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Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
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Kent Rasmussen <[log in to unmask]>
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Thu, 16 Mar 2017 17:21:59 -0700
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I just noticed that the 1948 biopic WORDS AND MUSIC is on the Turner 
Classic Movies on-demand list through March 23. This film about the 
partnership of Richard Rodgers (Tom Drake) and Lorenz Hart (Mickey 
Rooney) is a lot of fun to watch for its music alone, but I'm 
recommending it here because it contains a scene from the 1927 Broadway 
musical CONNECTICUT YANKEE. In that scene, June Allyson plays Sandy 
singing "Thou Swell." I have no idea how faithful the movie's version of 
that number is to the original Broadway rendition, but it's certainly 
entertaining. (I used a still photo from the scene in my entry on 
"Broadway plays" in CRITICAL COMPANION TO MARK TWAIN.)

The film ends with Hart dying at the same moment a revival of 
CONNECTICUT YANKEE in opening on Broadway in 1943. We see the theater's 
marquee and billboards and hear the overture but don't see anything 
happening on stage.

I've heard of modern revivals of the musical but imagine most of them 
have been revised and perhaps updated. The only version I've ever seen 
is the 1955 NBC television producing, starring Eddie Albert at the 
Yankee and Janet Blair as Sandy. That version, which is available on 
DVD, has most of Rodgers and Hart's music, but its musical numbers lack 
the spectacle of the WORDS AND MUSIC "Thou Swell" number.

Incidentally, the Rodgers and Hart CONNECTICUT YANKEE has nothing to do 
with Bing Crosby's 1949 musical version of the story.

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