THE WALTER READE THEATER
ADOLPH GREEN: NEW YORKER
February 17, 2003
I had the pleasure of meeting Adolph Green on several occasions, none of which I
will ever forget. Each time, he was dressed to the nines, the very model of the
dapper New Yorker. Once, at a goodbye party for a mutual friend, he sang
"Conga," the comic highlight of Wonderful Town, to my delighted 6-year-old son.
And once I asked him about Alain Resnais' movie I Want to Go Home, in which he
starred. Resnais was a nice man, he explained to me, but he didn't really
understand anything about American culture, and the movie was a failure. "But I
was very good in it," he added. "Really, I was."
Adolph Green was a tonic, a truly magical presence, and the world is a poorer
place without him in it. Fortunately for us, he left behind a rich legacy of
performances and musicals, stand-alone songs, and screenplays that he wrote in
collaboration with his equally brilliant and effervescent partner, Betty Comden.
Today, we're going to celebrate the life of a man of unparalleled wit, knowledge
and talent, who was New York at its best - Kent Jones.
THE BAND WAGON
Vincente Minnelli, USA, 1953; 111m
"What's happened to 42nd Street?" asks Fred Astaire's Tony Hunter, a movie star
whose career has hit the skids and who is returning to his Broadway roots in a
new musical (called...The Band Wagon) written by his friends Les and Lilly
Martin (Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray) and co-starring a hot young ballet star
(Cyd Charisse). Comden and Green worked their magic by turning to reality for
inspiration. Astaire's career really was on the wane, and he really was putting
himself in the hands of a new breed of talent with this movie: Charisse,
choreographer Michael Kidd, and...the writers themselves. THE BAND WAGON is
Hollywood at its peak, an effortlessly graceful movie that sustains a mood of
touching artistic camaraderie from beginning to end. Directed by the great
Vincente Minnelli, whose wit and elegance are a perfect match for Comden and
Green's. With the great Jack Buchanan as a Jose-Ferrer-ish superstar director,
and one great musical number after another, including Astaire and Charisse's
wordless Central Park pas de deux to "Dancer in the Dark" and the wonderfully
spirited "I Love Louisa."
Mon Feb 17: 4 & 8:30
IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER
Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1954, USA; 102m
In what has to be one of the dumbest moves ever made by a studio head, Louis B.
Mayer bought the rights to Comden and Green's Broadway smash On the Town but,
deeming it unpatriotic and overly highbrow, demanded that all but three of the
original songs be scrapped for the big-screen version. This quasi-sequel, about
three returning vets who meet up ten years after the war as disillusioned and
disappointed washouts, is by far the superior movie, striking a perfect balance
between emotional melancholy and musical rapture. Gene Kelly (who co-directed
with Stanley Donen), Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd are the three vets, Cyd
Charisse is the high-powered TV executive who lures them onto the mid-50s
equivalent of a reality-TV show, and Dolores Gray is the show's tempestuous
star. Comden and Green wrote the songs for this one and every number is a joy,
from Dailey's neurotic crack-up "Situation-wise" to Gray's soaring "Music Is
Better than Words," to Kelly's lovely "I Like Myself," sung as he dances on
roller skates, at which point the movie takes off into the stratosphere.
Mon Feb 17: 6:15