Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic stage production based on the autobiography of Anna Leonowens, a English woman who taught and cared for the children of 19th century King Mongkut of Siam, is a pure and endlessly glamorous - albeit shallow - musical production.Deborah Kerr doesn't lend her singing voice to the film as she knocks heads with the King (Yul Brynner) and his stubborn Eastern philosophies, and ultimately The King and I ('56) feels airy, prudent and hackneyed in places.
It's the elaborate sets and the luscious widescreen CinemaScope 55 photography that carry us through, but for a better, tighter and far less accessorized film, see Frank Capra's The Bitter Tea of General Yen ('33). [C+]
"OKLAHOMA!" (Fred Zinneman; 1955)
Like The King and I, Oklahoma! is a lavish, sweetened production with abundant musical diversions and a thinly-layered plot that's, more so than ever, almost motionless.Essentially a 145-minute romance full of youthful ignorance, petty griping and indecision, Oklahoma! centers around a cattle driver (Gordan MacRae) and his courting of a young farm girl played by Shirley Jones, in her screen debut.
He has stiff competition from a ruthless, persistent and piggish farmhand played by Rod Steiger, and both the play and the film additionally concern themselves with a secondary love triangle and an extraneous yet admirable dream sequence at the midway point, but the overall effect of the film is adorably tedious. [C+]
"CAROUSEL" (Henry King; 1956)
Perhaps the most socially-conscious and thematically dreary Rodgers and Hammerstein work, Carousel is a unique achievement charting the life of a tough carousel barker and his turbulent, abusive and short-lived marriage to a sweet, angelic mill worker.Very much a redemptive story and one of heartbreak, loss and longing, the film uses a unique framing device for telling its story as it begins in purgatory and proceeds to tell its story almost entirely in flashback.
The musical numbers are mostly solemn and a bit stagnant, but the admittedly soapy ending does have a touch of elegance, class and atonement. [B-]
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My appreciation for The King & I is probably residual love from childhood. I do love Kerr hair, though I remember Brynner being grating at times.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen the others, particularly Carousel which I avoided. The plot seems so very numbered, though some of the songs are delightful (are songs like Mr. Snow, When the Children Are Asleep in this version?)