Hard to believe that a woman of Elliott’s size could be a pop star, but it’s actually what helped her get there. Of course, it also helped her leave this world, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Here is a great pop tune, an ode to 70’s style go-it-alone-ism.
Dedicated to none other than Keith H, who I can still see doing the shimmy to this song all these years later. From “Lust in the Dust” (1985, dir Paul Bartel).
Nothing is more enjoyable than trolling through video sites that feature some great singers enjoying each other’s company. That feeling is present here, as Eddie Fisher, Andy Williams, and Bobby Darin begin singing “Do Re Mi,” a little self-consciously at first, then warming to it as they feel the audience responding. The formal wear, the simple stage, and that beautiful Technicolor all make for a dazzling number.
And in this video you can see why and hear what the term means. Dorothy Loudon had a hit on Broadway in “Annie” just before her turn in “Ballroom,” from which this song comes. Sentimental odes to marital infidelity don’t come around that often, much less sympathetic ones, but Loudon pulls it off.
The ever-delightful Jean Arthur delightfully conveys to tyro Senator James Stewart how a bill is introduced to the US Senate. From, of course, “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” (1939, dir Frank Capra).
Chiefly because every video collection should include something from “Auntie Mame” (1958, dir Morton da Costa), but here the estimable Rosalind Russell is upstaged by Joanna Barnes as Gloria. The very semi-finals, mind you.
Again, in Shakespeare’s Henry V (1989, dir Kenneth Branagh) we see the brilliant wordplay that Shakespeare introduced into the English language. While staged here as a semi-comic device (the long list of descendants required a massive understanding of history available to the literate only), there is the nice mirror effect of the twists and turns the Tudors (the then-present monarchs occupying the throne) took to justify their sovereignty.
In Henry V (1989, dir Kenneth Branagh), the toll of war is an innumerable factor. Director and star Branagh shows exactly how exhausting even a glorious war can be. Note the peasant woman who seeks personal revenge on the king who dares to set foot on her soil. Nice touch.
The slattern. Of course she doesn’t, but she does it anyway. Here, the estimable Ginger Rogers does the infamous Black Bottom in Roxy Hart (1940, dir William Wellman), the basis for the musical play and Oscar-winning film Chicago.
I don’t always dig Bernadette Peters’ “I’m just a Bwoadway Baaaby” act, but she brings real power to Stephen Sondheim’s “Not A Day Goes By” (from “Merrily We Roll Along”). Quite touching and quietly devastating.
