different comics" have a blues style. Lovensheimer deems the song "Nellie's spontaneous and improvisatory expression of her feelings through the vocabulary of popular song".[156] Mordden suggests that "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy" with its "take no prisoners bounce", might well be the center of the score, with the typical American girl defending her love by spouting clichés, many of which, such as "corny as Kansas in August" Hammerstein made up, and "sure enough, over the years they have become clichés".[157]
Recordings[edit]



 Cover of original cast album
Columbia Records recorded the overture and most of the songs from the original production in 1949, using members of the cast including Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin. Drawing from the original masters, Columbia released the album in both the new LP format and on 78-rpm discs. Soon after Sony acquired Columbia in 1988, a CD was released from the previously unused magnetic tape recording from the same 1949 sessions in New York City. The CD includes the bonus tracks "Loneliness of Evening" (recorded in 1949 by Mary Martin), "My Girl Back Home" (Martin), "Bali Ha'i" (Pinza) and Symphonic Scenario for Concert Orchestra (original orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett). According to critic John Kenrick, the original cast recording "is the rare stuff that lasting legends are made of", an essential classic.[158] The original cast album was added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress on March 21, 2013 for long-term preservation.[159] The film soundtrack was released on the RCA Victor label in March 1958.[160] Kenrick calls the recording "mixed up" and does not recommend it.[158]
Masterworks Broadway released a recording of the 1967 Lincoln Center production starring Florence Henderson as Nellie, Giorgio Tozzi as Emile, Justin McDonough as Cable and Irene Byatt as Bloody Mary. The recording includes a version of "Bali Ha'i", sung in French by Eleanor Calbes, the Liat. According to Kenrick, "Every track of this 1967 Lincoln Center cast recording is such a winner that you can't help wondering why it took so long for this winner to make its way to CD."[161] Kenrick notes that the album is a more complete alternative to the original cast album.[79][158]
In 1986 José Carreras and Kiri Te Kanawa made a studio recording of South Pacific, the sessions of which were filmed as a documentary, similar in style to Leonard Bernstein's successful West Side Story documentary a year earlier that featured the same stars. Emile's music was transposed to fit Carreras's tenor voice. The recording also featured Sarah Vaughan as Bloody Mary and Mandy Patinkin as Cable. Stephen Holden reviewed the album in The New York Times, "the star of this South Pacific isn't any individual, but rather the score itself".[162] Kenrick calls the recording badly miscast "pretentious trash."[158] Kenrick gives mixed praise to the 1988 London revival cast album.[158]
The 2001 Royal National Theatre's revival cast album was recorded in 2002 on First Night Records with Philip Quast as Emile, Lauren Kennedy as Nellie, Edward Baker-Duly as Cable, Sheila Francisco as Bloody Mary and Nick Holder as Billis. The album includes the cut song, "Now Is the Time". While Kenrick allows that most critics like the recording, he finds it a waste of money.[158] The 2005 Carnegie Hall concert version was released on April 18, 2006 by Decca Broadway with Reba McEntire as Nellie, Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile, Lillias White as Bloody Mary, Jason Danieley as Cable and Alec Baldwin as Billis. Kendrick describes this recording as "one of the most ravishing that this glorious Rodgers & Hammerstein classic has ever received"[161] and "a show tune lover's dream come true."[158] The 2008 Broadway revival cast album was released on May 27, 2008 by Masterworks Broadway.[163] Kenrick finds it "very satisfying".[158]
Film and television versions[edit]
Main articles: South Pacific (1958 film) and South Pacific (2001 film)
South Pacific was made into a film of the same name in 1958, and it topped the box office that year. Joshua Logan directed the film, which starred Rossano Brazzi, Mitzi Gaynor, John Kerr, Ray Walston and Juanita Hall; all of their singing voices except Gaynor's and Walston's were dubbed. Thurl Ravenscroft, later television's Tony the Tiger, sang the basso profundo notes in "There Is Nothing Like a Dame". The film opened with Cable's flight to the island in a PBY, followed by the Seabees' beach scene, and added Billis' rescue and scenes from the mission to spy on the Japanese. The film won the Academy Award for Best Sound. It was also nominated for the Oscar for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture (Alfred Newman and Ken Darby), and the 65 mm Todd-AO cinematography by Leon Shamroy was also nominated. The film was widely criticized for its use of color to indicate mood, with actors changing color as they began to sing. The film includes the song "My Girl Back Home", sung by Cable, which was cut from the stage musical. The movie was the third-highest-grossing film in the U.S. of the 1950s; its UK revenues were the highest ever, a record it kept until Goldfinger in 1963.[164][165] Although reviewers have criticized the film – Time magazine stated that it was "almost impossible to make a bad movie out of it – but the moviemakers appear to have tried" – it has added success on television, videotape and DVD to its box office laurels.[164]
A made-for-television film, directed by Richard Pearce, was produced and televised in 2001, starring Glenn Close as Nellie, Harry Connick, Jr. as Cable and Rade Sherbedgia as Emile. This version changed the order of the musical's songs (the film opens with "There Is Nothing Like a Dame") and omits "Happy Talk". "My Girl Back Home" was filmed but not included in the broadcast due to time constraints; it was restored for the DVD, issued in 2001. The last half-hour of the film features scenes of war, including shots of segregated troops.[166] Lovensheimer states that the film returned to the Michener original in one particular: "Harry Connick Jr.'s Joe Cable is a fascinating combination of sensitive leading man and believable Leatherneck".[167]

A DVD cover showing a woman with long reddish hair is flanked by two men wearing formal dress

Baldwin, McEntire and Mitchell, 2005 concert DVD cover
The movie and Close were praised by The New York Times: "Ms. Close, lean and more mature, hints that a touch of desperation lies in Nellie's cockeyed optimism." The review also commented that the movie "is beautifully produced, better than the stagy 1958 film" and praised the singing.[168] Kenrick, however, dislikes the adaptation: "You certainly won't ever want to put this disaster in your player, unless you want to hear the sound of Rodgers and Hammerstein whirling in their graves. Glenn Close is up to the material, but her supporting cast is uniformly disastrous. A pointless and offensive waste of money, time and talent."[169]
A 2005 concert version of the musical, edited down to two hours, but including all of the songs and the full musical score, was presented at Carnegie Hall. It starred Reba McEntire as Nellie, Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile, Alec Baldwin as Billis and Lillias White as Bloody Mary. The production used Robert Russell Bennett's original orchestrations and the Orchestra of St. Luke's directed by Paul Gemignani. It was taped and telecast by PBS in 2006 and released the same year on DVD. The New York Times critic Ben Brantley wrote, "Open-voiced and open-faced, Reba McEntire was born to play Nellie"; the production was received "in a state of nearly unconditional rapture. It was one of those nights when cynicism didn't stand a chance."[170] Kenrick especially likes Mitchell's "This Nearly Was Mine", and praises the concert generally: "this excellent performance helped restore the reputation of this classic".[169]
Notes and references[edit]
Notes
1.Jump up ^ Michener later reflected, "I would often think of her ... when American troops were fighting their fruitless battles in Vietnam, and I wondered if our leaders realized that the enemy they were fighting consisted of millions of determined people like Bloody Mary." See May, p. 20
2.Jump up ^ The "De" was changed to lower case for the musical. See Maslon, p. 115.
3.Jump up ^ Jim Lovensheimer, in his book on the genesis of South Pacific, questions Logan's account: "in his autobiography, at least, Logan is the star of every show he mentions".[14]
4.Jump up ^ Although Hammerstein's script for the play calls them half-Polynesian, some productions, including the 2008 Broadway production, cast the children as half-black. This is consistent with Michener's novel, which takes place in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). As part of Melanesia, its native inhabitants are black-skinned, and Michener repeatedly refers to the island natives as "black".
5.Jump up ^ The female lead in Allegro, Jenny, is principally a dancing role; the performer playing her does not sing by herself.
6.Jump up ^ They do sing together at the start of the final scene of Act I, but their characters are supposed to have been drinking.
References
1.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 35–39
2.^ Jump up to: a b Lovensheimer, p. 39
3.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 39, 191
4.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 39–40
5.Jump up ^ Michener 1967, pp. 126–127
6.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 43–44, 191
7.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 49–50; and May, pp. 24–25
8.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 52–53
9.Jump up ^ Hyland, p. 167
10.Jump up ^ Hischak, p. 202
11.Jump up ^ "The best of the century", Time, December 31, 1999, accessed December 21, 2010
12.Jump up ^ Hischak, pp. 5–7
13.Jump up ^ Nolan, p. 173
14.^ Jump up to: a b Lovensheimer, p. 46
15.Jump up ^ Fordin, pp. 259–260; and Logan, pp. 266–267
16.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, p. 47
17.Jump up ^ May, p. 80
18.Jump up ^ Fordin, pp. 261–262
19.Jump up ^ Maslon, p. 117
20.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 58–67
21.Jump up ^ Rodgers and Hammerstein, pp. 310–313
22.Jump up ^ Logan, pp. 273–281; and May, pp. 98–103
23.^ Jump up to: a b Hyland, p. 179
24.Jump up ^ Secrest, p. 290
25.Jump up ^ May, p. 100
26.Jump up ^ Nolan, pp. 184–186
27.Jump up ^ Maslon, p. 111
28.Jump up ^ Nolan, p. 178
29.^ Jump up to: a b Maslon, p. 112
30.^ Jump up to: a b Fordin, p. 262
31.Jump up ^ Davis, p. 123
32.^ Jump up to: a b Hyland, p. 180
33.Jump up ^ Davis, p. 125
34.Jump up ^ "South Pacific: History, Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, accessed August 29, 2012
35.Jump up ^ Hammerstein, p. 199
36.Jump up ^ Maslon, p. 93
37.Jump up ^ Nolan, p. 185
38.^ Jump up to: a b Fordin, p. 267
39.^ Jump up to: a b Logan, p. 283
40.^ Jump up to: a b Nolan, p. 182
41.Jump up ^ Maslon, p. 124
42.Jump up ^ Maslon, pp. 124–125
43.Jump up ^ Davis, p. 130
44.^ Jump up to: a b Nolan, p. 186
45.Jump up ^ Maslon, p. 121
46.Jump up ^ Logan, p. 289
47.Jump up ^ Maslon, pp. 126, 129
48.Jump up ^ Maslon, p. 129
49.Jump up ^ Nolan, p. 191
50.^ Jump up to: a b Nolan, pp. 190–195
51.Jump up ^ Hischak, p. 261
52.Jump up ^ Fordin, p. 281
53.Jump up ^ Davis, p. 145
54.^ Jump up to: a b c Maslon, p. 154
55.Jump up ^ Maslon, pp. 153–154
56.Jump up ^ Green, p. 399
57.Jump up ^ Davis, p. 147
58.Jump up ^ Mordden 1999, p. 265
59.Jump up ^ Green, p. 398
60.Jump up ^ Hischak, p. 263
61.^ Jump up to: a b c d Maslon, p. 156
62.Jump up ^ Gould, Mark R. "Revival of South Pacific", American Library Association, 2012, accessed May 23, 2013
63.Jump up ^ "King enjoys South Pacific", The Age, February 1, 1952, p. 1, accessed June 5, 2013
64.Jump up ^ Fox, Jack V. "King George VI dies", UPI via Pittsburgh Press, February 6, 1952, p. 1, accessed June 5, 2013
65.Jump up ^ Nolan, p. 119
66.Jump up ^ Fordin, p. 282
67.Jump up ^ Rodgers & Hammerstein, p. 269 (roles and original cast only)
68.Jump up ^ Block, pp. 139–140
69.Jump up ^ Block, pp. 140–145
70.Jump up ^ Block, pp. 139, 142–143
71.^ Jump up to: a b Block, p. 142
72.Jump up ^ Block, pp. 142, 145–146
73.Jump up ^ Nolan, p. 190
74.^ Jump up to: a b Block, pp. 142, 146
75.Jump up ^ Funke, Lewis. "Theatre: Back to Bali Ha'i", The New York Times, May 5, 1955, p. 39
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78.Jump up ^ Maslon, p. 158
79.^ Jump up to: a b c "Review, South Pacific (Music Theater of Lincoln Center Recording)", Allmusic.com, accessed April 20, 2011
80.Jump up ^ Suskin, Steven. "On The Record: 1960's revivals of South Pacific and The King and I", Playbill.com, September 17, 2006
81.Jump up ^ Nelson, Nels. "South Pacific at Valley Forge Music Fair", Philadelphia Daily News, Philly.com, July 9, 1986, accessed September 25, 2013; "Lia Chang", Bio & Reel, Lifeyo.com, accessed September 25, 2013; Smith, Sid. "Some Enchanted Musical with Robert Goulet in the Role of Emile De Becque, A Revived South Pacific Is Again a Hit.", Chicago Tribune, November 13, 1988, accessed September 25, 2013
82.Jump up ^ Hischak, Thomas S. "'South Pacific'", The Oxford Companion to the American Musical: Theatre, Film, and Television, Oxford University Press US, 2008, ISBN 0-19-533533-3, p. 700
83.Jump up ^ "Prince of Wales Theatre", Broadwayworld.com, accessed August 29, 2012
84.Jump up ^ "Musical Notes", Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, January 1, 2002, accessed May 27, 2013
85.Jump up ^ Maslon, p. 182
86.Jump up ^ "'South Pacific' UK Tour", thisistheatre.com, accessed April 23, 2011
87.Jump up ^ Somensky, Amy. "U.K. tour of South Pacific opens today", Monstersandcritics.com, August 24, 2007, accessed May 25, 2013
88.Jump up ^ Hetrick, Adam. "Sher to Discuss South Pacific at Vivian Beaumont March 26", Playbill.com, March 7, 2008
89.Jump up ^ Hetrick, Adam. "Kelli O'Hara Rejoins South Pacific Cast Oct. 13", Playbill.com, October 13, 2009
90.Jump up ^ Hetrick, Adam. "Osnes Will Return to Broadway's South Pacific; O'Hara to Depart Jan. 3, 2010", Playbill.com, December 17, 2009
91.Jump up ^ Hetrick, Adam. "Kelli O'Hara Returns to South Pacific for Musical's Final Weeks Aug. 10", Playbill.com, August 10, 2010
92.Jump up ^ "South Pacific to End Record-Breaking Run at Lincoln Center on August 22, 2010", Broadway.com, February 18, 2010, accessed May 4, 2010
93.Jump up ^ South Pacific, Playbill.com, accessed June 18, 2012
94.Jump up ^ Fick, David. "South Pacific Review Roundup", Musical Cyberspace, February 6, 2010
95.Jump up ^ Brantley, Ben. "Optimist Awash in the Tropics", The New York Times, April 4, 2008, accessed May 25, 2013
96.Jump up ^ Hinckley, David. "It's not the same as being in Lincoln Center, but TV production of South Pacific is a can't-miss", New York Daily News, August 18, 2010, accessed May 25, 2013
97.Jump up ^ "Samantha Womack and Paulo Szot to star in the most acclaimed production ever of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific", barbican.org.uk, accessed June 11, 2012
98.Jump up ^ Spencer, Charles. "South Pacific Barbican, review", The Telegraph, August 24, 2011
99.Jump up ^ "South Pacific Is Most Successful Two Week Run at Milton Keynes Theatre", Artswrap, October 31, 2011, accessed January 28, 2012
100.Jump up ^ Hetrick, Adam. "South Pacific Tour to Play Chicago; Itinerary Revised", Playbill.com, September 21, 2009
101.Jump up ^ "South Pacific: Monthly Archives, April, 2012, Stellar Cast", Opera Australia, April 29, 2012, accessed May 26, 2013
102.Jump up ^ "Christine Anu and Gyton Grantley score key roles for Brisbane", Opera Australia, November 30, 2012, accessed May 26, 2013
103.Jump up ^ Showbiz: South Pacific 2014
104.Jump up ^ "South Pacific to go Coast-to-Coast", Opera Australia, April 8, 2013, accessed May 26, 2013
105.Jump up ^ Nolan, p. 194
106.^ Jump up to: a b c d e Suskin, Steven. Opening Night on Broadway: A Critical Quotebook of the Golden Era of the Musical Theatre, pp. 639–43. Schirmer Books, New York, 1990. ISBN 0-02-872625-1
107.Jump up ^ "Alas, some not entirely enchanted evening", Daily Express, November 2, 1951, p. 3
108.Jump up ^ "Drury Lane Theatre: South Pacific. The Times, November 2, 1951, p. 7
109.Jump up ^ "South Pacific", The Manchester Guardian, November 2, 1951, p. 5
110.Jump up ^ "Rodger & Hammerstein's South Pacific – In Concert from Carnegie Hall", Broadway.com, July 5, 2006, accessed June 5, 2013
111.Jump up ^ Rockwell, John. "Music: A new South Pacific by the City Opera", The New York Times, March 2, 1987, accessed June 5, 2013
112.Jump up ^ Ayers, Rick. "South Pacific – Musical Orientalism", Huffington Post, May 1, 2008
113.^ Jump up to: a b Butler, p. 3
114.Jump up ^ Di Ionno, Mark. "HBO series illuminates N.J. Marine's book on World War II experience", NJ.com, February 21, 2010
115.Jump up ^ Nolan, p. 195
116.Jump up ^ South Pacific 1950 Tony winners, Tony Awards official website, accessed April 4, 2012
117.^ Jump up to: a b c d Maslon, p. 153
118.Jump up ^ "Olivier Winners 2002", Olivier Awards official website, accessed April 7, 2012
119.Jump up ^ Search page for Tony Awards (search year "2008" and show South Pacific), Tony Awards official website, accessed June 11, 2013
120.Jump up ^ 2007–2008 Drama Desk Awards Winners Honored, Livedesign.com, accessed June 11, 2013.
121.Jump up ^ Singh, Anita. Olivier Awards: Full list of nominations, The Telegraph, March 15, 2012, accessed June 11, 2013
122.Jump up ^ Singh, Anita. Young stars steal the show as Matilda sets Olivier records, The Telegraph, April 15, 2012, accessed June 11, 2013
123.Jump up ^ Beidler, p. 213
124.Jump up ^ Most, pp. 308–309
125.^ Jump up to: a b Butler, p. 8
126.^ Jump up to: a b Lovensheimer, pp. 97–98
127.Jump up ^ Most, p. 307
128.Jump up ^ Michener 1992, pp. 294–295
129.Jump up ^ Maslon, p. 162
130.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 85–86
131.^ Jump up to: a b Lovensheimer, p. 104
132.^ Jump up to: a b Maslon, p. 163
133.Jump up ^ "Georgia legislators score South Pacific; see Red philosophy in song against bias", The New York Times, March 1, 1953, accessed March 12, 2013 (subscription required)
134.Jump up ^ Hischak, p. 324
135.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 90–92
136.Jump up ^ Most, pp. 330–331
137.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 108–109
138.Jump up ^ Michener 1967, p. 106
139.Jump up ^ Rodgers and Hammerstein, pp. 290, 353
140.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 109–111, 142–143
141.Jump up ^ Secrest, p. 294
142.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 111–115
143.Jump up ^ Secrest, p. 293
144.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, p. 115
145.Jump up ^ Hammerstein, p. 200
146.Jump up ^ Beidler, pp. 116–117
147.Jump up ^ Mordden 1992, p. 120
148.Jump up ^ Beidler, p. 117
149.Jump up ^ Michener 1992, p. 294
150.Jump up ^ May, pp. 112–125
151.Jump up ^ May, pp. ix–x
152.Jump up ^ Mordden 1992, p. 108
153.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 124–132
154.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 129–130
155.^ Jump up to: a b Hyland, p. 183
156.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, pp. 133–135
157.Jump up ^ Mordden 1992, p. 121
158.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h Kenrick, John. "Comparative CD Reviews, Part V, 2003, accessed May 26, 2003
159.Jump up ^ Zongker, Brett. "Simon & Garfunkel song among those to be preserved", AP via Yahoo! Music, March 21, 2013, accessed June 11, 2013
160.Jump up ^ "South Pacific (Original Soundtrack"), Allmusic.com, accessed May 26, 2013
161.^ Jump up to: a b Kenrick, John. "CD Reviews –2006. Musicals101.com, accessed March 15, 2013
162.Jump up ^ Maslon, p. 181
163.Jump up ^ Gans, Andrew and Hetrick, Adam. "'South Pacific' Company Records CD April 14; Recording Due in May", playbill.com, April 14, 2008, accessed March 15, 2013
164.^ Jump up to: a b Hischak, pp. 264–265, 339
165.Jump up ^ Maslon, pp. 170, 173
166.Jump up ^ Jones, Kenneth. Glenn Close TV Movie of 'South Pacific' Gets DVD and Video Release, Playbill.com, August 29, 2001, accessed March 15, 2013
167.Jump up ^ Lovensheimer, p. 184
168.Jump up ^ Salamon, Julie. "Being Corny as Kansas Isn't So Simple Anymore", The New York Times, March 26, 2001, p. 8, Section E
169.^ Jump up to: a b Kenrick, John. "Musicals on DVD 8", Musicals101.com, accessed March 15, 2013
170.Jump up ^ Brantley, Ben. '"Sultry City Night Is Transformed Into an Enchanted Bali Ha'i", The New York Times, June 11, 2005, accessed March 15, 2013
Bibliography[edit]
Beidler, Philip D. "South Pacific and American remembering: Or, 'Josh, we're going to buy this son of a bitch' ". Journal of American Studies, Vol. 27, Number 2 (August, 1993), pp. 207–222. JSTOR 40467260.
Block, Geoffrey (ed.) The Richard Rodgers Reader. New York: Oxford University Press (US), 2006. ISBN 978-0-19-531343-7.
Butler, Robert. NT Education Workpack: South Pacific. London: Royal National Theatre, 2001.
Davis, Ronald L. Mary Martin: Broadway Legend. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8061-3905-0.
Fordin, Hugh. Getting to Know Him: A Biography of Oscar Hammerstein II. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 1995 reprint of 1986 edition. ISBN 978-0-306-80668-1.
Green, Stanley. Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 1980. ISBN 978-0-306-80113-6.
Hischak, Thomas S. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. ISBN 978-0-313-34140-3.
Hyland, William G. Richard Rodgers. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0-300-07115-3.
Logan, Joshua. Josh: My Up and Down, In and Out Life. New York: Delacorte Press, 1976. ISBN 0–440–04235–6.
Lovensheimer, Jim. South Pacific: Paradise Rewritten. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-19-537702-6.
Maslon, Laurence. The South Pacific Companion. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. ISBN 978–1–4165–7313–5.
May, Stephen J. Michener's South Pacific. Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 2011. ISBN 978-0-8130-3557-4.
Michener, James A. Tales of the South Pacific. New York: Bantam Books, 1967 paperback edition of 1947 publication. ISBN 0-449-20652-1.
Michener, James A. The World is My Home: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 1992. ISBN 0–679–40134–2.
Mordden, Ethan. Rodgers & Hammerstein. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992. ISBN 978-0-8109-1567-1.
Mordden, Ethan. Beautiful Mornin': The Broadway Musical in the 1940s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0–19–512851–6.
Most, Andrea. " 'You've Got to Be Carefully Taught': The politics of race in Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific". Theatre Journal, Vol. 52, Number 3 (October, 2000), pp. 307–337. JSTOR 25068808.
Nolan, Frederick. The Sound of Their Music: The Story of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Cambridge, Mass.: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2002. ISBN 978-1-55783-473-7.
Rodgers, Richard and Hammerstein, Oscar. Six Plays by Rodgers and Hammerstein. New York: Random House, undated.
Secrest, Meryle. Somewhere for Me: A Biography of Richard Rodgers. Cambridge, Mass.: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2001. ISBN 978-1-55783-581-9.
Further reading[edit]
Bauch, Marc (2001) Themes and Topics of the American Musical after World War II, Tectum Verlag, Marburg, Germany, ISBN 3-8288-1141-8
Bauch, Marc (2003) The American Musical, Tectum Verlag, Marburg, Germany, ISBN 3-8288-8458-X
Bloom, Ken and Vlastnik, Frank. Broadway Musicals: The 101 Greatest Shows of All Time. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2004. ISBN 978-1-57912-390-1.
Ewen, David. With a Song in His Heart (Richard Rodgers). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963.
Green, Stanley. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Fact Book. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 1980.
Martin, Mary. My Hearts Belongs (Autobiography). New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1976.
External links[edit]
South Pacific at the Internet Broadway Database
South Pacific at the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization
South Pacific at the Guide to Musical Theatre
South Pacific at StageAgent.com


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The Producers (1968 film)
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The Producers
The Producers (1968).jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Mel Brooks
Produced by
Sidney Glazier
Written by
Mel Brooks
Starring
Zero Mostel
Gene Wilder
Kenneth Mars
Dick Shawn
Music by
John Morris
Cinematography
Joseph Coffey
Edited by
Ralph Rosenblum
Distributed by
Embassy Pictures
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates
March 18, 1968[1]

Running time
88 minutes[1][2]
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$941,000[3][4]
Box office
$1,681,986 (rentals)[5]
The Producers is a 1968 American satirical dark comedy cult classic musical film written and directed by Mel Brooks. The film is set in the late 1960s and it tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a sure-fire Broadway flop. They take more money from investors than they can repay (the shares they've sold total more than 100% of any profits) and plan to abscond to Brazil as soon as the play closes, only to see the plan improbably go awry when the show turns out to be a hit.
The film stars Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock, the producer, and Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom, the accountant, and features Dick Shawn as L.S.D., the actor who ends up playing the lead in the musical within the movie, and Kenneth Mars as the former Nazi soldier and playwright, Franz Liebkind.
The Producers was the first film directed by Mel Brooks. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Decades later, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry and placed 11th on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs list. The film was later remade successfully by Brooks as an acclaimed Broadway stage musical which itself was adapted as a film.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Release
5 Reception
6 Awards and honors
7 Re-releases and adaptations
8 Influences
9 In popular culture
10 See also
11 References
12 External links

Plot[edit]
Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) is a washed-up, aging Broadway producer who ekes out a living romancing lascivious wealthy elderly women in exchange for money for his next play. Nebbish accountant Leopold "Leo" Bloom (Gene Wilder) arrives at Max's office to do his books and discovers there is a $2,000 overcharge in the accounts of Max's last play, because he raised more money than he could repay by selling more than 100% of the shares in the potential profits. Max persuades Leo to hide the relatively minor fraud, and, while shuffling numbers, Leo has a revelation: a producer could make a lot more money with a flop than a hit. Max immediately puts this scheme into action. They will over-sell shares again, but on a much larger scale, and produce a play that will close on opening night. No one audits the books of a play presumed to have lost money, thus avoiding a pay-out and leaving the duo free to flee to Rio de Janeiro with the profits. Leo is afraid such a criminal venture will fail and they will go to prison, but Max eventually convinces him that his drab existence is no better than prison.
After reading many bad plays, the partners find the obvious choice for their scheme: Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden. It is "a love letter to Hitler" written in total sincerity by deranged ex-Nazi Franz Liebkind (Kenneth Mars). They persuade him to sign over the stage rights, telling him they want to show the world "the Hitler you loved, the Hitler you knew, the Hitler with a song in his heart." To guarantee that the show is a flop, they hire Roger De Bris (Christopher Hewett), a director whose plays "close on the first day of rehearsal". The part of Hitler goes to a charismatic but only semi-coherent, flower power hippie named Lorenzo St. DuBois, a.k.a. L.S.D. (Dick Shawn), who can barely remember his own name and had mistakenly wandered into their theater during the casting call. After Max sells 25,000% of the play to his regular investors (dozens of lustful little old ladies), they are sure to be on their way to Rio.
The result of all of this is a cheerfully upbeat and utterly tasteless musical play purporting to be about the happy home life of a brutal dictator. It opens with a lavish production of the title song, "Springtime For Hitler", which celebrates Nazi Germany crushing Europe ("Springtime for Hitler and Germany/Winter for Poland and France"). After seeing the audience's dumbfounded disbelief, Max and Leo, confident that the play will be a flop, go to a bar across the street to celebrate and get drunk. Unbeknownst to them, their attempt backfires as, after initial dumbfounded disbelief, the audience finds L.S.D.'s beatnik-like portrayal (and misunderstanding of the story) to be hilarious and misinterpret the production as a satire. During intermission, some members of the audience come to the bar at which Max and Leo are drinking and rave about the play, much to Max and Leo's horror. The two decide to return to the theater after intermission to hear what the rest of the audience has to say, which echoes what the others already have said. Meanwhile, L.S.D.'s portrayal of Hitler enrages and humiliates Franz, who, after going behind the stage, untying the cable holding up the curtain and rushing out on stage, confronts the audience and rants about the treatment of his beloved play. However, someone behind the curtain manages to knock him out and remove him from the stage, and the audience assumes that Franz's rant was part of the act. Springtime For Hitler is declared a smash-hit, which means, of course, the investors will be expecting a larger financial return than can be paid out.
As the stunned partners turn on each other, a gun-wielding Franz confronts them, who accuses them of breaking the "Siegfried Oath". After failing to shoot Max and Leo, Franz tries to shoot himself but has run out of bullets. Leo comforts Franz while Max tries to convince Franz to kill the actors, but Leo intervenes. After a reconciliation, the three band together and decide to blow up the theater to end the production but are injured, arrested, tried, and found "incredibly guilty" by the jury. Before sentencing, Leo makes an impassioned statement praising Max (while also referring to him as "the most selfish man I have ever met in my life"), and Max tells the judge that they have learned their lesson and will not do what they did again.
In prison, Max, Leo, and Franz go back to producing a new play in prison called Prisoners of Love. However, Leo continues the same old scam of overselling shares of the play to the other prisoners (20%-30%) and even to the warden (50%). The song "Prisoners of Love" plays while the credits roll.
Cast[edit]
See also: List of The Producers characters
Zero Mostel - Max Bialystock
Gene Wilder - Leopold "Leo" Bloom
Kenneth Mars - Franz Liebkind
Dick Shawn - Lorenzo St. DuBois (L.S.D.)
Lee Meredith - Ulla
Estelle Winwood - "Hold Me! Touch Me!"
Christopher Hewett - Roger De Bris
Andreas Voutsinas - Carmen Ghia
Renée Taylor - Actress playing Eva Braun
Barney Martin - Actor playing Hermann Göring
Bill Macy - Foreman of the jury
William Hickey - Drunk in the bar
Mel Brooks - Singer in "Springtime for Hitler" (uncredited cameo)
Production[edit]
“ I was never crazy about Hitler...If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you never win...That's what they do so well: they seduce people. But if you ridicule them, bring them down with laughter, they can't win. You show how crazy they are. ”
—Mel Brooks, in an August 2001 interview[6]



 This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2010)
Mel Brooks wanted to title the film Springtime For Hitler, but Embassy Pictures producer Joseph E. Levine would not let him. Then, following a screening that Peter Sellers attended, both he and Levine talked about a release for the film, which he liked a lot. When Brooks was brought in, he chose the film's popular title. Sellers was one of several actors considered for the film.
The original screenplay had Franz Liebkind make Max and Leo swear The Siegfried Oath.[7] Accompanied by The Ride of the Valkyries, they promised fealty to Siegfried, Wagner, Nietzsche, Hindenburg, the Graf Spee, the Blue Max, and "Adolf You-Know-Who". The Siegfried Oath was restored in the musical version.[8] In a making-of documentary that accompanied the 2002 DVD release of the film,[7] Brooks says that Dustin Hoffman was originally cast as Liebkind. According to Brooks, late on the night before shooting began, Hoffman begged Brooks to let him out of his commitment to do the role so that he could audition for the starring role in The Graduate. Brooks was aware of the film, which co-starred Brooks' wife, Anne Bancroft, and, skeptical that Hoffman would get the role, agreed to let him audition. When Hoffman did win playing Ben Braddock, Brooks called Kenneth Mars in as Liebkind. Another man he called in was Bill Macy, who played the jury foreman in a cameo role.
The film was shot at the Chelsea Studios in New York City, where the musical version (2005) was also shot.[9] Additional footage included such midtown Manhattan locales as Central Park, the Empire State Building and Lincoln Center.
Writer-director Mel Brooks is heard briefly in the film, his voice dubbed over a dancer singing, "Don't be stupid, be a smarty/Come and join the Nazi Party", in the song Springtime For Hitler. His version of the line is also dubbed into each performance of the musical, as well as the 2005 movie version.
Release[edit]
According to Brooks, after the film was completed, Embassy executives refused to release it as being in "bad taste"; however, Peter Sellers saw the film privately and placed an advertisement in Variety in support of the film's wider release.[7][10] Sellers was familiar with the film because, according to Brooks, Sellers "had accepted the role of Bloom and then was never heard from again."[7][10] The film premiered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 22, 1967[1] and subsequently had a limited release to only a small number of theaters.
It has been alleged that the film was "banned in Germany".[11] Following the film's lackluster response in the UK, German distributors did decline to distribute it,[citation needed] but their lack of interest did not technically constitute a ban.
In Sweden, however, the title literally translates as "Springtime For Hitler". As a result of its success, all but two of Mel Brooks movies in Swedish have been given similar titles: "Springtime For Mother-In-Law" (The Twelve Chairs); "Springtime For The Sheriff" (Blazing Saddles); "Springtime For Frankenstein" (Young Frankenstein); "Springtime For The Silent Movies" (Silent Movie); "Springtime For The Lunatics" (High Anxiety); "Springtime For World History" (History of the World, Part I); "Springtime For Space" (Spaceballs); and "Springtime For The Slum" (Life Stinks).[12]
Reception[edit]
When it was first released, the film received a mixed response and garnered exceptionally harsh reviews from New York critics— Stanley Kauffmann ("the film bloats into sogginess", The New Republic); Pauline Kael ("amateurishly crude", The New Yorker); and Andrew Sarris—partly because of its directorial style and broad ethnic humor.[13] Negative reviewers noted the bad taste and insensitivity of devising a broad comedy about two Jews conspiring to cheat theatrical investors by devising a designed-to-fail singing, dancing, tasteless Broadway musical show about Hitler, 23 years after the end of World War II.[14] Renata Adler wrote that it was a "violently mixed bag. Some of it is shoddy and gross and cruel; the rest is funny in an entirely unexpected way. It has the episodic, revue quality of so much contemporary comedy—not building laughter, but stringing it together skit after skit, some vile, some boffo. It is less delicate than Lenny Bruce, less funny than Dr. Strangelove, but much funnier than The Loved One or What's New Pussycat?" According to her, Mostel is "overacting grotesquely" while co-star Wilder is "wonderful", playing his part "as though he were Dustin Hoffman being played by Danny Kaye".[2]
Others considered the film to be a great success. Time magazine's reviewers wrote that the film was "hilariously funny [...] Unfortunately, the film is burdened with the kind of plot that demands resolution [... and] ends in a whimper of sentimentality." Although they labelled it "disjointed and inconsistent",[15] they also praised it as "a wildly funny joy ride",[16] and concluded by saying that "despite its bad moments, [it] is some of the funniest American cinema comedy in years."[17] The film industry trade paper Variety wrote, "The film is unmatched in the scenes featuring Mostel and Wilder alone together, and several episodes with other actors are truly rare."[18] Over the years, the film has gained in stature, garnering a 93% certified fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes. (the site's consensus reads the following: "A hilarious satire of the business side of Hollywood, The Producers is one of Mel Brooks' finest, as well as funniest films, featuring standout performances by Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel.") On Metacritic, the film holds an extremely high rating of 97, making it one of the highest rated films on the site as well as the second highest rated comedy (behind The Wizard of Oz). In his review decades late Roger Ebert later claimed that "this is one of the funniest movies ever made."[19][20] Ebert wrote,

"I remember finding myself in an elevator with Brooks and his wife, actress Anne Bancroft, in New York City a few months after The Producers was released. A woman got onto the elevator, recognized him and said, 'I have to tell you, Mr. Brooks, that your movie is vulgar.' Brooks smiled benevolently. 'Lady,' he said, 'it rose below vulgarity.'
Reviews in Britain were positive to very positive.[14]
It has since been noted that the plot of Brooks' film bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the British film Mister Ten Per Cent (1967). The similarity is noted in the sleeve notes of the 2014 DVD release of the earlier film (which starred British comedian Charlie Drake) and in a number of reviews on IMDb.
Awards and honors[edit]
In 1968, Mel Brooks won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and Gene Wilder was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In addition, Zero Mostel was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and Brooks was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay.
In 1969, The Producers won a Writers Guild of America, East Best Original Screenplay award.
In 1996, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
American Film Institute recognitionAFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – #11
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs: "Springtime for Hitler" – #80
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes: "Not many people know it, but the Führer was a terrific dancer." – Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated
Re-releases and adaptations[edit]
In 2002 The Producers was re-released in three theaters by Rialto Picktures and earned $111,866[21][22] at the box office. As of 2007, the film continues to be distributed to art-film and repertory cinemas by Rialto.[citation needed]
Brooks has adapted the story twice more, as a Broadway musical (The Producers, 2001) and a film based on the musical (The Producers, 2005).
The Producers (1968) is currently available on DVD, released by MGM.
Influences[edit]


 This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2010)
Max Bialystock is named after the city of Białystok, Poland. A bialystoker is a roll similar to a bagel. The character itself was inspired by Max Liebman, the producer/director of Your Show of Shows, on which Brooks was a writer.
Leo Bloom is named for the protagonist of James Joyce's classic novel Ulysses, Leopold Bloom. Leo meets Max on June 16 (Bloomsday), the date on which Ulysses takes place. Bialystock at one point calls Leo "Prince Myshkin", the titular protagonist in Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot.
In the search for "the worst play ever", Max reads aloud from one of the rejected manuscripts. It is the opening sentence of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, where Gregor Samsa finds himself transformed into a giant verminous bug, and Bialystock dismisses it as "too good". The book was also used as a joke in Mel Brooks' movie Spaceballs: "Prepare for Metamorphosis, are you ready Kafka?".
 In a case of life imitating art, however, The Metamorphosis was produced on Broadway (1989), featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov as Gregor and René Auberjonois as Gregor's father.[23]
Roger De Bris (pronounced "debris") is named for the Yiddish term for circumcision.[24]
Carmen Giya is named after the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia,[7] a popular car in production in 1968. The Volkswagen Karmann Ghia was one of the cars driven by Maxwell Smart in the television show Get Smart which was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.
The "singing Hitlers" at their audition sing a number of pieces. Mentioned or performed are Lilac Time, "A Wand'ring Minstrel I", "Beautiful Dreamer", and "Largo al factotum" ("della ... città" being all that is heard).
Siegfried from the Siegfried Oath is the main character in The Ring of the Nibelung by Richard Wagner. Siegfried was also a villain in the television show Get Smart.
In popular culture[edit]
Peter Sellers appeared on Michael Parkinson's BBC1 chat show Parkinson in a Nazi helmet reciting the entire "Hitler was a better painter than Churchill" speech. (Parkinson BBC1 09/11/74 & BBC Audiobooks (5 February 1996))
An episode of the TV series Remington Steele, "Springtime for Steele," has two men trying to pull the same scam by promoting a tour of an untalented singer after selling the rights for major profit. But just like in the movie, the scam is undone when the tour is a sellout. Keeping with a running theme in the series, Steele cites the movie as inspiration for the scheme.
The title of the U2 album Achtung Baby comes from a line in the movie.[25]
Season four of Curb Your Enthusiasm revolves around The Producers. Larry David is hired by Mel Brooks as a surefire way of ruining the play and ending its run. Instead, reflecting the actual plotline of the play, David turns it into a huge success.
According to critic David Ehrenstein, the film marked the first use of the term "Creative Accounting."[26] However, a philandering husband uses the term in the 1962 movie "Boys Night Out" when he makes up the name of a class he is supposedly taking.
In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, this is Patrick's favorite movie.
George Harrison's 1974 album "Dark Horse" has a photograph in the gatefold sleeve of Harrison and Peter Sellers walking through the Friar Park estate, a speech balloon saying 'Well Leo, what say we promenade through the park?', a quote from the film, a favourite of both Sellers and Harrison.
See also[edit]
Setting up to fail
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c The Producers at the TCM Movie Database
2.^ Jump up to: a b Renata Adler (March 19, 1968). "The Producers (1968)". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-02-21.
3.Jump up ^ Box Office Information for The Producers. IMDb. Retrieved April 2, 2013.
4.Jump up ^ The Making of The Producers. The Guardian. Retrieved April 2, 2013
5.Jump up ^ "Big Rental Films of 1968", Variety, 8 January 1969 p 15. Please note this figure is a rental accruing to distributors.
6.Jump up ^ Shute, Nancy (August 12, 2001). "Mel Brooks: His humor brings down Hitler, and the house". U.S. News and World Report. Retrieved 2007-05-04.
7.^ Jump up to: a b c d e The Making of The Producers' at the Internet Movie Database
8.Jump up ^ Original 1967 The Producers screenplay[dead link]
9.Jump up ^ Richard Alleman (2005). New York: The Movie Lover's Guide: The Ultimate Insider Tour of Movie New York. Broadway Books. ISBN 0-7679-1634-4.
10.^ Jump up to: a b Mark Bourne. "The Producers(1968): Deluxe Edition DVD review". dvdjournal.com. Retrieved 2011-02-21.
11.Jump up ^ "Radio Times". 24–30 November 2001.
12.Jump up ^ The Entertainment Weekly Guide to the Greatest Movies Ever Made I. New York: Warner Books. 1996. p. 42.
13.Jump up ^ J. Hoberman (2001-04-15). "When The Nazis Became Nudniks". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
14.^ Jump up to: a b Alex Symons (2006-03-22). "An audience for Mel Brooks's The Producers: the avant-garde of the masses.(Critical essay)". Journal of Popular Film and Television. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
15.Jump up ^ "The Producers (review)". Time. 1968-01-26. Archived from the original on May 24, 2011. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
16.Jump up ^ "Arts & Entertainment (Cinema)". time.com. 1968-04-19. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
17.Jump up ^ "Arts & Entertainment (Cinema)". time.com. 1968-05-10. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
18.Jump up ^ Variety Staff (1968-01-01). "The Producers (review)". variety.com. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
19.Jump up ^ "The Producers (1968) Reviews". RottenTomatoes.com
20.Jump up ^ Roger Ebert (July 23, 2000). "The Producers (1968)". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2011-02-21.
21.Jump up ^ "Business Data for The Producers (1968)". imdb.com. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
22.Jump up ^ "Business Data for The Producers (Re-issue)". boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
23.Jump up ^ "Metamorphosis". Retrieved 2009-10-03.
24.Jump up ^ J. Hoberman. "about / The Producers". New York Times. rialtopictures.com. Retrieved 2009-08-24.
25.Jump up ^ "U2 History FAQ - Everything You Know Is Wrong". U2faqs.com. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
26.Jump up ^ [1][dead link]
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Producers (1968 film)
The Producers at the American Film Institute Catalog
The Producers at the Internet Movie Database
The Producers at AllMovie
The Producers at the TCM Movie Database
The Producers (1968) at Rotten Tomatoes


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The Producers (2005 film)
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The Producers
Theatrical movie poster for The Producers
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Susan Stroman
Produced by
Mel Brooks
Jonathan Sanger
Written by
Mel Brooks
Thomas Meehan
Based on
The Producers
 by Mel Brooks
 Thomas Meehan
Starring
Nathan Lane
Matthew Broderick
Uma Thurman
Music by
Mel Brooks
Cinematography
John Bailey
Edited by
Steven Weisberg
Production
 company
Brooksfilms

Distributed by
Universal Pictures
(North America)
Columbia Pictures
(International)
Release dates
December 16, 2005

Running time
134 minutes[1]
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$45 million
Box office
$38,058,335
The Producers is a 2005 American musical-comedy film directed by Susan Stroman. The film stars Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, Gary Beach, Roger Bart, and Will Ferrell. The film is an adaptation of the 2001 Broadway musical, which in turn was based on the 1968 film of the same name starring Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, and Andreas Voutsinas. It was produced and distributed domestically by Universal Pictures and overseas by Columbia Pictures.
The creature effects for Tom the Cat and the performing pigeons were provided by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast 2.1 Puppeteers
3 Soundtrack
4 Reception
5 Allusions
6 References
7 External links

Plot[edit]
Following the flop of theatre musical "Funny Boy" (based on William Shakespeare's Hamlet) ("Opening Night"), the show's washed-up producer, Max Bialystock, hires the neurotic Leo Bloom as his accountant. While studying Max's books, Leo notes that, since a flop is expected to lose money, the IRS won't investigate the finances of failed productions. Leo then jests that, by selling an excess of shares and embezzling the funds, a flop could generate up to $2 million. Deciding to enact the plan, Max asks for Leo's help with the scheme, only for the latter to refuse ("We Can Do It").
Returning to his old accounting firm, Leo soon starts fantasizing about being a Broadway producer ("I Wanna Be a Producer"). Realizing that he wants to take the risk, Leo quits his job and forms "Bialystock & Bloom" with Max. Searching for the worst play written, the duo finds Springtime for Hitler, a musical written by an eccentric ex-Nazi named Franz Liebkind. Max and Leo, in order to acquire Liebkind's rights to the musical, perform Hitler's favorite song and swear the sacred "Siegfried Oath" to him ("Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop").
In order to ensure the play's failure, Max and Leo meet failing, flamboyant director Roger De Bris and his assistant Carmen Ghia. De Bris is reluctant to direct, but when Max and Leo suggest he could win a Tony, he agrees on the condition that the play be more "gay" ("Keep It Gay"). Returning to their office, a beautiful Swedish woman named Ulla, appears to audition. Despite Leo objecting they haven't started casting, Max insists on hiring her as their secretary until they audition her later ("When You've Got It, Flaunt It").
To gain backers to fund the musical, Max has dalliances with several elderly women ("Along Came Bialy"), allowing him to raise the $2 million. Finding himself attracted to Ulla, Leo laments about the dangers of sex straying him from his work, only for a kiss to occur between Leo and Ulla ("That Face"). Starting auditions for the role of Hitler, Franz becomes angered at a performer's rendition of a German song, causing Franz to storm the stage and perform it ("Haben Sie gehört das Deutsche Band?"). Based on the performance, Max hires Franz to play Hitler.
On opening night, as the cast and crew prepare to go on stage, Leo wishes everyone "good luck," to which everyone warns it is "bad luck" to say "good luck" on opening night, and that the correct phrase is to say "break a leg" ("You Never Say Good Luck on Opening Night"). Franz leaves to prepare and, in his rush, literally breaks his leg. Max enlists Roger to perform the role in his place, and Roger accepts.
As the show opens, the audience is horrified at the first song ("Springtime for Hitler"), and people begin leaving out of disgust until Roger enters as Hitler. Roger, playing Hitler very flamboyantly, causes the audience to misinterpret the play as satire, resulting in the show becoming a surprise smash. Terrified the IRS will learn of their crimes, a dispute breaks out between Max and Leo. Franz then appears, and attempts to shoot the duo for breaking the "Siegfried Oath" by mocking Hitler, only to attract the police with gunshots. Max and Franz attempt to evade the police, only for Franz to break his other leg.
Arrested for his tax fraud, Max is imprisoned while Leo escapes by hiding from the police. Found by Ulla, Leo elopes with her to Rio de Janeiro, leaving Max to his fate ("Betrayed"). About to be sentenced in court, Max is saved by Leo, who returns to defend him (" '​Til Him"). The judge, realizing Max and Leo are inseparable, sentences them both to five years at Sing Sing Prison with Franz. Writing and producing a new musical in prison ("Prisoners of Love"), Leo, Max, and Franz are pardoned by the Governor for their work, allowing them to collaborate with Roger and Ulla and release "Prisoners of Love." The play's success means Max and Leo go on to become successful Broadway producers.
In a post-credits scene, the cast sings "Goodbye!", telling the audience to leave the theater. Mel Brooks appears at the end of the song and says, "It's over."
Cast[edit]
Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock
Matthew Broderick as Leopold "Leo" Bloom
Uma Thurman as Ulla Inga Hansen Benson Yansen Tallen Hallen Svaden Swanson (later Bloom)
Will Ferrell as Franz Liebkind
Gary Beach as Roger De Bris
Roger Bart as Carmen Ghia
Jon Lovitz as Mr. Marks
Michael McKean as Prison Trustee
David Huddleston as Judge
Richard Kind as Jury Foreman
Eileen Essell as Hold Me-Touch Me
Debra Monk as Lick Me-Bite Me
Andrea Martin as Kiss Me-Feel Me
John Barrowman as the Lead Tenor Stormtrooper
Marilyn Sokol as Bag Lady
Mel Brooks as Himself, voices of Tom the Cat and Hilda the Pigeon
Ernie Sabella, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick's co-star from The Lion King, makes a brief appearance in the deleted song "You'll Find Your Happiness in Rio" as a drunk bar patron.
Puppeteers[edit]
Fran Brill - Pigeon
Tyler Bunch - Pigeon
James Kroupa - Pigeon
Tim Lagasse - Pigeon
Peter Linz - Pigeon
Drew Massey - Pigeon
Joey Mazzarino - Pigeon
Martin P. Robinson - Pigeon
Matt Vogel - Puppeteer
Victor Yerrid - Tom the Cat, Hilda the Pigeon
Soundtrack[edit]

The Producers Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Soundtrack album by Various Artists

Released
Nov 16, 2005
Genre
Broadway
Label
Sony
Producer
Doug Besterman
1."Overture" - Orchestra
2."Opening Night" - Opening Nighters
3."We Can Do It" - Max and Leo
4."I Wanna Be a Producer" - Leo, Accountants, Mr. Marks and Dancing Chorus Girls
5."Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop" - Franz, Max, and Leo
6."Keep It Gay" - Roger, Carmen, Max, Leo, and Company
7."When You Got It, Flaunt It" - Ulla
8."Along Came Bialy" - Max and Little Old Ladies
9."That Face" - Leo and Ulla
10."Haben Sie gehört das Deutsche Band?" - Franz
11."You Never Say Good Luck on Opening Night" - Roger, Carmen, Franz, Max, and Leo
12."Springtime for Hitler (Part I)" - Soldiers, Girls, and Company
13."Heil Myself" - Roger and Company
14."Springtime for Hitler (Part II)" - Roger, Ulla, and Company
15."You'll Find Your Happiness in Rio" - Samba Band
16."Betrayed" - Max
17."'Til Him" - Max, Leo, and Little Old Ladies
18."Prisoners of Love (Broadway)" - Prisoners, Ulla, and Company
19."Prisoners of Love (Leo and Max)" - Leo and Max
20."There's Nothing Like a Show on Broadway" - Leo and Max
21."The Hop-Clop Goes On" - Franz
22."Goodbye!" - Leo, Max, Ulla, Franz, Roger, Carmen, Company, Mr. Marks, Accountants, Stormtroopers, Dancing Chorus Girls, and Mel Brooks
23."The King of Broadway" - Max (deleted scene on DVD)
Reception[edit]
The Producers received mixed or average reviews from critics. One positive online review said: "Outrageous musical numbers evoke most of the laughs in this movie funfest. Eat your heart out, Rockettes, because here comes a little old ladies’ chorus line (“Along Came Bialy”) to rival your success. Watch out, real-life producers, for an actor named Gary Beach (“Heil Myself”). Never, and I mean never, hire him if you want your play to flop! And stop spinning in your grave, Florenz Ziegfeld. Those “Springtime for Hitler and Germany” showgirls are all in good fun. Finally, congratulations to director Susan Stroman, for making this Broadway gem into a film that old-time movie musical fans like me can cheer about."[2]
Nathan Rabin wrote: "Between the rough start and an ending that lingers too long, there's a solid hour or so of terrific entertainment that serves as both a giddy tribute to Broadway musicals and a parody thereof. Thirty-seven years after Brooks declared war on taste and propriety, 'The Producers' has lost its power to shock or offend, but it's retained its ability to amuse."[3]
Roger Ebert cited difficulty in reviewing the film due to familiarity with the original 1968 film. However, he did state that the new version was "fun" and gave it three stars (out of a possible four). Said Ebert: "The new movie is a success, that I know. How much of a success, I cannot be sure."[4]
In addition to these positive reviews, it was nominated for four Golden Globes (including nominations for actors Ferrell and Lane).
Most negative reviews suggested that the performances were tuned more for the theater rather than for film. Stephanie Zacharek observed: "'The Producers' is essentially a filmed version of a stage play, in which none of the characters' expressions or line readings have been scaled down to make sense on-screen. Every gesture is played out as if the actors were 20 feet away in real life, which means that, by the time the performers are magnified on the big screen, they're practically sitting in your lap. The effect is something like watching a 3-D IMAX film without the special glasses."[5]
Allusions[edit]


 This section contains embedded lists that may be poorly defined, unverified or indiscriminate. Please help to clean it up to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Where appropriate, incorporate items into the main body of the article. (March 2012)
In the song "Opening Night", a newspaper theatre review is shown on the screen; on the byline, credit is given to Addison DeWitt, the theatre critic played by George Sanders in All About Eve.
When Leo shouts "Stop the world, I wanna get on!" it is a reference to the musical Stop the World - I Want to Get Off.
When Max is visiting the old ladies in their apartment buildings, he pushes several intercom buttons, labeled with names of the residents they refer to. Many of these are references: Anne Bancroft, The Great Gatsby, the name of a department store, the Tisch School of Arts and Tisch Hospital at New York University, Citizen Kane, Edith Wharton, Andrew Carnegie, John Jacob Astor V, John D. Rockefeller, and Joseph Pulitzer, who established the Pulitzer Prize.
While talking about the $2,000 missing from Max's books after "Funny Boy", the calendar behind Max and Leo reads June 16. The date is known as "Bloomsday" (later referenced when Leo and Max agree go ahead with their plan) by fans of James Joyce and his novel Ulysses. Joyce's character Leopold Bloom experiences extraordinary things on what's supposed to be an ordinary day - June 16.
At the end of "The Hop-Clop Goes On" during the end credits, Franz whispers, "Don't forget to buy Mein Kampf, in paperback. Available near you at Borders Books or Barnes & Noble und Amazon.com."
When Max and Leo are searching for the worst play ever written in Act 1, Max reads out the opening sentence of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, but dismisses it as "too good".
While in Sing Sing, the inmates are seen rehearsing a dance for Prisoners of Love. This is the same dance done by Dr. Frankenstein and the Frankenstein Monster in Young Frankenstein.
When Leo is looking over the contracts in the office, he repeats, "work, work, work" several times, a reference to Mel Brooks' character in Blazing Saddles.
When Max receives a postcard from Leo while he is in prison, he asks guard, "Who do I know in Brazil? Why am I asking you?" This is a reference to Hedley Lamarr in Blazing Saddles.
When Leo and Max leave Franz's rooftop, Franz shuts the door and says "what nice guys!", a reference to Lili von Shtupp's line in Blazing Saddles when Bart leaves her dressing room.
In Roger De Bris first appearance, he is in an evening gown, costumed as "Grand Duchess Anastasia". Both the design of the dress, the tiara and the wig he uses share remarkable similarities to the character design of Anastasia, the eponymous character of the film by Don Bluth.
In the song "Heil Myself", after the words "I'm the German Ethel Merman, don't ya'know!", the trumpet plays the opening notes from the overture to the musical Gypsy.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "THE PRODUCERS (12A)". Sony Pictures Releasing. British Board of Film Classification. November 30, 2005. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
2.Jump up ^ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
3.Jump up ^ The Producers
4.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger (2005-12-16). "The Producers review". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 2007-01-26.
5.Jump up ^ Zacharek, Stephanie,"The Producers", retrieved January 26, 2007 from salon.com
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Producers (2005 film)
Official website
The Producers at the Internet Movie Database
The Producers at Box Office Mojo
The Producers at Rotten Tomatoes


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English-language films
2000s comedy films
2000s LGBT-related films
2000s musical films
American films
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Films about film directors and producers
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The Producers (musical)
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Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the Mel Brooks Broadway musical. For other uses, see The Producers.

The Producers
Playbill.png
Original Broadway Playbill

Music
Mel Brooks
Lyrics
Mel Brooks
Book
Mel Brooks
Thomas Meehan
Basis
The Producers film
Productions
2001 Broadway
 2002 U.S. National tour
 2004 West End
 2007 UK Tour
 International productions
Awards
Tony Award for Best Musical
Tony Award for Best Book
Tony Award for Best Score
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical
Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album
Olivier Award for Best New Musical
The Producers is a musical adapted by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan from Brooks' 1968 film of the same name, with lyrics written by Brooks and music composed by Brooks and arranged by Glen Kelly and Doug Besterman. As in the film, the story concerns two theatrical producers who scheme to get rich by overselling interests in a Broadway flop. Complications arise when the show unexpectedly turns out to be successful. The humor of the show draws on ridiculous accents, caricatures of homosexuals and Nazis, and many show business in-jokes.
After 33 previews, the original Broadway production opened at the St. James Theatre on April 19, 2001, starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, and ran for 2,502 performances, winning a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards. It spawned a successful London production running for just over two years, US national tours, many productions worldwide and a 2005 film version.


Contents  [hide]
1 Background
2 Plot 2.1 Act I
2.2 Act II
2.3 Differences between the 1968 film and stage musical
3 Musical numbers
4 Characters and original Broadway cast 4.1 Chicago tryout (2001)
4.2 Broadway (2001–2007)
4.3 US Tour (2002–2003)
5 West End (2004–2007) 5.1 UK tour (2007–2008)
5.2 2nd UK and Ireland tour (2015)
6 Notable subsequent productions 6.1 U.S. productions
6.2 International productions
7 Film adaptation
8 Popular culture
9 Awards and nominations 9.1 Original Broadway production
9.2 Original London production
10 References
11 External links

Background[edit]
David Geffen persuaded Mel Brooks to turn his movie into a stage musical. When Brooks met with Jerry Herman[1] to discuss their working together, Herman declined, telling Brooks that he should do the job himself, as he was a good songwriter. Brooks then asked Thomas Meehan to join him in writing the book for the stage. Brooks persuaded Mike Ockrent and his wife Susan Stroman to join the creative team as director and choreographer. After Ockrent's death in 1999, Stroman agreed to continue as both director and choreographer.[2]
Plot[edit]
Act I[edit]
In New York in 1959, Max Bialystock opens "Funny Boy", a musical version of Hamlet ("Opening Night"). It is terrible, and the show closes after one performance. Max, who was once called the King of Broadway, tells a crowd of down-and-outs of his past achievements and vows to return to form ("King of Broadway").
The next day, Leo Bloom, a mousy accountant, comes to Max's office to audit his books. When one of Max's "investors" arrives, Max tells Leo to wait in the bathroom until she leaves. The investor is a little old lady. She plays a sex game with Max, who eventually persuades her to give him a check to be invested in his next play, to be called "Cash". Leo reveals his lifelong dream: he's always wanted to be a Broadway producer. After a panic attack when Max touches his blue blanket, Leo tells Max that he has found an accounting error in his books: Max raised $100,000 for "Funny Boy", but the play only cost $98,000. Max begs Leo to cook the books to hide the discrepancy. Leo reluctantly agrees. After some calculations, he realizes that "under the right circumstances, a producer could actually make more money with a flop than he can with a hit. ... You could've raised a million dollars, put on your $100,000 flop, and kept the rest!" Max proposes the ultimate scheme:

Step 1: We find the worst play ever written.
 Step 2: We hire the worst director in town.
 Step 3: We raise two million dollars. ... One for me, one for you. There's a lot of little old ladies out there!
 Step 4: We hire the worst actors in New York and open on Broadway and before you can say
 Step 5: We close on Broadway, take our two million, and go to Rio.
However, Leo refuses to help Max with his scheme ("We Can Do It"). When he arrives at work 6 minutes late, Leo's horrid boss, Mr. Marks, reminds him that he is a nobody. While he and his miserable co-workers slave over accounts, Leo daydreams of becoming a Broadway producer ("I Wanna Be a Producer"). He realizes that his job is terrible, quits, and returns to Max ("We Can Do It" (reprise)). The next day, they look for the worst play ever written. Finally, Max finds the sure-fire flop that would offend people of all races, creeds, and religions: Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden written by Franz Liebkind, which Max describes as "a love letter to Hitler". They go to the playwright's home in Greenwich Village to get the rights to the play. Ex-Nazi Franz is on the roof of his tenement with his pigeons reminiscing about the grand old days ("In Old Bavaria"). The producers get him to sign their contract by joining him in singing Adolf Hitler's favourite tune ("Der Guten Tag Hop Clop") and reciting the Siegfried Oath, promising never to dishonor "the spirit and the memory of Adolf Elizabeth Hitler", if broken means 'death'.
Next, they go to the townhouse of flamboyant homosexual Roger De Bris, the worst director in New York. At first, Roger and his "common law-assistant" Carmen Ghia decline the offer to direct because of the serious subject matter ("Keep It Gay"). After much persuading and invoking the possibility of a Tony award, Roger agrees and tells them the second act must be rewritten so the Germans win World War II. Max and Leo return to the office to meet a Swedish bombshell who wants to audition for their next play: Ulla Inga Hansen Benson Yansen Tallen Hallen Svaden Swanson. She auditions for them ("When You've Got It, Flaunt It"). The producers are impressed, mostly by her beauty, and hire her to be their "secretary-slash-receptionist". Max leaves to raise two million dollars for "Springtime for Hitler" by calling on all the little old ladies in New York ("Along Came Bialy"), which he does ("Act I Finale").
Act II[edit]



 Scene from the London production, April 2006
Leo and Ulla are left alone in Max's office (redecorated by Ulla), and they start to fall in love ("That Face"). Max walks in and sees the perfect form of Ulla's covered behind ("That Face" (reprise)).
At the auditions for the title role, Hitler, one terrible actor after another is rejected by Roger in summary fashion. Finally, Franz performs his own jazzy rendition of "Haben Sie Gehört Das Deutsche Band", at the end of which Max stands up and shouts, "That's our Hitler!". Opening night arrives ("It's Bad Luck to Say 'Good Luck' on Opening Night"). At the last moment, Franz falls down the stairs and breaks his leg. Roger is the only one who knows the part of Hitler, and he rushes to the dressing room to get ready. The curtain rises, and Max and Leo watch the theatrical disaster unfold ("Springtime for Hitler"). Unfortunately, Roger's performance is so camp and outrageous, the audience mistakes it for satire, and the show becomes the talk of the town. Back at the office, Max and Leo are near-suicidal ("Where Did We Go Right?"). Roger and Carmen come to congratulate them, only to find them fighting. Franz bursts in, waving a pistol, outraged by Roger's portrayal of his beloved Führer, since he took his own advice of keeping people happy quite too seriously. Cowardly Max suggests that he shoot the actors, not the producers. The police hear the commotion and take into custody Franz, who breaks his other leg trying to escape, Max, and the accounting books. Leo hides; Ulla finds him and persuades him to take the two million dollars and run off to Rio with her.
In jail awaiting trial, Max receives a postcard from Leo and feeling betrayed, recounts the whole show including the intermission ("Betrayed"). At his trial, Max is found "incredibly guilty"; but the now-married Leo and Ulla arrive to tell the judge that Max is a good man who has never hurt anyone despite his swindling ("'Till Him"). The judge is touched by this and decides not to separate the partners, sending both (plus Franz) to Sing Sing prison for 5 years. In prison, they write a new musical entitled "Prisoners of Love", which goes to Broadway ("Prisoners of Love") (starring Roger and Ulla), and they are pardoned by the Governor. Leo and Max become the kings of Broadway and walk off into the sunset ("Leo & Max"). Everyone comes back for one last song, telling the audience that they have to leave ("Goodbye").
Differences between the 1968 film and stage musical[edit]
Although the musical includes many scenes and jokes taken from the film, there are many differences. The film was set in the present day of its year of release, 1968. The musical was set in 1959, consequently the character Lorenzo St. Dubois (LSD), a hippie who played Hitler, was omitted from the 2001 musical. In the original film, Max and Leo seek to procure $1,000,000; in the musical it has become $2,000,000 ("one for me, one for you. There's a lotta little old ladies out there!"). Ulla has a much larger role in the musical and is a three-dimensional character instead of the mindless bimbo of the 1968 movie. Even the Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind is portrayed more sympathetically and comes to a happier ending than his 1968 counterpart. Overall, the musical is much more upbeat than the original film, which was a darker comedy though with a happy ending.
Musical numbers[edit]
Act IOverture – Orchestra
Opening Night – Usherettes and Company
The King of Broadway – Max and Company
We Can Do It – Max and Leo
I Wanna Be a Producer – Leo, Showgirls, and Accountants
We Can Do It (Reprise) – Leo and Max
I Wanna Be a Producer (Reprise) – Leo and Max
In Old Bavaria – Franz
Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop – Franz, Leo and Max
Keep It Gay – Roger, Carmen, Max, Leo, Production Team, and Company
When You've Got It, Flaunt It – Ulla
Along Came Bialy – Max and Company
Act I Finale – Max, Leo, Ulla, Franz, Roger, Carmen, Production Team, and Company
 Act IIThat Face – Leo and Ulla
That Face (Reprise 1) – Leo and Max
Haben Sie gehört das deutsche Band? – Franz
Opening Night (Reprise) – Usherettes
You Never Say 'Good Luck' on Opening Night – Roger, Carmen, Franz, Leo, and Max
Springtime for Hitler (part 1) – Lead Tenor Stormtrooper, Bavarian Peasants, Tapping Brown-Shirts, Showgirls, Ulla, and Company
Heil Myself – Roger, Ulla, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt
Springtime for Hitler (part 2) – Roger, Ulla, and Company
Where Did We Go Right? – Leo and Max
That Face (Reprise 2) – Ulla and Leo
Betrayed – Max
Till Him – Leo, Max, and Little Old Ladies
Prisoners of Love – Roger, Ulla, and Company
Leo and Max – Max, Leo, and Company
Goodbye! – All

Characters and original Broadway cast[edit]
Max Bialystock – Nathan Lane
Leopold "Leo" Bloom – Matthew Broderick
Roger De Bris – Gary Beach
Carmen Ghia – Roger Bart
Ulla Inga Hansen Benson Yansen Tallen Hallen Svaden Swanson Bloom – Cady Huffman
Franz Liebkind – Brad Oscar
The loss of the original stars had a detrimental effect on the success of the production, prompting the return of Lane and Broderick for another run, from December 30, 2003 until April 4, 2004. Other "Max" performers on Broadway included Henry Goodman, Tony Danza, John Treacy Egan, Richard Kind, Brad Oscar, and Lewis J. Stadlen. "Leo" actors included Don Stephenson, Roger Bart, Hunter Foster, Steven Weber, and Alan Ruck.
Chicago tryout (2001)[edit]
The Producers had a pre-Broadway tryout at Chicago's Cadillac Palace from February 1 to 25, 2001, starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.[3][4]
Broadway (2001–2007)[edit]
The production opened at the St. James Theatre on April 19, 2001, and ran for 2,502 performances, closing on April 22, 2007. The director and choreographer was Susan Stroman. The show originally starred Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock (who reprised that role during the show's first few months on London's West End) and Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom. Glen Kelly was the musical arranger and supervisor.[1][2] The production won 12 Tony Awards, breaking the record held for 37 years by Hello, Dolly! which had won 10.[5]
After the opening, The Producers broke the record for the largest single day box-office ticket sales in theatre history, taking in more than $3 million.[6] It was announced that Lane and Broderick would return for a limited run in December 2003 to April 2004. The show's sales then broke its own record with over $3.5 million in single day ticket sales.[7]
The costumes for the production, by William Ivey Long, who won a Tony for the design, are on display at the Costume World Broadway Collection in Pompano Beach, Florida.[citation needed]
US Tour (2002–2003)[edit]
Beginning in September 2002, there were two touring companies that played 74 cities across the United States, grossing over $214 million.[8] The 1st National touring company starred Lewis J. Stadlen and Don Stephenson. During the Los Angeles engagement in 2003, Stadlen and Stephenson were replaced by Jason Alexander and Martin Short for the duration of the show's run in that city, as well as in San Francisco.[9]
Michael Kostroff, who had several supporting roles in the touring production, and also served as the understudy for the lead role of Max Bialystock, later published a memoir of the company's touring experience, Letters From Backstage.
West End (2004–2007)[edit]



 The Producers at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Producers opened in London's West End at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on November 9, 2004 and closed on January 6, 2007, after 920 performances.[10] The production featured Nathan Lane as Max, after Richard Dreyfuss was "let go" by the producers after finding that he was unable "to fulfil the rigours of the role", with four days to go before first previews.[11] Lee Evans played Leo (Lane and Evans had worked together in the 1997 movie MouseHunt), with Leigh Zimmerman as Ulla, Nicolas Colicos as Franz Liebkind, Conleth Hill as Roger De Bris, and James Dreyfus as Carmen Ghia.[12]
The show enjoyed excellent box office success as it had in New York. Despite the departure of Lane from the show, it continued to enjoy strong sales. Max Bialystock was then played by Brad Oscar,[13]Fred Applegate,[14] and Cory English.[15] Leo Bloom was later played by John Gordon Sinclair[14] and Reece Shearsmith.[15]
UK tour (2007–2008)[edit]
A United Kingdom tour opened in Manchester for three months, commencing 19 February 2007. Peter Kay was cast in the role of Roger De Bris, with Cory English and John Gordon Sinclair reprising their roles of Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, respectively.[16] For the majority of the UK tour, running through until early 2008, Joe Pasquale took over the role of Leo Bloom and Russ Abbot played Roger DeBris.[17]
2nd UK and Ireland tour (2015)[edit]
A UK and Ireland tour is scheduled begin at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley, London, on March 6, 2015.[18]
Notable subsequent productions[edit]
U.S. productions[edit]
A Los Angeles, California, production opened ran from May 2003 to January 2004 at the Pantages Theatre. Co-starring were Jason Alexander as Max Bialystock and Martin Short as Leo Bloom. The Las Vegas, Nevada production ran for a year in 2007 to 2008 at the Paris Hotel & Casino. It starred Brad Oscar as Bialystock, Larry Raben as Bloom and Leigh Zimmerman as Ulla, with David Hasselhoff receiving top billing as Roger De Bris. Once Hasselhoff left the production, top-billing went to Tony Danza, who stepped in as Bialystock. The production was a 90-minute version.[19] In 2007, the first U.S. regional theater production played in Lincolnshire, Illinois at the Marriott Theatre from September to November 2007 and starred Ross Lehman as Bialystock and Guy Adkins as Bloom.[20]
In 2009, the show played at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and at the Diablo Light Opera Company in California, starring Ginny Wehrmeister as Ulla, Ryan Drummond as Leo, and Marcus Klinger as Max. This production received the 2009 Shellie Award for Best Production. Oscar and Roger Bart reprised their roles as Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, respectively, in a production at Starlight Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri in August 2010.[21]
A production at the Hollywood Bowl with Richard Kind, Roger Bart, and Gary Beach reprising their roles as Max, Carmen Ghia, and Roger DeBris from the original Broadway production. The cast also stars Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Leo, Dane Cook as Franz, and Rebecca Romijn as Ulla. The production ran July 27–29, 2012.[citation needed]
International productions[edit]
The Producers has been presented professionally in many cities around the world, including Toronto,[22] Berlin, Breda, Melbourne, Brisbane, Cairns, Sydney, Christchurch, Tel Aviv, Seoul, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Copenhagen, Milan, Budapest, Madrid, Halifax, Mexico City, Prague, Stockholm, Panama,[23] Bratislava, Vienna, Helsinki, Athens, Rio de Janeiro,[24] São Paulo, Caracas, Portugal, Gothenborg, Oslo, Oradea, Varde, Moscow,[25] Ghent, Manila,[26] and Belgrade.[27]
Film adaptation[edit]
Main article: The Producers (2005 film)
In 2005, the musical was adapted into a musical film, becoming a movie based on a musical based on a movie about a musical. It was directed by Stroman and starred most of the original Broadway cast, except for Brad Oscar—who was unable to reprise the role of Franz because he had signed on to play Max on Broadway and, instead, had a brief cameo as the cab driver—and Huffman. Their roles were played by Will Ferrell and Uma Thurman, respectively. The songs "King of Broadway", "In Old Bavaria", and "Where Did We Go Right?" were not in the theatrical cut of the movie; "King of Broadway" appears on the DVD as a deleted scene. Instead, two original songs, "You'll Find Your Happiness in Rio" and "There's Nothing Like a Show on Broadway" were added to the film. It opened on December 16, 2005, and received mixed reviews.
Popular culture[edit]
On the television show Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Producers was featured in almost every episode of Season 4. Larry David was offered the part of Max Bialystock by Mel Brooks; the part of Leo Bloom was occupied by Ben Stiller. When David and Stiller have a falling out, Stiller gets replaced by David Schwimmer. The story took an unusual turn when Larry David's attempt to play the part is marred by his missing his lines. However, he makes up some ad-lib comedy that keeps the audience laughing. In a "life imitating art" twist, it's revealed that Brooks cast David specifically so he would fail, end the show, and "free" Brooks of its success. Brooks is seen at the theater bar with real-life wife, Anne Bancroft, both laughing at how bad David is and they no longer have to travel to every city for a premiere. Of course, David ends up being a hit and Mel leads Anne out, both weakly muttering "no way out..." This was Bancroft's final filmed appearance before her death.
A similar work is mentioned in the Nazi-ruled alternate history novel In the Presence of Mine Enemies, in which a theatre owner books a terrible play about Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, which becomes a smash hit.
Awards and nominations[edit]
At the 2001 Tony Awards, The Producers won 12 out of its 15 nominations, becoming one of the few musicals to win in every category for which it was nominated – it received two nominations for leading actor and three for featured actor.[5][28] In 2009, the Broadway production of Billy Elliot the Musical received 15 nominations, tying with The Producers for the most nominations received by a show.
Original Broadway production[edit]

Year
Award ceremony
Category
Nominee
Result
2001 Tony Award Best Musical Won
Best Book of a Musical Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan Won
Best Original Score Mel Brooks Won
Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical Nathan Lane Won
Matthew Broderick Nominated
Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical Gary Beach Won
Roger Bart Nominated
Brad Oscar Nominated
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical Cady Huffman Won
Best Direction of a Musical Susan Stroman Won
Best Choreography Won
Best Orchestrations Doug Besterman Won
Best Scenic Design Robin Wagner Won
Best Costume Design William Ivey Long Won
Best Lighting Design Peter Kaczorowski Won
Drama Desk Award Outstanding Musical Won
Outstanding Book of a Musical Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan Won
Outstanding Actor in a Musical Nathan Lane Won
Matthew Broderick Nominated
Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical Gary Beach Won
Roger Bart Nominated
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical Cady Huffman Won
Outstanding Director of a Musical Susan Stroman Won
Outstanding Choreography Won
Outstanding Orchestrations Doug Besterman Won
Outstanding Lyrics Mel Brooks Won
Outstanding Set Design Robin Wagner Won
Outstanding Costume Design William Ivey Long Won
Outstanding Lighting Design Peter Kaczorowski Nominated
Original London production[edit]

Year
Award ceremony
Category
Nominee
Result
2005 Laurence Olivier Award Best New Musical Won
Best Actor in a Musical Nathan Lane Won
Lee Evans Nominated
Best Actress in a Musical Leigh Zimmerman Nominated
Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical Conleth Hill Won
Best Director Susan Stroman Nominated
Best Theatre Choreographer Nominated
Best Costume Design William Ivey Long Nominated
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Information from the CNN archives cnn.com
2.^ Jump up to: a b Information from the PBS website pbs.org
3.Jump up ^ Matthewbroderick.net
4.Jump up ^ "Winter-Spring Broadway Season Schedule" playbill.com, February 11, 2001.
5.^ Jump up to: a b Jones, Kenneth. Broadway Record-Breaker The Producers Closes April 22" playbill.com, April 22, 2007
6.Jump up ^ Pogrebin, Robin."Ticket Sales for 'Producers' Set a Broadway Record" New York Times, April 21, 2001
7.Jump up ^ McKinley, Jesse. "For 'The Producers,' Another Box Office Bonanza" The New York Times, November 17, 2003, Section B, p. 1
8.Jump up ^ Playbill News: Broadway Record-Breaker "The Producers Closes April 22" playbill.com
9.Jump up ^ Jones, Kenneth."Alexander and Short Join Producers Tour in San Fran, April 21-26 Before L.A. Sitdown" playbill.com, March 25, 2003
10.Jump up ^ "'The Producers' at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 2004-2007" thisistheatre.com, accessed March 15, 2011
11.Jump up ^ BBC
12.Jump up ^ Shenton, Mark."Review:'The Producers' The Stage, 10 November 2004
13.Jump up ^ Staff."Brad Oscar to Replace Nathan Lane in London's 'The Producers'" broadway.com, November 29, 2004
14.^ Jump up to: a b Inverne, ames."Fred Applegate Named New Max for London "Producers'" Playbill.com, April 7, 2005
15.^ Jump up to: a b Shenton, Mark."'The Producers', Review" The Stage, 31 March 2006
16.Jump up ^ Ansdell, Caroline.Cast: 'Producers' & 'Footloose' Tours, London 'Guys'" whatsonstage.com, 23 January 2007
17.Jump up ^ Paddock, Terri.Cast: Francolini in the Woods, Pasquale Produces" whatsonstage.com, 8 May 2007
18.Jump up ^ Bannister, Rosie. ''The Producers heads out on UK tour in 2015", WhatsOnStage.com, August 7, 2014
19.Jump up ^ Playbill.com article, Feb. 9, 2008
20.Jump up ^ Information about the regional production in Lincolnshire, Illinois.
21.Jump up ^ Starlight Theater listing
22.Jump up ^ News from the Playbill.com website
23.Jump up ^ La Prensa website
24.Jump up ^ Venezuelan production
25.Jump up ^ Official site for the Russian production
26.Jump up ^ Töngi, G. "An exclusive look at Repertory Philippines' The Producers", Rappler Manila, December 13, 2013
27.Jump up ^ Kimmelman, Michael. "The Führer Returns to Berlin, This Time Saluted Only by Laughs", The New York Times, May 18, 2009
28.Jump up ^ Lefkowitz, David. "Record 12 Tony Awards for Producers; Proof, Cuckoo's Nest & 42nd St. Tops Too" playbill.com, June 4, 2001
External links[edit]
The Producers at the Internet Broadway Database
The Producers at the Music Theatre International website
Curtain Up reviews and information of various productions
PBS Great Performances "Recording the Producers"
Official site for the London production
Roger Bart and Brad Oscar - Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org


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In the Presence of Mine Enemies
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Jump to: navigation, search

For other uses, see In the Presence of Mine Enemies (disambiguation).
In the Presence of Mine Enemies
In the Presence of Mine Enemies.jpg
Author
Harry Turtledove
Country
United States
Language
English
Genre
Alternate history
Publisher
New American Library

Publication date
 November 4, 2003
Media type
Print (hardcover and paperback)
Pages
464 pages
ISBN
0-451-52902-2
OCLC
52030530

Dewey Decimal
 813/.54 21
LC Class
PS3570.U76 I54 2003
In the Presence of Mine Enemies (2003) is an alternate history novel by American author Harry Turtledove, expanded from the eponymous short story.[1] The novel depicts a world where the United States remained isolationist and did not participate in the Second World War, thus allowing victory to the Axis Powers, who divided the world among themselves. Still, some years after the war, the Third World War occurred, featuring nuclear weapons used against the US.
Set in 2010, the novel focuses on Heinrich Gimpel and a small group of Jews who survived the Holocaust by passing as Gentiles. The events occur against a backdrop that parallels the Soviet Union's last days, with characters based upon Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and others.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot summary
2 Viewpoint characters
3 Setting 3.1 World politics and geography 3.1.1 Political alignment
3.1.2 The fate of the United States and Canada
3.1.3 Fate of other occupied nations
3.2 Technology
3.3 Society 3.3.1 Economy
3.3.2 Education
3.3.3 Sports
3.3.4 Surviving Jews
3.3.5 Other minorities
3.4 Locales 3.4.1 Berlin
3.4.2 London

4 Literary criticism and significance
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Plot summary[edit]
Wehrmacht officer Heinrich Gimpel astonishes his 10-year-old daughter, Alicia, with a secret that has been hidden from her all her life: the family is Jewish. He explains that the Gimpels, friends Walther and Esther Stutzman, and their extended families all belong to those remnants of Jews who now survive by hiding in plain sight within the very society that wants them dead. Now old enough, by family tradition, to be trusted with this life-or-death deception, Alicia is obliged to hide the truth from her friends, her classmates, and even her younger sisters even as she is forced to regard her school's racist curriculum from a new perspective that leaves her sick and angry over all the anti-Semitic propaganda that she always learned and parroted without question.
Meanwhile, Heinrich finds himself caught in the marital strife between his co-worker, Willi Dorsch, and Willi's wife, Erika. Embittered by her husband's infidelity, Erika wants a retaliatory affair with Heinrich. He resists, which leads to Erika accusing him of being a Jew and Heinrich being arrested by the SS. Only after Erika realizes that her accusation caused Heinrich's children to be taken also, she confesses that she lied, unaware the entire time that Heinrich and his family really are Jewish.
Esther Stutzman, who works as a receptionist in a doctor's office, also experiences a close call with Nazi policies when her friends Richard and Maria Klein, closeted Jews like herself, bring their ailing eight-month-old baby, Paul, in for a checkup. The diagnosis, Tay-Sachs disease, is a disease known to be prevalent among Jews. A subsequent investigation into his family background would spell doom for his parents and any names they might be forced to reveal under torture. Although Esther's husband, Walther, is able to hack into the Reich's computer network and change the Klein's family history, it is the revelation that Reichsführer-SS Lothar Prützmann has a nephew with Tay-Sachs that brings the investigation to a halt.
All of this happens against the background of the events happening after the death of the current Führer, Kurt Haldweim (modelled on the real-life Austrian president Kurt Waldheim). He is replaced by the reform-minded Heinz Buckliger, who relaxes the oppressive laws of the Reich. In a secret speech, with word-of-mouth spreading it to the populace, the new Führer denounces his predecessors, saying that the Reich committed crimes in the past. Reactionary opposition rallies around the SS, while the populist Gauleiter of Berlin, Rolf Stolle, champions accelerated reform.
Things come to a head with the announcement of (relatively) free elections: candidates need not be Nazi Party members, but they must be Aryan. Led by Reichsführer-SS Lothar Prützmann, the SS effect a conservative coup d'état, imprisoning the Führer, and installing former High Commissioner of Ostland Affairs, Odilo Globocnik, as the new Führer. However, Stolle instigates a people power movement, which the Wehrmacht supports. The coup d'état is defeated after Walther Stutzman salts the country's computer network with the information about Reichsführer-SS Prützmann's Tay-Sachs afflicted nephew. Soon, Berlin comes to the conclusion that Prützmann is a Jew, which definitively turns the tide against the coup. In the aftermath, Prützmann kills himself, and Globocnik is lynched.
Viewpoint characters[edit]
Heinrich Gimpel, a hidden Jew serving as an officer at the Wehrmacht HQ in Berlin. Heinrich is careful and meticulous about keeping up his masquerade: originally even from the reader, who goes through nearly a whole chapter before finding that Gimpel is a hidden Jew and a leader of a secret Jewish community. Heinrich's specific job is to monitor the American payment of tribute to Germany and detect the frequent attempts to avoid payment. Gimpel is arrested because a friend's wife denounces him as a Jew, without knowing he really is one, because he resisted her sexual advances. Gimpel is eventually released from custody, an SS major who escorts him out the door casually remarking to him: "You find us in the oddest places."
Lise Gimpel, Heinrich's wife, also a Jew.
Alicia Gimpel, Heinrich and Lise's ten-year-old daughter and oldest of three sisters. At the beginning of the book, she is initiated into the secret that she, and other family and friends, are Jewish. She is stunned but gradually comes to accept it.
Susanna Weiss, a Medieval English scholar at the Friedrich Wilhelm University. She is also one of the few surviving Jews left in the Reich.
Esther Stutzman, a receptionist at a Berlin area pediatrician's office. She and her husband, Walther, are also hidden Jews. She is a tuckerization of the well-known science-fiction/fantasy author Esther Friesner.[2]
Walther Stutzman, a computer programmer at Zeiss. He has unauthorized access into many of the Reich's databases using codes created by his father, who was involved with transferral of paper records to computer records. He can assign false Aryan pedigrees to Jewish people, allowing them to avoid detection by the Reich.
Setting[edit]
World politics and geography[edit]



 Here is a map showing the world with borders as described in parts of the book.
Political alignment[edit]
The Führer of the Greater German Reich is the world's most powerful political leader. Besides the Reich itself, the "Greater Germanic Empire" includes occupied, but not annexed, countries and allied countries. The occupied countries have their own governments but limited sovereignty; the Nazis interfere in their internal affairs, especially about applying racist ideology. The allies, though technically independent, are subject to the Nazi rule; most represent the local varieties of racist, fascist, and radical nationalist forces.
Italy's empire is around the Mediterranean Sea, including the parts of Africa granted by the Reich. The Nazis compel the Italians to carry out large-scale massacres of Arabs in their territories in the Middle East. The nation is controlled by King Umberto and the Duce of the Italian Empire. While much of Africa is divided up among Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, an "Aryan-dominated" Union of South Africa remains as an independent ally of the German Reich.
Although less powerful than Germany, Imperial Japan is a nuclear power keeping the Reich at bay with the implicit threat of mutually assured destruction. Moreover, Japan has its own subordinate rulers (only the Emperor of Manchukuo is mentioned) by the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Despite having "an ocean of slave labor" at its disposal, Japan now concentrates upon developing high technologies. Despite the Germano–Nipponese alliance, the Nazis consider the Japanese racially inferior and lacking in creativity, with propaganda pointing to a perceived decrease in Japan's technological advances as proof of this. Even so, Japanese tourists, students, and restaurants are common within the Reich.
The fate of the United States and Canada[edit]
In the 1970s, Germany and the Axis powers defeated the United States and Canada in the Third World War with the nuclear bombs they developed first. The key American cities of Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia were destroyed, and their environments are rendered uninhabitable for years to come, while other cities such as New York City and Chicago are damaged by bombing raids. The capital of the U.S. was moved to Omaha, Nebraska where a pro-Nazi Puppet government was set up, and the Reich maintains Wehrmacht occupation forces at New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Omaha itself. Upon conquering the US, the Einsatzkommandos and the American white supremacists systematically killed most of the country's Jewish and Black populations. The remaining Jewish and Black populations are used for slave labor by the Reich.
The US pays annual tribute, an important income for Germany's economy, despite the American economy's hyperinflation and the dollar's disappearance as a world currency; whenever possible, the US evades paying the tribute.
Fate of other occupied nations[edit]
The Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks and Serbs are killed because they are Untermenschen, like-wise, the Arabs for being as "Semitic as Jews". Moreover, the Reich, Italian Empire, Portugal, Spain and South Africa effect the genocide of the African populations, and enslave the survivors. Any Jews found are immediately killed on site. While "the surviving Russians were pushed far east of the Urals", there is much guerrilla fighting, requiring forts to protect the German settlers.
The Nazis treat the Czechs, Croats, and Bulgarians, relatively well, despite being Slavs, because the Croats lend themselves to savagely persecuting the Serbs via severe racial discrimination, suppressed rebellions, and dissidents enslaved or put to death. Iranians and Indians, classified as "Aryan", are not persecuted; some are invited to study at German universities.
Technology[edit]
The level of technology in the novel is much the same as in the actual 21st century. The Wehrmacht makes use of jet aircraft, panzers, submarines, armoured personnel carriers, assault rifles and a variety of naval warships. The "Ministry of Air and Space" is mentioned as having planted a permanent outpost on the Moon, carrying out a manned landing on Mars, and it may be planning a manned mission to the Jovian moons. Orbital weather platforms are also mentioned in the book.
Civilian technology has also advanced in a similar way to its military counterpart in the 21st century. Jet airliners, televisions (called televisors), computers (although the Internet has not been invented in fear of it being a "security nightmare"), modern cars, and microwaves are used throughout the Reich. The German population enjoys very high living standards, at the expense of non-Germans throughout the Reich and occupied nations.
Society[edit]
The society of the German Reich is a culturally dominant people because of their victories in the Second and the Third World Wars, and German companies and organizations dominate the economies of allied and occupied nations. Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen are thriving under fascism, and Zeiss produces the Reich's computers and software. Agfa-Gevaert TV commercials for film encourage Germans to migrate to the Ostland territories, and Lufthansa covers the air.
The British Broadcasting Corporation is mentioned throughout the novel, with the Reich's counterpart being the RRG. A RRG newscaster named Horst Witzleben appears several times in the novel, his "Seven O'clock News" being highly influential.
The Reich Genealogical Office has online genealogical records, which can define life and death to persons suspected of being Jewish. Historically, the Nazis of our history already made use of the punchcards developed by IBM in order to mark out the Jews and eventually arrest them and send them to extermination camps.[3]
Economy[edit]
The Reichsmark is the dominant world currency, and it is legal tender in the Greater German Reich, though most of the Reich's member states, territories, and allies (including the Empire of Japan, Latin America, Britain, and America) have national currencies. The Reich dictates favorable exchange rates, so the Reichsmark is readily accepted (and, apparently, welcome) even where it is not legal tender. Britain remains using its pre-decimal pound sterling currency, though the five-shilling Crown coin is struck in cheap aluminum, not silver, as "silver" coins were at least partly made of before World War II and briefly after.
Education[edit]
School is the tool with which the German Reich indoctrinates and controls the citizenry, starting in their youth. Corporal punishment is practiced in schools; it punishes actions such as disrespecting a superior, not doing one's school work, and for not knowing the correct answers to teachers' questions in the classroom. The school year occupies most of the calendar year, with the only major holidays being the end-of-the-year, two-week holiday between Christmas and the New Year, and the week-long break after Easter Sunday. The remainder of the year is school work, though one-day holidays occur infrequently.
The Hitler Jugend and Bund Deutscher Mädel are compulsory for children in the German Reich; the Nazi gender roles having changed little since their foundation. At the story's end, the Hitler Jugend implements changes towards preparing boys into becoming responsible, adult citizens rather than army conscripts.
The Reich education system is only for Germany; allied states and occupied territories control their own education systems. In the U.S., American children have long summer holidays from school, a fact German teachers emphasize as one of the reasons the German Reich defeated America.
German academics have key roles in the processes of racial discrimination and genocide. The German Institute for Racial Studies, part of Friedrich Wilhelm University, is charged with defining which peoples and ethnic groups of the "Germanic Empire" are subhuman and so marked for genocide or slavery. At its side, as the smiling face of the Reich, is the German Institute for Foreigners (founded 1922), charged with instructing those foreigners who fortunately were classed as "Aryans", such as Iranians and Indians, in the German language and culture.
Academic life is male-dominated. Although it is possible for a woman to have an academic career, only a few do, and they face great difficulties and must engage in daily, petty struggles to gain privileges that are granted to men. Under Reich sexism, an assertive woman might be accused that she is "not a proper National Socialist woman"; however, such attitudes are regarded as old-fashioned and are challenged by the younger people.
Sports[edit]
In the Reich, sports are the sole province of the Aryans and are controlled by the German Federation of Sport — which favors German sportsmen over sportsmen from other states. It has the power to reserve the right to withdraw from competition with foreign teams; and to withhold the rights of foreign teams to tour the Reich when political relations sour. An example is boycotting Italian sports teams after a riot at a football match in Milan between home team fans and the visiting Leipzig team fans. Deprivation of the right to tour the Reich, and of having Reich teams visit, is financially hurtful. Germany won a recent World Cup but now is challenged by a powerful, multi-racial Brazil comprising Negroes and Native Americans, and others.
Surviving Jews[edit]
Although the Jews are considered exterminated as of the year 2010, the anti-Semitic stereotypes remain strong in popular culture and official propaganda, and they are an important part of the education imparted at school. The books of anti-Semitic author Julius Streicher (Trust No Fox in the Green Meadow, No Jew on His Oath, and The Poison Mushroom) are universal reading for German children. The hidden Jews feel obliged to buy them for their children; doing otherwise might arouse suspicion.
Jews are and are not of the society surrounding them. They must constantly play a role, parroting the prevailing anti-Semitic clichés. They keep as much of their Jewish identity as can be imparted in secret meetings among themselves, with purely oral lore, though some written Hebrew is taught. With the exception of the Bible, which can be kept openly, as Christianity, while not encouraged by the Reich, is allowed, they dare not possess books on Judaism, though such books do still exist.
All of the viewpoint characters were born under the Nazis, and maintaining the masquerade is second nature. The greatest danger is when a child is told of his or her true identity, usually at age of ten: considered old enough to keep the secret. Children often are shocked, since, like all German children, they grew up exposed to constant anti-Semitism from teachers and children's books. The adults soften the shock by teaching the children to feel privileged to belong to such a secret society.
It is mentioned that the hidden Jews regard it as too dangerous to gather on the Major Holidays and fasts of Judaism, such as Passover and Yom Kippur, and hold their secret gatherings on Minor Holidays such as Purim.
Other minorities[edit]
German industry uses Slavic or Arab slave laborers for "dirty" or dangerous work. In one passage, an industrial accident in the Ruhr is reported on TV as having caused the deaths of "Twelve Aryans and an unknown number of Untermenschen".
Homosexuals are actively persecuted. Unlike Jews, Gypsies, and other "inferior races" (which are thought to have been wiped out), homosexuals continue to arise, and are hunted by the security police unless they have political connections that protect them.
Locales[edit]
Berlin[edit]
Much of the story occurs in Berlin, the Reich capital replete with the monumental architecture of Albert Speer. An important example is the Great Hall that can house more than 100,000 people; in it was held the funeral of deceased Führer Kurt Haldweim. The Hall has a dome 200 metres high and 250 metres in diameter, it is crowned with a massive, gilded German eagle holding a swastika.
Nearby is the Führer's Palace (the official residence for the Führer) that is guarded by soldiers from the Grossdeutschland Division, who are barracked near the Palace. Aside from security, they are a ceremonial, dress corps armed with (antique) Gewehr 98 rifles; their arsenal includes assault rifles and tanks; next is the Adolf Hitler Platz, a grand public square for rallies and such.
The Soldier's Hall commemorates the German Reich's military might, exhibiting the radioactive remains of the Liberty Bell (displayed behind lead glass), gliders used to invade Britain, the first Panzer IV to enter the Kremlin, and the railroad carriage in which Imperial Germany surrendered to the Allies in 1918, at Compiègne, France, and in which France surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940.
The Arch of Triumph is 170 m wide and 1700 m deep, despite being modelled from the smaller Arc de Triomphe in Paris; much of that city district's automobile traffic transits through this arch. Because Berlin is populous, public transport (rapid transit trains [U-bahn] and commuter railroads) is well developed; such a rail station is the "South Station", near government offices. Per Speer's plans, this was to anchor the south end of the main boulevard with the most monumental structures. Captured enemy weapons and battle wreckage (British fighter plane; Soviet tank; US submarine conning tower), are displayed outside the station.
Berlin also is headquarters to the key government ministries for Air and Space, Justice, Interior, Transport, Food, Economics, Colonial, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, and the Führer's Office.
The Kurfürstendamm commercial district glitters with neon signs and reflected sun light, yet these citizens of Berlin use the street's full name in their daily lives, not the abbreviated slang of the native. Nazi Berlin is a culturally-vibrant city offering resident and visitor a wildly successful musical about Churchill and Stalin and cosmopolitan cuisines, but under the Reinheitsgebot, the nation's medieval beer-purity law, Japanese beer is illegal for importation to the Reich; American fast food is unavailable, because of the American economic collapse on its World War III defeat.
Culturally, the toy store Ulbright offers the children of the Reich pretty "Vicki" dolls and the "Landser Sepp" action figures (a boy's doll). Vicki dolls are made in the US with slave labour, and come in varieties, yet all dolls look perfectly Aryan, in abiding Reich policy.
London[edit]
Parts of the story also take place in London, the capital of Britain. In this timeline, the British people are impoverished due to the German occupation; William Shakespeare and his works are more widely known and published in Germany than in Shakespeare's homeland, partly due to Britain's economic collapse. During the Second World War, much of London was destroyed by dive bombers and panzers as well as during the last-ditch resistance by Churchill and his supporters. Key British buildings including the Parliament building, Big Ben and St Paul's Cathedral have been completely destroyed, with their only remaining legacy being photographs. Some areas of the city have been in ruins for over seventy years, due to harsh reparations imposed on the British by the Germans and partisan uprisings that would only be completely crushed by 1970. German city planners often visit Britain to see how their colleagues deal with building from the clean slate that they themselves can never have.
The Crown is a hotel that serves as the meeting place of the British Union of Fascists; as its name implies, the hotel is dominated by an enormous crown. The BUF members have a reputation of being violent thugs; a fight involving members of the party takes place outside and within the hotel. A second hotel, the Silver Eagle, is the location of the Medieval English Association conference; it bears a glass and steel eagle on its top. Both hotels are modern, glass-fronted structures.
Literary criticism and significance[edit]
Gavriel David Rosenfeld in his work, The World Hitler Never Made, notes that unlike other alternate histories that deal with a Nazi victory, In the Presence of Mine Enemies humanizes the Nazis. Rosenfeld stated this would have been impossible in earlier years where the trend was to show the Nazis in alternate histories as the "incarnation of evil."[4] Rosenfeld, however, noted that despite Turtledove's reputation as an acclaimed and skilled writer in alternate history, he received a lot of criticism for the novel making Rosenfeld assume that most American audiences do not wish to humanize the Nazis.[5]
Adam-Troy Castro, however, gave a good review of the novel. Though he found that the hidden Jewish characters of the novel weathered their secret life too well and compared others who live secret lives in our society (for examples homosexuals) who sometimes have to deal with incidents of self-loathing, alcoholism, drug abuse and even suicide. In the end Castro was thrilled to see at the end of the novel the main characters standing tall against an oppressive government.[2]
See also[edit]

Portal icon Novels portal
Axis victory in World War II
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Turtledove, Harry. In the Presence of Mine Enemies". Uchronia. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
2.^ Jump up to: a b Adam-Troy Castro (2006). "Off the Shelf: In the Presence of Mine Enemies". Book review. Sci Fi Weekly. Archived from the original on 3 June 2008. Retrieved 26 November 2008.
3.Jump up ^ Review of IBM and the Holocaust
4.Jump up ^ Rosenfeld, Gavriel (2005). The World Hitler Never Made. Cambridge University Press. p. 148. ISBN 0-521-84706-0.
5.Jump up ^ Id. 158.
External links[edit]
In the Presence of Mine Enemies title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database


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Categories: 2003 novels
American alternate history novels
Dystopian novels
Novels by Harry Turtledove
American science fiction novels
Alternate Nazi Germany novels




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Gypsy: A Memoir
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Gypsy: A Memoir
Gypsybook.jpg
Front cover, with Gypsy Rose Lee

Author
Gypsy Rose Lee
Language
English
Genre
Memoir
Pages
337 pp
Followed by
Gypsy and Me
Gypsy: A Memoir is a 1957 autobiography of renowned striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee, which inspired the Broadway musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable. The book tells Lee's life story in three acts, the first beginning with her early childhood days in theatre when she toured with her sister, June. The book ends just as Gypsy has gotten on a train and is headed to Hollywood to begin her career in the movies. Her Hollywood career was short lived and she did not get many roles. The roles she did get were so small that at one point she wanted to be billed under her birth name, Louise Havoc.
The first edition was published by Harper in 1957. It is now available in a 1999 paperback reprint.


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Gypsy Rose Lee


Family
June Havoc (sister) ·
 Rose Thompson Hovick (mother) ·
 Alexander Kirkland (2nd husband) ·
 Erik Lee Preminger (son)
 

Works
The G-String Murders (1941) ·
 The Naked Genius (1943) ·
 Gypsy: A Memoir (1957)
 

Musical
Gypsy (1959 musical) ·
 Gypsy (1962 film) ·
 Gypsy (1993 TV film)  (soundtrack)
 


Act 1

"May We Entertain You?" ·
 "Everything's Coming up Roses"
 


Act 2

"Together (Wherever We Go)" ·
 "You Gotta Get a Gimmick" ·
 "Rose's Turn"
 


Other adaptations
Lady of Burlesque (1943) ·
 Doll Face (1945)
 




Stub icon 2 This article about a biographical or autobiographical book whose subject was born in the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




 


Categories: 1957 books
Memoirs
United States biography book stubs




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Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски
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