Word: versions
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...first trip back to Moscow since the war, Paul Robeson (see U.S. AFFAIRS) was a howling success. "You know how I feel to be back on Soviet soil," he told a cheering audience in Tchaikovsky Hall. He sang in English, French, Spanish and Russian, and tried out his own version of some of the words in Ol' Man River ("We must fight to death for peace and freedom"). He also introduced to the Russians an old favorite called Scandalize My Name, and dedicated it to the "socalled free Western press." The comrades loved every minute...
...daughter to a poet by taking him on a trip to the moon. It sounded like fun, but the first problem was to find the score. Il Mondo had been resurrected in Germany in 1932, but had never been produced in the U.S. Leavitt finally found the German version through a Manhattan publisher, changed the name to The Man in the Moon, and set about squeezing it down for Lemonade Opera...
...reverent greeting in keeping with his shy, devotional manner. The lights went down; a solemn hush spread over the joint. With Charlie Barnet's big brass backing him, Eckstine gave them Somehow, in big, rich tones (he sings open-throated, instead of whispering into a microphone). His version of Ellington's Caravan had the fans hitting the trail (along with more than 1,000,000 record buyers). In his own rubbery phrasing, he stretched Ol' Man River to twice the length of the Mississippi, but the audience ate up every mile...
British exhibitors shrewdly let the critics see both versions. Last week the censored version opened at London's Odeon and broke all attendance records. From the critics it drew more compliments than quibbles. Sample from the Daily Express: ". . . The finest thing Hollywood has ever done . . . When the end came . . . I was crying." But The Snake Pit's finest tribute came in a censor-dictated line in the British foreword: "Remember-all the characters you see on the screen are played by actors and actresses...
...Woman's Story (Rank; Universal-International) has been told often and better by Hollywood. In this ill-advised British-made version, the glamorous, irresolute heroine (Ann Todd) decides to marry wealth and security (Claude Rains), but she cannot bring herself to let go of romance (Trevor Howard...