Music
Hi there and welcome again to the Golden Years of Hollywood
and to our big feature tonight, the film version of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma was the first of the many successful collaborations
between Richard Rogers, the music, and Oscar Hammerstein's second lyrics and story.
Now its beginning wasn't really auspicious.
It was a 1943 musical so it was put on during wartime in the USA
and it was put on also by an in trouble theatre guild
almost on its last legs with unknowns in the starring roles.
It was based on a play called Greengrove the Lilacs which itself was a flop.
Well the rest is history. It became one of Broadway's longest running successes
with 2,212 performances on Broadway alone
and then again a few years later in London with 1,500 odd performances.
And then the unknowns turned out to be Alfred Drake, Celeste Holm and Howard De Silva
the latter two going into movies. In fact I think Alfred Drake made a couple too.
12 years later tonight's film was made with a different but equally good cast.
The two leads Gordon McCrae and Shirley Jones as Curly and Laurie.
And as Annie, how do Annie that is, Gloria Graham, Will Parker
an excellent dancer, Jean Nelson. In fact it's surprising to see just how good he was.
As Ali Harkham, Eddie Albert who's still around of course
and as Judd Frye an ominous and slightly over the top Rod Steiger.
Also you'll see James Whitmore and J.C. Flippen.
I hope you know the names, you might remember the faces but they are two excellent character actors
who have a real folksy charm in this. Well it's necessary for Oklahoma.
Of the stage originals only Agnes DeMille the choreographer and some of the dancers worked on the film.
But it's a quite faithful reconstruction of a lovely show.
As the director Fred Zimmerman was a pretty odd choice because his previous film two years earlier
was From Here to Eternity which won Academy Awards and of course is very dramatic.
And this was his first musical and he faced it with trepidation.
He's obviously happier with the dramatic bits.
The great songs which are now standards quite naturally flow out of the story
and this was the unique thing of Oklahoma at the time that it was first brought out on the Broadway stage.
To my way of thinking the dancers and the dancing, the chorus work, the choral work almost steal the show.
And I must be frank I felt the same about the stage production we've recently seen here in Adelaide.
Well let's get to it. There's butter to be churned, the corn is ripe and the right height
and it's a lovely morning in Oklahoma.
Well whilst we're in intermission just a word or two about tonight's late show.
It's a very pleasing little film and I mean little in the sense that it's not very long.
It's just over one hour, 63 minutes or something.
But it does give us a great opportunity to see George Sanders as a young man when he did romantic leads
with a nice sardonic edge too.
Now you're probably aware that he played the saint in a number of films
and this similar character called the Falcon around about the same period of time.
The other players are very good tonight too, the sultry Lynn Barry and one of my favourite characters
who plays a beautiful nut and that's Hans Conreid.
It's called The Falcon Takes Over and we'll follow Oklahoma tonight.
And we'll be joining Oklahoma again in just a few moments.