Easter Parade Epilogue–With Some Rodgers, Arlen and Donaldson

As we mentioned in our last post, we were not able to fit all of the material from Easter Parade into the third post–thus the need for this Epilogue. And as long as we had to go to a fourth post, we thought we would use it to expand on modern dance and torch songs. Modern dance started to replace tap dancing in the 1940’s; by the 1950’s it was the standard type of dancing in such movies as Summer Stock (1950), Singin’ in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1954), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), Funny Face (1957) and Silk Stockings (1957).

We want to compare Judy Garland’s song and dance in Easter Parade (“Mr. Monotony”) with her performance two years later in Summer Stock (“Get Happy”). Some people might object to the comparison because they feel that Harold Arlen’s composition of “Get Happy” is too modern, too much a part of 1950. There is only one problem with this objection; it is factually flawed. “Get Happy” was actually composed by Arlen in 1930 and introduced by Ruth Etting in The Nine-Fifteen Revue. It is the arrangement and choreography that make Judy’s performance so contemporary, not the music. Let’s make the comparison, so that we can see if there are any similarities (other than the costume), starting with the outtake of “Mr. Monotony.”

Now, let’s take a look at the clip of “Get Happy.” For those of you who have seen the movie, Judy had to lose a lot of weight in order to shoot this dance scene. The studio gave her time, and the dance was shot well after the rest of the movie was in the editing room.

Now, let’s go back to a scene near the end of Easter Parade, when Hannah is sure that she has lost Don to Nadine. The subject matter of Judy’s song is similar to the famous song “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” written by Harold Arlen (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the movie, The Sky’s the Limit (1943). While Fred Astaire did an excellent job introducing “One for My Baby” in that movie, it will be forever associated with Frank Sinatra, who gave the song its world-weary tone. Similarly, Judy was asked to pour her heart out to Mike, the bartender, in Irving Berlin’s fine composition, “Better Luck Next Time.”

Now, that is some torch song. And it reminds us of another torch song, written by Richard Rodgers and Larry Hart for their Broadway musical, Simple Simon (1930). The song was made famous by pure luck. During the show’s Boston tryout, the star (Lee Morse) showed up drunk and was summarily discharged by Florenz Ziegfeld, the producer. They rushed in Ruth Etting to take her place; the result was pure magic. Here is her 1930 recording of “Ten Cents a Dance.”

While Ruth did a great job in 1930, movie audiences received the surprise of their lives in 1955 when they went to see MGM’s biopic of the life of Ruth Etting, played by Doris Day. Day was a music stylist known for her slow and breathy singing; however, in Love Me or Leave Me, she gave the performance of her life. In fact, we think she did a better job delivering the Rodgers’ classic than Ruth did in 1930.

We want to make one last comparison between the two singers, using the title song of the biopic as the last example. In 1928, Etting recorded “Love Me or Leave Me,” a wonderful song that Walter Donaldson (music) and Gus Kahn (lyrics) had written for the 1928 Broadway musical Whoopee, starring Eddie Cantor. Here is Ruth Etting’s 1928 recording.

And here is Doris Day’s version from the 1955 movie.

Finally, for those of you who saw the 1989 movie, The Fabulous Baker Boys, you may be thinking that the song “Ten Cents a Dance” sounds familiar to you. Here is why–this is Michelle Pfeiffer, singing up a storm.