Some Enchanted Yom Kippur

As Jews around the world are busy getting ready for the solemn Day of Atonement that begins tonight, I naturally have only one thing on my mind: Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals.

Okay, maybe it’s not the best preparation for the most important holiday in the Jewish calendar, but it’s meaningful to me. I’ve been attending the Rodgers & Hammerstein film festival that’s been going on at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and continues on for three more weeks. And, watching these films again as an adult, I find myself re-evaluating them in a Jewish context.

On the surface, can you think of a more goyishe set of stories than Rodgers & Hammerstein’s film canon? You’re about as likely to find a Jewish character in these musicals as you are to find Nellie Forbush singing that she’s gonna wash that “mensch” right outta her hair before donning her sheidel, the wig that orthodox women wear. It ain’t gonna happen. And yet, despite their total lack of Chosen People, the six films in this series—“Carousel,” “South Pacific,” “The King and I,” “Oklahoma!” “Flower Drum Song,” and “The Sound of Music,” are rife with Jewish themes.

Because of their names, I grew up thinking that Richard Rodgers was Gentile and Oscar Hammerstein II Jewish. Turns out it’s the other way around…sort of. Rodgers was born in Queens to a prominent Jewish doctor who had changed the family name from Abrahams in an attempt to blend more easily into his world of privilege. Rodgers’ mother was born Mamie Levy, the daughter of Jewish immigrants. Oscar Hammerstein’s father came from a non-religious Jewish family but his mother Alice was the daughter of Scottish immigrants and Hammerstein was raised as a Christian. Yet the weight of the assimilation and intermarriage both boys grew up with had a profound effect on their work.

Only two films have been screened so far in this series and I went to both of them. It’s always exciting to see these high quality studio prints in a big theatre with an appreciative audience. I was especially excited about seeing “Carousel,” the 1956 musical starring Gordon MacRae as ne’er-do-well carnival barker Billy Bigelow, and Shirley Jones as his pure-as-the-driven-snow gal, Julie Jordan. I loved this movie as a kid and always remembered it as the first movie that made me cry from its sheer poignancy, especially during the last scene in which we see how much the deceased Billy, visiting from the hereafter, really does love his wife and troubled daughter.

Rodgers & Hammerstein adapted “Carousel” from the 1909 play “Liliom,” written by Hungarian Jewish playwright Ferenc Molnar. The original play was set in Budapest and featured several Jewish characters, including the successful businessman who would become Mr. Snow in “Carousel” and the robbery victim Linzmann who would be transformed into wealthy mill owner Mr. Bascombe. Dick and Oscar changed the locale of the story to Maine, possibly the least Jewish state in the Union, added an authentic New England clambake and a lot of dancing, and disappeared all overt references to Jews. Still, they retained the dark tone of Molnar’s work and succeeded in creating the first musical with a tragic theme. “Carousel” opened on Broadway in April 1945, a few days before Adolph Hitler’s suicide in his bunker just prior to Germany’s defeat in World War II. It took over 10 years to get the movie to the screen. While still presented as a tragedy, several key points from the play were “cleaned up” for 1950s audiences, especially how Billy dies. In the play, he kills himself rather than get caught during a botched robbery attempt. There is almost a noble aspect to his suicide. He knows that he has screwed up his life and is causing Julie too much pain so he decides to end it all rather than drag her down any further. But in the movie, he accidentally falls on his knife during the robbery and dies from his wounds. Much weaker, but I guess the censors at the time couldn’t handle the idea of putting a positive spin on a suicide.

On the other hand, the film does romanticize Billy and it presents his relationship with Julie as a tragic but beautiful love story. Watching “Carousel” as a kid, I cheered when Julie willingly let herself be fired from her job at the mill so she could stay out late with that rascal Billy. “You go, girl!” I thought. “Take the risk and go for your dreams. You and Billy are meant to be together!” Watching the film as an adult, I wanted to shout something else at Shirley Jones’ lovely Julie Jordan. “ARE YOU NUTS?!” Billy Bigelow is clearly a dangerous sociopath with the maturity of a seven-year-old and the ethics and morals of a back alley criminal. Julie’s devotion to him is certifiable, clearly a side effect of the abusive relationships she must have had with her father and the other men in her life. The fact that we’re supposed to cheer for this ill-fated union makes my skin crawl today. There is not a single scene in which Billy Bigelow shows anything to Julie other than out-of-control narcissism and male bravado. He is selfish, spoiled, physically violent, and emotionally crippled. When Julie gets pregnant and Billy finally starts thinking about his responsibilities as a husband and father, his only solution is to hook up with his sleazy friend Jigger Craigin and commit a dangerous crime.

When I saw the film years ago I cried when Billy died, wondering how Julie and their baby daughter could possibly make it in the world without him. This time I felt relieved that they were free of this maniac. I used to buy the redemption scene at the end of the film hook, line, and sinker. Now I just rolled my eyes. Sure, Billy comes down to earth (after expressing great reluctance) and ultimately helps his wife and child at the girl’s high school graduation. How does he do so? By hearing the principal’s inspiring speech about faith, leaning down to both of them, and saying, “Listen to him! Believe it!” Big deal. I realize I’m being terribly judgmental and unforgiving, not exactly what Jews strive for in the hours before Yom Kippur. Perhaps my perspective on Billy has changed so much because I can imagine how I’d feel if my daughter were to be attracted to someone like that. A lot of our culture still glorifies the sexy and dangerous “bad boys” while making fun of the so-called boring dependable types. I just hope Leah learns to see through the surface charms of people like Billy Bigelow and can instead appreciate the dependability and kindness of a Mr. Snow. “Carousel” has many beautiful Rodgers & Hammerstein songs. It was the duo’s favorite collaboration and Shirley Jones’ favorite film. Still, Shirley’s biggest number is like a Codependents Anonymous cry for help:

Common sense may tell you
That the ending will be sad,
And now’s the time to break and run away.
But what’s the use of wond’ring
If the ending will be sad?
He’s your feller and you love him,
There’s nothing more to say.

Oy, run, Shirley, run! I’ve seen Shirley Jones around town with her on-and-off-again husband Marty Ingels and frankly, more than fifty years after “Carousel,” I’m not sure she’s learned her lesson.

I was far less excited about seeing “South Pacific,” the 1958 film starring Rosanno Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor. As a kid, I always found this film to be a bore and the decision by director Joshua Logan to place monochromatic colored filters over the camera lens whenever the characters broke into song drove me crazy. Like most Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, the film version followed a successful stage production, and my assessment had always been that while “Carousel” represented a highly successful stage-to-screen transfer, “South Pacific” was a huge miss, including the replacement of Broadway star Mary Martin with young Mitzi Gaynor. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found that I could barely sit through the infuriating “Carousel” and yet I was riveted to every frame of “South Pacific” which I found timely and expertly done. I thought that Mitzi Gaynor’s performance was nuanced and delightful—why had I dismissed her all these years?

“South Pacific” was adapted by Rodgers & Hammerstein from James Michener’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Tales from the South Pacific.” The musical, which opened on Broadway in 1949 and dealt with the nearly taboo subject of racial prejudice, also won the Pulitzer Prize as well as 9 Tonys including the never repeated feat of winning every single acting award that year. The number of songs from this show that have become standards is mind-boggling, “Some Enchanted Evening” and “Younger Than Springtime” among them.

The story takes place on an island in the Pacific during the throes of World War II. A young U.S. Army nurse from Arkansas named Nellie Forbush is stationed there and falls in love with Emile de Becque, a French plantation owner who lives on the island. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Joe Cable of the U.S. Marine Corps arrives to plan a secret spy mission that might turn the tide in the war with Japan. While on the island, he meets and falls in love with a young Polynesian girl named Liat. As the story progresses, Nellie and Joe’s latent prejudice rears its ugly head. Nellie finds out that Emile’s late wife was Polynesian and his two children are biracial. For an Arkansas girl, the idea of becoming stepmother to these two half-breeds is abhorrent and she backs away from Emile. Oh, Mitzi, Mitzi, we hardly knew ye! Although in love with Liat, Joe can’t fathom marrying his dark-skinned girl either, even if it means saving her from a loveless match to a much older man. Though they both feel bad about their bigotry, neither Nellie or Joe think they have a choice in the matter. Cable then sings a provocative song that the censors tried to cut from the play and film because of its sensitive nature. Luckily, Rodgers and Hammerstein fought for the song and it remained.

Youve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

Pretty damn daring for that time and I’m guessing a song that resonated with Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Jewish backgrounds. I found this film to be challenging and profound and wildly entertaining, even with the damn filters that, to his credit, director Logan later said was the worst mistake of his entire career.

Tonight, as we gather in our synagogue to hear the haunting Kol Nidre prayer, the museum will be screening “The King and I,” another tale of bicultural relations and prejudices. Tomorrow they’re showing “Oklahoma!” featuring repeat performances by Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. Macrae’s Curly is just as arrogant as Billy Bigelow but has other redeeming characteristics, thank God. None of the characters in “Oklahoma!” would have recognized a Jew if he slapped them in the face, although the traveling Persian peddler, the exotic and slightly shady Ali Hakim, might as well have been Jewish. In the Broadway version of the play, Hakim was played by a well known star of the Yiddish theatre while in the movie, the odd decision was made to cast the Aryan-looking Eddie Albert in the role. The dangerous Jud, played by Rod Steiger, also evoked the Jew’s outsider status in this country. Professor Andrea Most, writing about Jews and the history of musical theatre, maintains that Rodgers & Hammerstein's “Oklahoma!” symbollically pitted Jews against African Americans even though there were no Jews or blacks in the show:

But there are two outsiders who need to be assimilated: the peddler, Ali Hakim, and the threatening farmhand, Jud…The peddler ends up marrying into the extended Oklahoma family, while the “bullet-colored” Jud—described in the stage directions as singing “like a Negro at a revivalist meeting”—must ultimately be expunged. While Ali represents Jews’ hopes of moving into white America, Jud personifies the qualities that Jews feared would make them black.

Next week the festival will be screening “Flower Drum Song,” yet another tale of the benefits and pitfalls of assimilation, and “The Sound of Music,” a story about Nazis and World War II without a single mention of Jews (but with plenty of hidden Jewish content).

And now I must get ready for our services tonight in which my list of transgressions may come close in length to Billy Bigelow’s. Surely, the Rodgers & Hammerstein song that is the focal point of Billy’s redemption scene at the end of “Carousel” is the pair’s most Jewish song of all. It could almost be considered an anthem for Jews everywhere.

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Though your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone,
You’ll never walk alone!

Comments

[OldOldLady Of The Hills]

Well, my dear Danny...I beg to differ with you on a couple of points...and some, not mentioned by you...FIRST: Let me say, I am deeply prejudiced when it comes to R&H shows...Seeing them in the theatre, AND with the Original Broadway companies has caused this prejudice in me. Seeing them---particularly OKLAHOMA & CAROUSEL on film---to my mind and my heart---in pale, pale, incredibly PALE versions of the "Original Broadway Shows" makes me feel that you have never really seen the power of some of these "Musical Shows"....Okay so, let's start with "Carousel"...One of the GREATEST Musical Scenes EVER WRITTEN for the Musical Theatre occurs in this show (and Billy is not mean or horrible to Julie in this scene...). The entire "If I Loved You" song/scene....Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant! To see it performed on a stage, as it should be seen, shows the "love" that these two people have for one another and screwed up though it may be...shows WHY they 'get together'...The entire Song/Scene, says it all, and moves the plot along....a rare happening in Musical Theatre, till "Oklahoma"....

"What's The Use Of Wonderin'" Shows Julie's ambivilence and shows that she knows Billy is a "bad boy", but she cannot help herself anyway. How human is that??? Oh yes, it may be sick as all get out, BUT, it represents millions and millions of people and their feelings and their dilemma's in relationships. This was part of the BRILLIANCE of the collaboration of R&H....!

And maybe it was an oversight, or maybe it is because in the film of "CAROUSEL", this was another example of a "pale" rendering of one of the most incrediblly moving amd powerful songs ever written for the Musical Theatre, but, you didn't even mention---The Soliloquey, which Billy sings. The changes he goes through in this 'musical' scene/song; the temnderness that he shows he is more than capable of, the love---however fucked up it was---(John Raitt....BRILLIANT beyond words...moved to tears doesn't even descibe the feelings)---that is such an important component of our "buying" this entire story, is ALL there in that fantastic musical sequence.

So, as you may have gathered by now, I personally never liked the the film versions of "CAROUSEL" or "OKLAHOMA"....again, Oklahoma was a very pale rendering of one of the greatest Musical Theatre experiences of my life, having seen it two short weeks after it opened on Broadway, and even at my young age, I knew I was seeing something amazing! The CHOREOGRAPHY by Agnes DeMille---Masterful....Expressing in dance, the story. Advancing the story, if you will, just as the "If I Loved You" Musical Sequence did in "Carousel". ALL things we take for granted now in Musical Theatre. (Well, not anymore, I guess....) The "Golden Age of Broadway" was 'the Golden Age' because of heightened moving experiemces like these mentioned, and the purity of the experience--it has stayed with me ALL these years, and I have seen many Stage Productions of both these shows since that time, including S.T.A.G.E.'s Tribute to R&H...Even the worst of them were better than those films.

I will stop for the moment, my dear Danny, and I hope I haven't offended you...

Again, I wish you and Kendall a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR, and a solemn Yom Kippur.

[Danny]

Offended, Naomi? Are you kidding, I love it! I'm just so envious that you got to see all these original shows, I want to hear every detail. You are so lucky to have been there during that Golden Age. I'm sure the movies do pale by comparison although they have their own good points. Wouldn't you say that the film of "The Sound of Music" is just as powerful as the stage version? And possibly "The King and I" as well?

I hear you about those "Carousel" songs and how they show the characters' struggles with their feelings. Perhaps I condemned Billy Bigelow a little too harshly (at least the Gordon MacRae version—and by the way, I really like Gordon MacRae!) but I still think I'd lock my daughter in her room rather than see her go off with a guy like that. Sure, he loved Julie, but he was T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

[Elisabeth]

All I can think about when I hear the names of two of those musicals you mentioned, South Pacific and is how my not-so-ex-husband hates them because he finds them terribly demeaning to the indigenous population of the countries in which they are set. I have to admit, though, never to have seen The King and I, even the classic movie version with Yul Brynner.

[churlita]

Wow, this post brought back a lot of memories. My mother loved musicals. As a girl I knew all the lyrics to every R and H musical. I too loved Carousel and identified with the troubled daughter. Thanks for reminding me.

[Julie R.]

Danny, I'm sure Kendall has already told you this, but there's an Oakwood connection with Shirley Jones. Her youngest son, Ryan, was in my class from 4th to 9th (I think) grade. She chaperoned our 4th-grade whale-watching trip, and she was very nice. This memory is neither here nor there as far as your post is concerned, but I thought I'd mention it.

I've never been a fan of movie musicals, but your post has made me want to watch some. Last night I saw a few minutes of "Brigadoon" on PBS. The fact that I watched only a few minutes probably clues you in to my feelings about it. If you saw it and liked it, I'd be interested in reading your opinion.

[Neil]

Only you can find some Jewish themes in the most un-Jewish of all movie musicals (although we used to sing some prayer in Hebrew school to the tune of Oklahoma, much to the dismay of our rabbi).

[Shephard]

Really enjoyed reading this one. :) I have always resonated to those quoted lyrics as well. I have to say, I have a hard time watching the film version of Carousel for all the reasons you mentioned. I like South Pacific better. :)

~S

[char]

Brilliant as ever, Danny. I've never seen SP; now I'll have to watch it.

[Miss Syl]

It is strange how those old musicals change for us from kids to adults. I remember absolutely *adoring* "The Pajama Game" as a kid. I rented it as an adult a few years back, expecting to be delighted with it, and I was shocked to see all the "jokey" references to seriously inappropriate sexism and worse, sexual violence. I hadn't remembered any of that from watching it as a kid; and it made me really wonder about why not, and what I'd absorbed as acceptable.

Still, I do remember as a kid thinking "How To Succeed in Business Without Even Trying" was completely awful in its treatement of women--remember that song "A Secretary is Not a Toy" where the choreography expressed just the opposite? And I remember seeing Carosel performed as a really small girl, and being really disturbed by it. My father loved (and still does love) that musical (though he's a very kind man, nothing like Billy). he's always thought it was highly romantic story and presented it to me as such before we went, and when I saw it I just didn't understand. I distinctly remember Billy slapping Julie in the play, and being extraordinarily gruff and mean to her, and turning and asking my dad why she was staying with him when he was so mean. I think he must have said, "Because she's in love with him," or something; but I remember just not getting it, why Julie liked him when he was nothing but mean to her, why we were supposed to like Billy at all or care what happened to him.(Though I myself in later years have been guilty on occasion of falling for a "bad boy"--but not THAT bad.)

And I remember thinking the play was really scary and sad, and not understanding why anyone liked it. I still get a feeling of creepiness from that initial impression of it whenever I hear it mentioned or see it on TV. I've actually deliberately avoided watching it all these years since I've grown up because of it.

[Miss Syl]

South Pacific, on the other hand, I've always loved. And I just saw Flower Drum Song on one of the classic movie channels a month or two ago and still thought it was pretty adorable, if naive.

[Kate]

I that was a really great post. I never thought to work Jewish thought into R&H musicals. Fantastic!

K.

[Rebekah]

I have only seen three of the musicals mentioned and, go figure, they do not include Carousel and South Pacific. However, now that I have read your personal review of those, I am intrigued. I will have to rent them, despite your disfavor of Carousel. Even though I will probably feel the same about Billy Bigelow myself. :)