(Not another woman is in sight I guess none of these guys can get a girlfriend.) Bacall performs a musical number in front of a wall of multi-coloured neon lights, each light forming a letter of the alphabet.
#APPLAUSE MUSICAL TV#
The most bizarre scene in this TV special occurs when gayboy Duane brings Margo to his favourite bar in Greenwich Village, where lots of good-looking young men want to meet this aging actress. When Duane demurs that he's got a date, Bacall theatrically tosses her long tawny hair and says 'Bring him along!'. She invites him to escort her to an after-theatre party. In the original film, Margo Channing's dresser was an older woman in 'Applause', this character is a handsome young man named Duane Fox. With its background of Broadway musicals, the gay aspects of the New York theatre get far more than a look-in here. The musicals of Comden and Green contain large amounts of material that's gay-friendly, but not explicitly so.
#APPLAUSE MUSICAL MOVIE#
What is it about gay men and aging actresses? For reasons that elude me, the movie 'All About Eve' is some sort of gay rite of passage. Comden and Green usually wrote the lyrics for their scripts for 'Applause', they were brought into the project after Adams and Strouse had written a score. ('Ba-ba-bee-ba!') 'Applause' is notable for having a script by Broadway veterans Betty Comden and Adolph Green but songs by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse, the team best known for the score of 'Bye Bye Birdie'. She then goes to a party where the guests engage in peculiar scat-singing. The camera shifts into slo-mo, to make sure we don't miss those armpits.
#APPLAUSE MUSICAL FULL#
Bacall waves a Tony Award overhead, wearing a sleeveless gown that gives us a full view of her shaved armpits.
This was done much more easily in the TV version. In the opening scene of the stage musical, there was an awkward tech cue as we hear the thoughts of famed actress Margo Channing (Bacall) in pre-recorded voice-over. For the Broadway and London stage productions of 'Applause' (and this TV version), the trophy was changed to the Tony Award, with permission from the American Theatre Wing (who give out the real Tony Awards). This was (at the time) a fictional award named for a real stage actress following the film's success, there is now a genuine Sarah Siddons Award. 'All About Eve' begins with a ceremony for the Sarah Siddons Award. I didn't understand at the time that this song was inspired by a famous line in the original film. One of the songs in 'Applause' is called 'Fasten Your Seat Belts (It's going to be a bumpy night)', but the song is performed at a party and has nothing to do with air travel. In 1973, I hadn't yet seen the film 'All About Eve', and I couldn't understand why there was so much fuss over this movie. I was peripherally involved in the London production of 'Applause', as a minor staffer in the producer's office. Screenwriter Joseph L Mankiewicz borrowed the name 'Eve Harrington' from the Preston Sturges film 'The Lady Eve', in which a scheming woman named Harrington uses 'Eve' as her criminal alias. 'All About Eve' and 'Applause' were indirectly based on a true incident in the career of European actress Elisabeth Bergner. In the cast of 'Applause', Baxter finally got that chance. In the film 'All About Eve', Baxter had played Eve Harrington, the would-be actress who schemed to take over Margo Channing's life. In one of the most ironic casting choices in history, Bacall was replaced in the Broadway cast by Anne Baxter. After Lauren Bacall starred as Margo Channing in 'Applause' on Broadway, she repeated her starring role in the West End production of that show in London. 'Applause' was a Broadway musical based on the cult movie 'All About Eve', but it differs significantly from that film.
0 kommentar(er)
