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Getting Boxed In

2/27/2019

6 Comments

 
Though this isn't at all an exact connection to the news today, there's a close enough overlap that made me think of it and decide to repost it.  And besides, any opportunity to post something from Fiorello! is one that I'll take.  (I originally posted this when I had my Second "Elisberg Industries International Film Festival" on the musical.

This is the classic "Little Tin Box" number which concerns an investigation into political corruption -- hence why I thought of it.  And the best thing of all is that the video is a re-creation of the Broadway number with the show's original star, Howard DaSilva.

DaSilva is admired but little-known because he had been blacklisted during the McCarthy Years and therefore was in few films and TV broadcasts.  He did have an acclaimed theatrical career, though, notably starring in the original Broadway production of Oklahoma! as Jud Fry, and also years later in the original Broadway production of 1776 (whimsically for a man who had been blacklisted) as Ben Franklin -- a role he did get to re-create in the film version, though he's not on the Broadway cast album, having suffered a heart attack before the recording was made.  He did open the show and later returned to it.  (Not a bad achievement, by the way -- starring in two Broadway musicals that each won both the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize, 1776 and Fiorello!)

All of which is why it was such a treat to find footage completely unexpectedly of Howard DaSilva recreating his "Little Tin Box" number in full costume, set and cast!!!  It came in 1980, 20 years after Fiorello! opened, as part of an HBO special, Standing Room Only: Showstoppers.

(For those who want a little background into how the song fits into the show, here's a brief explanation.  Though Fiorello LaGuardia lost in his race for mayor against the crooked Tammany Hall Machine, it turns out that a crack in the organization was in the near horizon.  And a court case brought many of their illegal dealings, graft and payoffs to light.  The newspapers reported all the strained explanations from the Tammany officials and regulars, down to some trying to insist that they had simply save their money and kept it safe in a "little tin box."  That brought about one of the showstopping numbers in the musical, "Little Tin Box," performed by Howard DaSilva, as Ben Marino, the head of the local Republican Party who'd been pummeled for years by his rivals of Tammany Hall.)

I've seen a lot of performances of "Little Tin Box" over the years -- as I said, it's a showstopping number for it's wit, charm, cleverness and pointed theme.  And most of them are generally very good and done very similar.  This is an uncommon interpretation among them all, unique.  In most versions, the character of Ben and his cronies are all being deeply sarcastic, and ridiculing the deep trouble that Tammany Hall is in.  It's done as a big, broad piece of derision.  Howard DaSilva takes another tack completely -- rather than looking at the troubles of Tammany Hall from the perspective of the plot, making fun of those in troubles, he takes it on from opposite end, from the personal point-of-view.  He sings it as a man simply filled with utter joy that his whole life has just changed, and the criminals and thugs who have been blocking him and his party for years are at last going to jail.  And he's just as pleased and quietly-giddy about it as a man can be.

Here then is that performance, the original Ben Marino -- Howard DaSilva -- singing, "Little Tin Box."  

(You can ignore the introduction written for host Tony Randall, since it has the story completely wrong, described in a way that would instead be less convoluted for the audience and therefore seem to make sense, even if backwards.  The real story, as noted, is that DaSilva and his pals are the good guys, ridiculing the criminals in court.)

Which is another thing that brought today's House hearing to mind...
​
6 Comments
Douglass Abramson
2/27/2019 08:27:25 pm

I'd like to ad a little to your description of DaSilva's movie career. While his blacklisting has impacted his being known by most people today, before the blacklist, he was the villain in a lot of early Noir films. Including several key examples of the genre. Unlike Will Geer, his movie career never recovered from his blacklisting. Which may have something to do with his reputation for being occasionally difficult to work with. What ever the reason, it was the audience's loss. Moving away from DaSilva, have you ever heard why Fiorello! was never adapted for film? Hollywood never stopped musicals. Having Tom Bosley star after Happy Days became a hit would have seemed to be an easy marketing decision.

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Robert Elisberg
2/28/2019 03:09:22 pm

Thanks for the note. I just checked the iMDB, and Howard DaSilva surprisingly turns out to have a lot of credits after the Blacklist. I'd suggest that the biggest difference between him and Will Geer, is that Geer got cast in the TV movie, "The Homecoming," and when that was picked up and turned into the series, "The Waltons," it made him very high profile.

As for "Fiorello!," yes, I've discussed it at length with Sheldon Harnick, and have even taken very small steps to try and get a PBS "Masterpiece" production. (In fact, as the 1976 Bicentennial neared, I tried to use every limited connection I had to get PBS to do "Fiorello!" with Tom Bosley, who was a big star at the time. But my contacts then were much too few.) There may be many reasons, but the main one -- which I understand, but think is INCREDIBLY wrong-headed -- is the perception that only New Yorkers will care about a story about a New York mayor. This is similar thinking to explain why only the Danish would be interested in a play about a moody Danish prince. And why only Argentinians are interested in a story about a former prostitute who marries the dictator.

(There are probably other reasons. One challenge for revivals and other major productions like a movie or TV version is getting a top-name star, since the main title character has very few songs in the show, and almost none in the second act. Harnick and Bock actually added a reprise for Fiorello in the second act about 10-15 years ago. Harnick has tweaked that new reprise a couple times in the subsequent years. It's quite good. So, those are the two most notable reasons, but the "It's just a New York show" is probably predominant. And foolish.)

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Douglass Abramson
2/28/2019 06:29:49 pm

Now I had to run over to IMBD to double check my memory. Geer wasn't in The Homecoming. Edgar Bergen played Grandpa Walton in that holiday telefilm. Patricia Neal played Olivia and Andrew Duggan played John. Most of the rest of the cast either played characters that didn't make the series or are different actors than played the familiar characters in the series. Including a different Ike Godsey and both Baldwin Sisters. The only overlapping actors between the movie and series were Richard Thomas, Ellen Corby and all of the child actors playing the rest of the Walton children. I would love to know how an actor who had spent most of his career on film playing bad men was cast as Zeb Walton, when the part opened up. Typecasting and television being even more pervasive back then than it is today. Maybe someone remembered him from an Old Globe production in the 50s.

Reply
Robert Elisberg
3/1/2019 08:21:02 am

Thanks for that, and for correcting my total brain freeze -- especially odd given my oft-repeated here love of Edgar Bergen. The larger point remains: that to my great surprise (and pleasure) DaSilva did a lot of work after the Blacklist, and that Geer is far better known because he was in "The Waltons".

One other note: to say that the "only" overlaps were Richard Thomas, the kids and Ellen Corby is very true but a flexible use of the word "only." That's like 75% of the main cast.

Douglass Abramson
2/28/2019 06:35:43 pm

I didn't finish everything I meant to. So when people opine that nobody outside of New York City cares about a totally New York story; do they mean something like Beau James (1957)?

Reply
Robert Elisberg
3/1/2019 08:37:57 am

Of course I'm hardly one to defend the explanation, since I think it's monumentally wrong-headed. So, I'm NOT defending it (as I'm certain you know). But the "thinking" is more that it's not just of interest only to New Yorkers, but about local politics and a figure who wasn't known very much outside New York. Jimmy Walker being so flamboyant and forced to resign in scandal was probably a better-known national figure.

We could list all the reasons that's idiotic thinking, given that most cities deal with corruption, and "Fiorello!" is about a main character with two love stories, overcoming the loss off a wife, a public crusader and war hero. But that's what the idiotic thinking was. The show was a surprise hit, always considered a "small" show compared to "The Sound of Music" and "West Side Story" the same year" (even though it tied with the first for the Best Musical Tony and beat the latter, and then won the Pulitzer Prize). And it didn't have a Big Name Huge Star would could repeat his role for a movie. (By the time "Happy Days" came around, 15 years had passed, and even then he was a supporting star and TV. But -- they SHOULD have done a PBS production, especially for the Bicentennial.

It is idiotic thinking. But there's a long history of that in Hollywood, and elsewhere. Absolutely a movie should have been made, at least for TV. But however idiotic the thinking, it was unfortunately and foolishly seen as "just" a New York story about a little New York politician only New York would care about. Hurt too by the other issues I mentioned. It doesn't get done much in the theater, but when it is, my guess is it's usually very well-received.

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    Robert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 

    Elisberg is a two-time recipient of the Lucille Ball Award for comedy screenwriting. He's written for film, TV, the stage, and two best-selling novels, is a regular columnist for the Writers Guild of America and was for
    the Huffington Post.  Among his other writing, he has a long-time column on technology (which he sometimes understands), and co-wrote a book on world travel.  As a lyricist, he is a member of ASCAP, and has contributed to numerous publications.



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