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.
Two American cultural giants — Mary Martin (l) and Ethel Merman (r), of course — perform during the legendary production put on to commemorate Ford’s 50th anniversary in 1953. It is safe to say that we shall never see the like again.
So she does, does she? Even an old pro like West (who by the time this has been filmed had been on the stage for thirty years) can get nervous (“I hope they tuned that pie-anny”). This most captivating of women puts on a little show for the likes of sailors (note how modern-day handsome the cigar smoking fellow is [during the audience pan]). In She Done Him Wrong (1933, dir Lowell Sherman), we even get a glimpse of the young Cary Grant — as a Salvation Army missionary bent on saving Mae. Who — for the love of Christ! — is to save whom?
