The 1940s and '50s were considered the Golden Age of Movie Musicals. While 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., RKO and other studios produced popular musicals, the most golden of the classics came from MGM's "Freed Unit." This group, led by producer/lyricist Arthur Freed, took the ordinariness out of everyday lives and made them extraordinary. Directors like Vincente Minnelli (“Meet Me in St. Louis”) and Stanley Donen (“Singin’ in the Rain”) came aboard to choose from MGM's collection of "More Stars Than There are in Heaven" to create the vastly popular musicals sent to movie theaters around the country.
Going Hollywood: MGM Musicals, the Lyrics and Lyricists' opening show of the season, was written and hosted by director Kathleen Marshall. To salute MGM and the Freed Unit, six high-spirited theater singers/dancers (Cameron Adams, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Joshua Henry, Jeremy Jordan, Rob McClure, and Rachel York) were accompanied by a rhythmic quartet led by David Chase on piano. With Marshall's know-how, her deft comments, and John Kelly's creative lighting, the stage of the 92nd Street Y was vibrant with smooth dancing and literate songs. It was a reminder of an era when the country was eager to be "Going Hollywood."
The films came out of California, but Lyrics and Lyricists' Going Hollywood opened in a New York mood with Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown's effervescent "The Broadway Melody, Broadway Rhythms" and "Going Hollywood." The energy flowed through the show, closing Act One with the company's energetic, "Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe," capturing bits of the famed choreography from the film, The Harvey Girls. The quartet of bass, drums, woodwinds and trumpet added the trains' clickety-clack and blaring whistles. Similarly, with Cameron Adams' (Nice Work if You Can Get It) spunky "Trolley Song", the drum's crisp backing evoked clanging trolley sounds.
Rob McClure (Chaplin), snappy in a fedora and suspenders, delivered "Steppin' Out With My Baby" (“Easter Parade”) and Jeremy Jordan's rendition of "Shine on Your Shoes" from The Band Wagon, sparkled with a rhythmic bass accompaniment. A more smoldering sound came from Rachel York (appearing in the Encores! upcoming Little Me) with a blasé, "Better Luck Next Time."
One of Marshall's deft comments recalled that MGM allowed Freed to gather the best of the best in music, writing and design and gave them the freedom and resources to create elaborate musicals for talents like Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and Kay Thompson. They created magical moments on the screen.
The polished skill of Renée Elise Goldsberry (I'm Getting my Act Together and Taking it On the Road) shone in the iconic "Over the Rainbow," including the original bridge ("Someday I'll wake and rub my eyes...") Marshall added that lyricist "Yip" Harburg later rewrote the bridge for the more familiar version ("Someday. I'll wish upon a star....") Joshua Henry (The Scottsboro Boys) sang the 1941 Academy Award Best Original Song winner, "The Last Time I Saw Paris," by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, performed in Lady Be Good. Marshall revealed that the song had been published and recorded a year before Lady Be Good was even made. Kern was so upset at his win that he petitioned the Motion Picture Academy to change the rules so that any future nominated song in that category had to be specifically written for the film in which it was performed.
The Golden Age came to an end in the early 1960s, but the films are still favorites on television and DVDs. For fans, Kathleen Marshall and her retinue of music talents provided an evening of silver screen memories and a salute to Arthur Freed, the man who made them shimmer.
