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Finian’s Wake Said by others and worth repeating: Finian’s Rainbow might have been a daring concept for a musical when it opened on Broadway back in the late 40s, in having dealt with racism, yet keeping it from being a real breakthrough was the heavy dash of—forgive the redunancy—nincompoopish leprechaunism. Fantasy in musicals is, of course, inherent and requires some huge maintenance shots of tolerance to sustain interest. (I missed an immunization and got done in by Brigadoon.) Fantasy mixed with race relations is deadly: Francis Ford Coppola attempts to sylvanize the Burton Lane-E.Y. Harburg book of wishful thinking during a decade when civil rights marches erupted into bloodbaths and the nation was just about at war with itself over Vietnam and thus Glocca Mora is eons away from 1968, Martin Luther King, Chicago’s Richard Daley and Grant Park. Only the critics as requirement and nostalgic blue hairs went to Finian’s Rainbow; the rest of us we’re eating up The Graduate, Valley of the Dolls, Planet of the Apes, Rosemary’s Baby and, if we could get tickets, Hair. While two other musicals around this time were big box office—Oliver! and Funny Girl—audiences unvaccinated kept away from the virus of idiocy spreading in The Happiest Millionaire, Doctor Doolittle, Star!, Darling Lili, Hello Dolly, Half a Sixpence and Paint Your Wagon. Our ears couldn’t take anymore “feel good” propaganda. Obviously Coppola has an ear for the “music” in operatic drama; he knows where the insertion points are in The Godfather (later with The Godfather Part II) to up the charge in violence. Working against his gifts, he’s tiptoeing through the tulips: the cast of Finian’s Rainbow seems in constant motion—gliding, hip-hopping, going grand jeté—but we don’t feel any momentum in the vibrations of the dancing or in the messaging in the songs. He’s hoping we won’t notice too much the racial integration pleas slipping under his backup theme of an ecology untrashed. Bad timing for a return to an updated Brigadoon. Petula Clark sings a few choice numbers, not the least of which is “Old Devil Moon” with Don Francks, whose looks might have made him a popular top in porn. After The Happiest Millionaire and Half a Sixpence, weren’t there petitions we signed to ban Tommy Steele? Fred Astaire’s presence is a remembrance of things past, as this was his last musical on screen and the last time he worked with longtime partner Hermes Pan. Filmed in Panavision, the 70mm blowup cut off Astaire’s foot work. (Opened 10/11/1968 at the Palace, running 17 weeks.) Oscar nominations for sound, scoring of a musical picture—original or adaptation. ROLL OVER IMAGE
Text COPYRIGHT © 2002 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved. |
