OSCAR FLASHBACK - 1944

World War II was still raging in May 1944. The allied invasion of Normandy — aka D-Day — was just around the corner on June 6th. Americans kept the home fires burning and escaped from the global conflict by going to the movies. Two of the biggest films of the year, Leo McCarey’s “Going My Way” and George Cukor’s “Gaslight,” recently celebrated their 80th anniversaries.

Actually, “Going My Way” had a special “Fighting Front” premiere on April 27th: 65 prints were shipped to battle fronts and shown “from Alaska to Italy, and from England to the jungles of Burma.” The sentimental comedy-drama-musical arrived in New York on May 3rd.

And it was just the uplifting film audiences needed. Bing Crosby starred as Father O’Malley, a laid-back young priest who arrives at a debt-ridden New York City church that is run by the older, set-in-his ways Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald). The elder priest initially isn’t happy with O’Malley’s newfangled ways, but soon he and the rest of the parish realize O’Malley is someone special.

Though not specifically a musical, Crosby does sing the title tune as well as “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and duets on “Ava Marie” with his co-star, Metropolitan Opera soprano Rise Stevens. The fun “Swinging on a Star” by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke, which Crosby sings with Robert Mitchell Boy Choir, became a huge hit for Crosby. The ending was a real four-hankie weepie moment as O’Malley reunites Fitzgibbon with his elderly mother.

The New York Times’ Bosley Crother was besotted with “Going My Way” calling it a “tonic delight,” adding that Crosby “is giving the best show of his career” …” he has been beautifully presented by Mr. McCarey.” The top box office attraction of 1944, “Going My Way” turned Crosby into the No. 1 box office star and proved he was more than comedic actor playing “pat-a-cake” with Bob Hope in the popular “Road” films.

“Going My Way” had strong competition at the Academy Awards most notably from Billy Wilder’s crackling film noir “Double Indemnity,” which earned seven nominations. But “Going My Way” won by a knockout leaving “Double Indemnity” in the dust. “Going My Way” earned seven Oscars including best film, director, song, actor for Crosby and supporting actor for Fitzgerald. And for the first and only time in Oscar history, Fitzgerald was also nominated for best actor.

Crosby would be the first actor to earn an Oscar nomination for reprising a role. The following year, he returned to the Academy Awards’ race in the beloved sequel “The Bells of St. Mary’s,” which earned eight Oscar nominations winning for best recording. Ironically, Wilder’s dark “The Lost Weekend” was the big winner at the 1946 ceremony...

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BING ON FILM: TOP O' THE MORNING - PART TWO

This would be the third pairing of Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald. They hit movie gold twice with their pairing as priests in the landmark film Going My Way in 1944, and as doctors in Welcome Stranger in 1947. Paramount figured that three times was a charm, but it was not exactly. The best part of the film was the interaction between Bing and Barry Fitzgerald, but the script did not allow for much of the friendly banter that was seen in their previous two films together. Personally, I feel they should have made Bing and Barry Fitzgerald both policemen – one young and one old – who had to settle the case of the missing Blarney Stone, using new techniques and old techniques of investigation to crack the case. I was not around in 1949, so Paramount was not able to ask me for my script recommendations!

Like many of Bing Crosby films, the singing was the major draw of the film. My favorite number was Bing singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”. Bing did not record the number for the movie soundtrack, but he did record it a few years before the film was made, on May 7, 1946. The songwriting team of Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke were commissioned to write new songs for the film, but only two songs were written. They wrote the title song “Top O’ The Morning”, which was my favorite song from the film. Bing must have liked the song too, because he sang it three times in the film. The songwriters also wrote a pretty forgettable ballad called “You’re In Love With Someone”, which Bing sang, and then it was sung later in the film as a duet with Bing and Ann Blyth. Rounding out the music were traditional Irish songs like “Kitty Coleraine”, “The Donovans”, and “Oh Tis Sweet To Think”.

Bing was in fine voice towards the end of the 1940s, and as always, he was his charming self in the movie, so he cannot be blamed for this misguided film. Bing did however personally selected David Miller as director of Top O’ the Morning.  Groucho Marx recommended him to Bing.  Miller had just completed what turned out to be the final Marx Brothers’ film.  It was Love Happy, the least revered of all the Brothers’ films. I think also movie audiences were changing as television was beginning to take hold.

Some of the critics liked the film though:

Bing Crosby, after two lush Technicolored musicals, has been handed a light, frothy and more moderately budgeted picture by Paramount to cavort in, which should put him once more at the top of that studio’s breadwinning list.

      …Under David Miller’s light-handed direction, Crosby and the rest of the cast fall right into the spirit of the story. Groaner, despite his having to play to a gal (Ann Blyth) who is so obviously younger, is socko. His easy way with a quip, combined with his fine crooning of some old Irish tunes and a couple of new ones, is solid showmanship.

      …Johnny Burke and James Van Heusen have cleffed two bright new tunes for the film, both of which, with Crosby to introduce them, should get plenty of play. “You’re in Love with Someone,” a ballad, has the edge but the other, “Top O’ the Morning,” has the lilt that Crosby fans go for. Crooner also gets a chance to dispense a round of traditional Irish airs, ranging from “Irish Eyes” to the lesser-known but more sprightly variety.

(Variety, July 20, 1949)

In my opinion, Top O’ The Morning is not a great Bing Crosby movie, but even a bad Bing film is worth viewing. The last fifteen minutes of the movie is the best, and some of the plot is pretty sinister for a lighthearted Bing film. Bing and the cast does the best they could with the script, and this film is worth watching. My copy came from a showing on AMC Network in 1998, and now TCM has also shown the film, so if you get a chance check out this slight Bing film. The film was not great but pleasant enough..

MY RATING: 6 OUT OF 10

BING ON FILM: TOP O' THE MORNING - PART ONE

It is easy to review and write about High Society or Holiday Inn, but I wanted to look at a film that was not as remembered as other Crosby films. So that is why I picked Bing’s 1949 Top O’ The Morning. I have had the film on a bootleg DVD for years, but I just never could bring myself to watch the film. I am not sure why, but I finally viewed the film, and it is not too bad. It is not great either.

After making some great Technicolor vehicles like Blue Skies and The Emperor Waltz, Top O’ The Morning looks drab and boring in black and white. I don’t know how Paramount could make a movie about colorful Ireland without the film being in color. The plot is slight, and at times I surprisingly find the movie hard to follow. Although the film has a marvelous cast, it is only mildly entertaining, with the story stumbling along in fits and starts, though it does pick up speed in the last half.  Crosby plays a New York insurance investigator sent to Ireland to search for the missing Blarney Stone. Yes, it's been stolen! Barry Fitzgerald plays the ineffectual police sergeant in a nearby town, with Blyth playing his pretty daughter, Conn, and Hume Cronyn is his assistant, Hughie. John McIntire, who later appeared in Blyth's charming comedy Sally And Saint Anne (1952), plays a police inspector working on the case.

The original name of the film was supposed to be Diamond In The Haystack. Very little happens in this rather slow-moving film, which spends a great deal of time on the mysterious prediction of a townswoman (Eileen Crowe) regarding who will marry Conn; eventually, of course, the Blarney Stone mystery is solved and true love prevails. Even though I am of Irish decent, I did not really know what the Blarney Stone was. The Blarney Stone is a block of Carboniferous limestone built into the battlements of Blarney Castle  about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from Cork, Ireland. According to legend, kissing the stone endows the kisser with the gift of the gab (great eloquence or skill at flattery). The stone was set into a tower of the castle in 1446. The castle is a popular tourist site in Ireland, attracting visitors from all over the world to kiss the stone and tour the castle and its gardens.

Back to the film, Bing Crosby looked quite bored in the film as if he was going through the motions of a substandard script. I do not know if it was because of the age difference of Bing and his co-star Ann Blyth, but their pairing did not seem to gel to me, and they did not seem to have too much chemistry. Bing Crosby had wanted Deanna Durbin to costar in this picture as well as A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949). Miss Durbin, about to retire from the screen with the finish of her Universal-International contract on August 31, 1949, declined both offers from Bing. In place of Miss Durbin, Universal loaned Ann Blyth to Paramount for this film...

TO BE CONTINUED...

BARRY FITZGERALD - 1945

Here is a charming article that appeared in the New York Times on  January 14, 1945. It detailed actor Barry Fitzgerald's rise in fame and how he dealt with it...



Fitzgerald Meets Fame — and He Frowns
By FRED STANLEY

HOLLYWOOD — In Hollywood these days everyone, it seems, is excited about Barry Fitzgerald - except Barry Fitzgerald. On the basis of his performance as the whimsical, petulant old parish priest in Paramount's ''Going My Way,'' the New York critics have just given him their award for the best film acting of the year.

Today Barry Fitzgerald is in greater demand by the studios than any character has ever been in the history of the film city. One conservative estimate, by people who figure such things out, has it that if the 56-year-old Irish actor accepted all of the parts that have been offered to him in the past four months he would be working in front of the cameras, night and day, for the next two years. Film producers calculate that Fitzgerald's name in the cast of one of their products now means increased returns at the box office. That fact explains an increase in his ''per picture'' pay to $75,000 more than three times his pre-''Going My Way'' rate.

To all of which Barry Fitzgerald says: ''I am now just another Hollywood celebrity and that's downright boring.'' He doesn't understand why being a successful actor should mean that he can, per se, set the general public an example by smoking so and so's cigarettes or wearing this or that brand of underwear.

Gone are the days, he will regretfully tell you, when he could walk down the street unrecognized and just watch people go by. Now the people watch Barry Fitzgerald go by. In Hollywood he is too easily recognized, pointed out, stared at and besieged by that curious American phenomenon, the autograph seeker.

He finds it all rather bewildering. He resents the disruption of his previously inconspicuous private life. He can't even browse in Los Angeles book shops or join in a discussion with strangers at some out-of-the-way barroom or drug store without being tagged as Father Fitzgibbon. His old clothes and cloth cap, which once kept him inconspicuous, now make him a marked man.

And along with fame have come obligations - obligations which are particularly distressing to Mr. Fitzgerald, who cheerfully admits to being a ''very lazy man.'' Fame has brought sacks full of fan mail to be answered. It has resulted in invitations to parties and social events - for he is now being recognized, even by some of the town's so-called ''greats.''

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GOING MY WAY: A 1944 REVIEW

Here is an original review of the 1944 Bing Crosby classic Going My Way. This was written by Kate Cameron and published in The Daily News on May 3, 1944...


Paramount may have made a more appealing, more tenderly human and amusing picture than “Going My Way,” during its many years of film-making, but if so, I have missed it.

The production that had its first showing at Paramount Theatre last evening is a heart-warming delightful entertainment. It has to do with the beguiling way of a young priest with an aging pastor, when the former is assigned by his bishop to supersede the old man in discharging the affairs of St. Dominicks church and in keeping the parish from becoming atrophied, as it was in danger of becoming under the feeble guidance of Father Fitzgibbon.

It is a simple tale, simply told by director, authors and cast. Leo McCarey, who produced the picture for Paramount, directed it and wrote the original story, kept a firm but gentle hand on his cast. Not once during the more than two hours of running time did a single player step out of character, nor were the lines or action permitted to cross the invisible boundary line of good taste.

You can’t tell a story about a priest very well without touching on his religion, so the church takes its place in the controversy between young Father O’Malley and spiritual aspects of the picture are blended so naturally with the temporal affairs on the screen that the audience is hardly aware that it is listening to a most persuasive sermon on charity, which is the theme of the narrative.

Bing Crosby departs from his usual screen impersonation in the role of Father Chuck O’Malley. He sings, of course, as a Bing Crosby picture would be a waste without a song or two from the crooner. But surprises the audience by turning in a fine characterization.

His is an impressive performance that might well earn him an Academy Award next year, if it weren’t for the fact that he is competing with Barry Fitzgerald, whose performance of Father Fitzgibbon is a really brilliant delineation of a slightly senile old man.

Rise Stevens, in the role of a Metropolitan Opera star who had been a schoolmate of Father O’Malley and his friend, Father O’Dowd, is lovely to look at and a delight to the ear when she sings an aria from “Carmen” and two new numbers entitled “Day After Tomorrow” and “Going My Way.”

Bing also sings the latter songs and in addition croons “Would You Like to Swing on a Star,” to the accompaniment of a chorus of fine young male voices.

Jean Heather and James Brown, two promising young players, give the picture its touch of romance. Frank McHugh is fine as Father O’Dowd and Gene Lockhart, Eily Malyon and Stanley Clemens help to make “Going My Way” one of the film delights of this or any other year...

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GOING MY WAY CO-STAR DIES

Rise Stevens, the New York City- born mezzo-soprano who reigned at the Metropolitan Opera in the 1940s and 1950s and injected sensuality and dramatic fire into her signature role in “Carmen,” has died. She was 99.

She died yesterday at her home in Manhattan, the New York Times reported, citing her son, Nicolas Surovy.

Celebrated for her glamorous looks as well as her lush singing, Stevens delayed her debut at the Met to polish her skills in Europe, then dabbled in movies during her 23-year Met career. Lloyds of London insured her voice for $1 million in 1945.

Her specialties included playing male characters written to be performed by women, such as the title role in Christoph Willibald Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice.” She held “a near- monopoly” at the Met on the role of Octavian, the count who is a princess’s young lover in Richard Strauss’s “Der Rosenkavalier,” music critic Roland Gelatt wrote in 1959.

Still, it was the title role in Georges Bizet’s “Carmen,” the seductive and free-spirited female Gypsy, that defined Stevens’s career. She performed the role 124 times at the Met, including 10 for broadcast, according to Opera News Online.

“So far as America was concerned, during the 15 years following 1945, Rise Stevens and Carmen were virtually synonymous,” Clyde T. McCants wrote in “American Opera Singers and Their Recordings” (2004). “Stevens was Carmen in the opera house, on the concert stage, on recordings, on radio.”

Rise Steenberg was born on June 11, 1913, in New York City, the first child of Christian Steenberg, an advertising salesman, and the former Sadie Mechanic. Starting at 10, she sang on a children’s hour on New York radio station WJZ.

At 15, she changed high schools to enroll in a music program at Newtown High School in Elmhurst, New York. She changed her last name to Stevens about the time she graduated, according to John Pennino’s 2005 biography, “Rise Stevens: A Life in Music.”

While in Prague, Stevens met the Hungarian actor Walter Surovy, and they married in 1938. Surovy died in 2001. Their son, Nicolas, became an actor.

Stevens signed with the Met for the 1938-1939 season, which opened with a performance of “Rosenkavalier” in Philadelphia. The audience welcomed Stevens “with ovation after ovation for her spirited performance,” the New York Times reported.

Her Met debut in New York came in December 1938, in the title role of Thomas’s “Mignon.” In his review for the Times, Olin Downes called Stevens “a new debutante of unquestionable gifts, both vocal and dramatic,” whose voice “has unusual range, well-adjusted registers, and there are colors in it.”

She was among the opera stars recruited by movie mogul Louis Mayer, co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She debuted in the musical comedy “The Chocolate Soldier” (1941) with Nelson Eddy and also appeared with Bing Crosby in “Going My Way” (1944), which won seven Academy Awards, including best picture. She appeared often on television, including the “Ed Sullivan Show.” Stevens declined to commit exclusively to a career in Hollywood and returned to the Met between her movie roles...

BING IN HOLLYWOOD: HIS BEST AND WORST

With his famous bass-baritone voice, Bing Crosby was one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century. Although somewhat forgotten, his movie career is equally impressive. Bing Crosby's film career started with the 1930 film The King of Jazz. His first big break came in 1932 when he appeared in The Big Broadcast, which was the sixth most successful movie of that year. He appeared on the annual top ten box office stars for the first time in 1934. He would appear on that list a total of fifteen times in his career. From 1944 to 1948, Crosby was the number one star, for a record five years in a row.

In 1940 Bing Crosby and Bob Hope starred in the very successful Road to Singapore. The comedy team of Crosby/Hope became very popular. They made six very successful sequels over the next twenty-two years. Having conquered singing and comedy, Crosby started concentrating on serious acting. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1944 for the blockbuster hit Going My Way. He received another nomination the next year for The Bells of St. Mary's.

In 1954, he received his final nomination for Best Actor the Country Girl co-starring Grace Kelly. She won the Oscar playing Bing's wife. In 1966 he appeared in his last movie, the remake of the classic western Stagecoach. There was talk of making Road to the Fountain of Youth, but Bing Crosby died in 1977 before he could make that movie.

Here is a break down of Bing's movies and how much they made: (adjusted to 2011 box office - number in millions)

#1 White Christmas (1954) 456.30
#2 The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) 411.80
#3 Going My Way (1944) 355.40
#4 Welcome Stranger (1947) 288.60
#5 Blue Skies (1946) 284.60
#6 The Country Girl (1954) 247.20
#7 Road to Morocco (1942) 229.00
#8 Holiday Inn (1942) 229.00
#9 Road to Utopia (1946) 225.00
#10 Road to Rio (1947) 213.10
#11 High Society (1956) 183.60
#12 Dixie (1943) 181.30
#13 The Emperor Waltz (1948) 174.90
#14 Here Come the Waves (1944) 128.80
#15 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949) 121.60
#16 Road to Zanzibar (1941) 120.80
#17 Say One For Me (1959) 113.70
#18 Top o' the Morning (1949) 105.70
#19 Waikiki Wedding (1937) 101.00
#20 Road to Singapore (1940) 100.20
#21 Just For You (1952) 95.40
#22 Road to Bali (1952) 95.40
#23 Here Comes the Groom (1951) 89.00
#24 Little Boy Lost (1953) 87.40
#25 Riding High (1950) 85.90
#26 Rhythm on the Range (1936) 84.30
#27 Mr. Music (1950) 83.50
#28 Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) 83.50
#29 Road to Hong Kong (1962) 80.30
#30 Dr. Rhythm (1938) 71.60
#31 Anything Goes (1956) 66.80
#32 Double or Nothing (1937) 64.40
#33 Stagecoach (1966) 63.60
#34 Man on Fire (1957) 54.90
#35 She Loves Me Not (1934) 54.10
#36 High Time (1960) 48.50
#37 East Side of Heaven (1939) 44.50
#38 The Big Broadcast (1932) 43.70
#39 We're Not Dreaming (1934) 42.10
#40 Sing You Sinners (1938) 38.20
#41 The Star Maker (1939) 37.40
#42 Here Is My Heart (1934) 35.00
#43 Paris Honeymoon (1939) 32.60
#44 Going Hollywood (1933) 29.40
#45 If I Had My Way (1940) 25.40
#46 The King of Jazz (1930) 25.40
#47 Rhythm on the River (1940) 23.80
#48 Mississippi (1935) 22.30
#49 College Humor (1933) 21.50
#50 Anything Goes (1936) 19.90
#51 Pennies from Heaven (1936) 19.10
#52 Too Much Harmony (1933) (1933) 18.30
#53 Two For Tonight (1935) 18.30
#54 Birth of the Blues (1940) 18.30

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WELCOME STRANGER: A 1947 REVIEW

Here is another review from the New York Times of August 7, 1947. The Times are usually hard on Bing's movies, but I think this review is mostly positive...

The news most moviegoers must be waiting to hear about the new Bing Crosby-Barry Fitzgerald picture at the Paramount Theatre is, "How does it compare with 'Going My Ways'?"

Well, it can be said that "Welcome Stranger" is as genial as the day is long—just the kind of picture that is nice to have around, even though it may not prompt one to shout huzzas. While it is not the intention to sell short this amiable comedy-drama about a pair of smalltown medical practitioners, the fact is that "Welcome Stranger" misses by a considerable margin the high mark in entertainment established by its distinguished predecessor.

Comparisons are, at best, invidious, but sometimes they are unavoidable. And certainly Paramount invited such when it consciously determined to capitalize on the phenomenal success of "Going My Way" by reuniting Crosby and Fitzgerald under circumstances not too dissimilar in "Welcome Stranger." This time the boys are joined by Hippocratic allegiance rather than ecclesiastical bonds, but the film still tells the story of a young man and his relationship with a crotchety elder.

It is an amusingly contrived story for the most part and gets off to a humorous start through a series of engaging misunderstandings between old Doc McRory, planning his first vacation from the good people of Fallbridge in thirty-five years, and his flashily dressed, tune-humming replacement. Jim Pearson's breezy mannerisms and the obvious play he makes for the pretty school teacher at a barn dance going-away party for Doc McRory cause the townsfolk to turn on their New England acerbity. And it is not until circumstances cause him to save the old Doc's life by performing an appendectomy with only the "teach" to assist that his medical ability is recognized.

Despite this blatantly raelodramatic device and the sentimental circumstance wherein Pearson helps McRory to outwit the Chamber of Commerce president, who would deny him the office of superintendent of the town's first hospital, the light bantering spirit of the film is never lost. Credit for this, no doubt, can be shared by Arthur Sheekman, who wrote the script, and Elliott Nugent, who directed, but we are inclined to give the lion's share to the Messrs. Crosby and Fitzgerald.

Both tower over the script through sheer personality, and especially is this true in Mr. Crosby's case, for Mr. Sheekman has not invested the character of Jim Pearson with much substance. Mr. Fitzgerald's Doc McRory is a more rounded individual, and he does have some quaintly flavorsome dialogue—"blatherskite" is one of his less endearing terms for the young assistant. Joan Caulfied is lovely and competent as the teacher and several lesser roles are well turned out, notably Percy Kilbride's taxi driver and Elizabeth Patterson's housekeeper.

Featured on the Paramount stage are Carmen Cavallaro and orchestra; Bob Allen and Leslie Long; Raul and Eva Reyes and Nip Nelson.

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