On the Fritz
Stuart Heisler's rather tame 1946 Technicolor-musical Irving Berlin revue is well worth seeing — this does come, after all, from the director of the mighty Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman of the following year. No shattered tumblers in Blue Skies though. What Heisler delivers are discrete moments of beauty (see the "Blue Skies" scene alone — a sublime moment) that make for one of the oddest paces in any film I can think of. (See the terrific one-man drag sketch at the dinner club.) Fred Astaire (Jed, here a Renaissance man broadcaster, dancer, singer, director for stage) vies with Bing Crosby (Johnny) for the heart of nightclub showgirl Joan Caulfield (Mary). 'Only one man will succeed' — there's no equivocating by film-end as to whether or not Johnny or Jed can proclaim victory. Joan's a bit of a dud; Crosby kept her on the picture following the death of scheduled director Mark Sandrich at the start of production, which is when Heisler took over the enterprise. Bing, you see, was banging Joan... That aside, among the female cast members Nita (Olga San Juan) truly stands out — she with the superhuman midriff, with the facial expressions of a seasoned pro — something fallen from the blue skies: but no, with the duo of Jed (surgically modified teeth) and Johnny (aux perles naturelles) all Mary, Mary, Mary. Maybe only Heisler had the sense good enough to put Olga to worthy use, then to secret his daily rushes from Bing. In one notable number, Olga/Nita sports a white feathery headdress that brings to mind a celebratory blast of ectoplasm erupting from her skull.
The weakness of Blue Skies lies largely in the flatness of its scenes, and, up to a point (say, the famous mirrored-Astaire performance of "Puttin' on the Ritz"), the uninventiveness of the production design. (Every mansion soirée in American movies of the 1940s and 50s requires a room off the main hall used as a library chamber or drawing-room, where lovers are able sneak off to trade confidentialities over Scotch and soda and chamomile. There's no 'charge' to the sets — a cardinal mistake in any concerted attempt to work the mise-en-scène. One must have a mind of winter beneath deceptive blue skies... •
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A quick note: Friday afternoon saw me at the dump AMC near my house, where I watched Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis: A Fable. Still processing the experience, a roundabout beeline to the soul, if one will. All told, maybe the finest epic of America's endgame 21st century since the Malick/Criterion cut of The Tree of Life. Watch this space for more on FFC's fabulous artistic gambit. •
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