Word: songs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...together for the first cinematic coproduction, a distinction accorded to 20th Century-Fox on the American side." The picture is a cultural casualty. The lesson it preaches may have found its origin in the Maurice Maeterlinck play, first performed by the Moscow Art Theater in 1908. An American popular song of somewhat later vintage, however, says it all, and at least as well: "That bird with feathers of blue/ Is waiting for you/ Right in your own/ Backyard...
...movie gives evidence of having been heavily edited, probably in a Cuisinart. A lot of individual shots do not match. Once in a while, someone breaks into song, suggesting that The Blue Bird may once have been a musical. Director George Cukor is one of the most urbane American film makers (Adam's Rib, Holiday), but here both his good taste and characteristic sophistication have lapsed. Elizabeth Taylor (who plays four roles, including Maternal Love), Ava Gardner (Luxury) and Jane Fonda (who, as Night, is decked out in a costume that makes her look like Ming the Merciless) camp...
Frank Sinatra, L.H.D. The world has come to know you by your song, your cinema and your style...
Material is running scarce. For this sequel to the successful and wistful anthology of big moments from MGM musicals, Gene Kelly has been compelled to enlarge the working definition of "entertainment." This compendium, casual and diverting, still contains a lot of song-and-dance footage. There are, however, frequent excursions into light comedy and heavy melodrama. "It's all entertainment," the narration implies. That is a fair enough generalization, but hardly a unifying theme. There is probably no coherent way to bring together Fred Astaire and Lassie, Judy Garland and Johnny Weissmuller. The strain shows...
...Cola and most of the 1600 actors bought the project on blind faith. Versatile Lead Ken Howard, who played all 13 Presidents, took the job without having seen a line of Lerner's book. British Actress Patricia Routledge, who played all the First Ladies, had heard only one song and Director Frank Corsaro (A Hatful of Rain, The Night of the Iguana) started rehearsals without even a finished second act. "That was," he says now, "a very dangerous situation. I would not have permitted this with any other playwrights...