Word: oscarization
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Carmen Jones (music by Georges Bizet; book & lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; produced by Billy Rose) turns the opera that Sir Thomas Beecham once called "the sturdiest oak in the operatic forest" into the most brilliant show on Broadway. If Bizet's Carmen and the all-Negro Carmen Jones live, artistically, on different sides of the railroad tracks, they nevertheless represent the shortest distance between one exciting kind of job and another. Drastic changes have been made. Carmen has been retired in a kiln, not warmed over in an oven. There is no capricious tinkering for tinkering...
...hint of Spain, no highfalutin of opera, clings to these people. Oscar Hammerstein's lively book uses straight Negro idiom, finds room-and here Carmen Jones strikes out boldly for itself-for a pulsating Negro gaiety. Not into Lillas Pastia's dim tavern, but into a packed and glittering night spot, does Husky Miller make his first royal entrance. Instead of hiding out in a smugglers' den, the Carmen Jones crowd cavort and click their heels at a swanky Negro country club...
...always succeed. But there is a great deal of simple saving grace about it. The son, who is bad as a baby and unsure as a boy, is as remarkably good as an adolescent (James West) as Don Ameche is as the father. Henry Morgan deserves a small Oscar as the boy's friend...
...Oscar Hammerstein exhibits considerable ingenuity in transforming the original to a modern setting while still retaining the plot and characters...
When Chief Justice Sir Oscar Daly finished his summation and the jury retired, Freddy had his chauffeur park his car beside the courthouse. But he managed to look solemn when the twelve brought in their verdict, vastly relieved when the words "not guilty" unlocked the mahogany cage for the last time. In a sea of shrieks and yells and jumping natives, Freddy kissed his wife, Sir Harry's 19-year-old daughter Nancy, and his friend, the Marquis de Visdelou-Guimbeau, whose coat of arms is three wolves with their tongues hanging out. Then he dove into...