"Errant" and "truant" don't even cover it, I know. Apologies! See why I'm the world's oldest newbie? Today's notes reminded me of a few of my favorite topics and questions.
Even as an admitted Lerner & Loewe fanatic it's hard to defend "The Little Prince" as the movie it turned out to be. However, as an IDEA for a movie, and a SCORE for a movie, I'm actually quite fond of it. Give the songs a chance! "The Little Prince" -- ahem -- GROWS on you!
I can't remember if this has come up at HHW or not, but the long-lost demo tape of Lerner & Loewe themselves performing their "Little Prince" songs, as they intended them to sound, is now available on CD! It's well worth hearing as a document not only of the complete, untampered-with score, but of the songwriters as well, since precious few recordings of Lerner & Loewe performing together exist.
Lerner's portrayal of all the different roles is charming, and Loewe's keyboard virtuosity is incredible, particularly for an arthritic septuagenarian. Buy your copy NOW at
www.frederickloewe.org, or
www.bluedalmatian.com. (End plug here.)
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Mr. White mentioned "Goodbye Mr. Chips." Reminds me of a question I ask now and then at various message boards. Years ago, in ShowMusic magazine, I read about the long gestation period of the movie, during which several songwriting teams were engaged to write spec "Chips" scores, before the producer finally went with Leslie Bricusse.
The article mentioned that an LP (or was it a multi-LP set?) was put together by the producer and distributed to cast, crew & friends. Does anyone have this set, or know what is on it? Track listing please?
A recent Google search turned up a Petula Clark CD set called "I Love to Sing," which contains several rejected "Mr. Chips" songs by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent ("Downtown"). --Was this material included on the legendary rejected-demos LP?
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All this talk of "The Pirate" reminds me of the "Be a Clown"/"Make 'Em Laugh" incident. The story goes that when "Singin' in the Rain" was being prepped, a Donald O'Connor acrobatic/comedy number was needed , "something along the lines of 'Be a Clown,' from that other picture."
Well, it seems Arthur Freed & Nacio Herb Brown took the suggestion literally and turned in a near-ripoff of Porter's song. The result, of course, is the legendary number for which O'Connor will always be best remembered.
But questions remain:
What the heck were Freed & Brown thinking?
. . . And which was the better song?
. . . And what did Porter think?
To quote Hugh Fordin, "Only a man of Cole Porter's tact and distinction would have chosen to ignore the existence of that song."