I just decided that this is what today needs. So, from the 1952 film Singin' in the Rain, here is Donald O'Connor singing the song, "Make 'Em Laugh." But we'll add a couple of bonus videos to this. In 1984, on a trip to London, I saw the premiere production of a stage version of Singin' in the Rain, which starred -- and was directed by -- Tommy Steele. It was pretty enjoyable, notably the title song (done in full rain, after surreptitiously rolling out a a full-stage platform with borders to keep the water in (a London revival of which I posted here) and "Make 'em Laugh" done live in one take, no cuts by Roy Castle -- who got a Tony nomination as Harry Secombe's sidekick in the Broadway production of Pickwick. Some of the stunts had to be trimmed down for reasons of reality, but most of it was pretty close. This video below isn't from that original production, but the stage show has had a respectable life, and even went to Broadway a year later and ran for almost a year -- this is from one of those subsequent productions, Scott Barnhardt performing the number in 2007 at the acclaimed Goodspeed Theatre in Connecticut. Which brings us to one more bonus video. For the longest time, I confused "Make 'em Laugh" with the Cole Porter song, "Be a Clown," from the 1948 movie, The Pirate, also with Gene Kelly, as well as Judy Garland. I thought maybe they were the same song, and I was confusing one for something else, but wasn't sure. But then I heard a story told by one of the people in the film -- I don't recall who, if it was Gene Kelly or Donald O'Connor, or the screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green, or a co-producer or who. It could have been Stanley Donen, who co-directed the film with Kelly. But my confusion became clear. The impetus for making Singin' in the Rain came from Arthur Freed, who headed up a highly-regarded production unit at MGM. Earlier in his career, he had been a successful lyricist with composer Nacio Herb Brown, and he thought it would be a good idea to make a movie built around their library of songs. And Freed served as the film's producer. At one point, it was decided that they needed a comic number for Donald O'Connor, but there wasn't one that was just right among Freed and Brown's existing work. So, though they hadn't written together for a long while, they were approached to write a brand new song, a comedy piece that was sort of in the vein of "Be a Clown." A few days or perhaps a week later, Freed came back with that new number, "Make 'em Laugh." And the person telling the story (whoever it was) said, "We realized that they not only wrote a song that was in the vein of 'Be a Clown'...they wrote 'Be a Clown'! And we didn't know what to do. How do you tell the legendary Arthur Freed, a great songwriter and producer of the movie, that he'd stolen from Cole Porter. So, we didn't say anything. And used the song." It's still a wonderful song. And the "steal" wasn't intentional. And much of the reason for the joy of the number is the great comedy choreography and performance by Donald O'Connor. And for those who aren't sure that the two songs are really that similar, here is "Be a Clown."
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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