REVIEW:
FORD 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Review - The Ford 50th Anniversary
Last month we took a look at musicals on television, and I reviewed the excellent VAI release Mary Martin, Ethel Merman: their legendary appearance on the Ford 50th anniversary show, June 15, 1953. In between newsletters, I had the good fortune to meet with Allan Altman, Production Manager at VAI. Allan kindly gave me access to the full length show of the Ford 50th Anniversary, and after watching it, I cannot stress enough how frustrating it is that this content is not available to the general public.
Although somewhat lacking in cultural diversity, the program is an ambitious and heartfelt one whose scope is not matched today. A combination of live performance, taped clips, and archival footage, the Ford 50th Anniversary provides an interesting glimpse into American popular entertainment in the mid-twentieth century.
The program opens with a scene from Life with Father, a Broadway play that ran from 1939 to 1947 starring real-life couple Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney (it still holds the record for the longest running play on Broadway). With its outdated gender politics, the scene is painful to watch now.
Kukla and Ollie, puppets from the popular television series Kukla, Fran and Ollie, narrate a hilarious slapstick dance routine “By the Beautiful Sea,” chronicling beachwear fashions.
A scene from Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is cleverly presented, with Oscar Hammerstein playing the Stage Manager in real time on the stage, and Mary Martin playing Emily Webb on screen. Mary Martin is simply extraordinary to watch, and the scene received rapturous applause from the live audience.
The device of live stage commentary and screen footage is used again later in the program, with Oscar Hammerstein commenting on clips from silent film. Hammerstein optimistically notes “we used to think Klansmen were heroes, maybe we are getting smarter.”
Kukla and Ollie reappear to provide levity from the heaviness of previous scene, and with the use of silent film and news reel footage celebrate Ford’s invention of the assembly line and mass production.
Accompanied by an unnamed African American jazz ensemble, Ethel Merman sings a tribute to Irving Berlin, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” The number is exciting because we feel the energy exchange between Merman and the live audience.
Comedian Wally Cox appears throughout the program in sketches trying out self-help and how-to books on a range of topics including relaxation, ukulele, and dance.
Apart from the numbers that are presented in the Ethel Merman and Mary Martin DVD, the highlight of the first half of the show is an extensive dance routine set in front of a jazz club and performed by 13 dancers. Choreographed by Jerome Robbins, the number is fun, playful and silly, and captured with inventive camera work. The piece has the energy, and many of the dance steps, from “Hernando’s Hideaway” and “Once a Year Day” from The Pajama Game, which Robbins would direct the following year. It is incredible to think what the number would have looked like in color, or live in person. The live audience responded enthusiastically, not just at the end of the number, but throughout it too.
After a pause for advertisements (oh, for television specials to be broken into two acts with only one break for commercials!), the program returns with a skit on the stock market crash that makes clever use of television magic.
A segment on crooners follows, with Rudy Vallee and Eddie Fisher performing live, and Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby appearing on tape.
Wally Cox’s learning to dance segment is followed by a wonderful dance segment featuring the aforementioned ensemble. Once again, the piece is filmed with inventive camera angles and is a great capture of terrific dancing.
Celebrated singer Marian Anderson is introduced with a voice over and an image of an album cover. It is curious that no other performer is introduced this way. She sings a a beautiful rendition of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”
Whilst footage of the atomic bomb plays behind them, journalist Edward R. Murrow and Oscar Hammerstein discuss the future of the American people. They note that “if people have invented war, they better invent peace,” and discuss the importance of education, and promoting the idea of dissent not being equal to disloyalty. The duo also share that Americans are an “impatient and improbable people,” and that “we are unlikely to solve our problems with dollars or bombs.”
Henry Ford II makes an appearance, and wonders what the next 50 years will hold and encourage the audience to “greet the unknown with a cheer.”
The program closes with Marian Anderson singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
The Ford 50th Anniversary is a daring variety show that is unmatched in recent times in scope or tone. The difficult task of negotiating rights, royalties, and permissions to make this production once again available to the public would be an enormous undertaking. I hope one day it will be possible.
Although somewhat lacking in cultural diversity, the program is an ambitious and heartfelt one whose scope is not matched today. A combination of live performance, taped clips, and archival footage, the Ford 50th Anniversary provides an interesting glimpse into American popular entertainment in the mid-twentieth century.
The program opens with a scene from Life with Father, a Broadway play that ran from 1939 to 1947 starring real-life couple Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney (it still holds the record for the longest running play on Broadway). With its outdated gender politics, the scene is painful to watch now.
Kukla and Ollie, puppets from the popular television series Kukla, Fran and Ollie, narrate a hilarious slapstick dance routine “By the Beautiful Sea,” chronicling beachwear fashions.
A scene from Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is cleverly presented, with Oscar Hammerstein playing the Stage Manager in real time on the stage, and Mary Martin playing Emily Webb on screen. Mary Martin is simply extraordinary to watch, and the scene received rapturous applause from the live audience.
The device of live stage commentary and screen footage is used again later in the program, with Oscar Hammerstein commenting on clips from silent film. Hammerstein optimistically notes “we used to think Klansmen were heroes, maybe we are getting smarter.”
Kukla and Ollie reappear to provide levity from the heaviness of previous scene, and with the use of silent film and news reel footage celebrate Ford’s invention of the assembly line and mass production.
Accompanied by an unnamed African American jazz ensemble, Ethel Merman sings a tribute to Irving Berlin, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” The number is exciting because we feel the energy exchange between Merman and the live audience.
Comedian Wally Cox appears throughout the program in sketches trying out self-help and how-to books on a range of topics including relaxation, ukulele, and dance.
Apart from the numbers that are presented in the Ethel Merman and Mary Martin DVD, the highlight of the first half of the show is an extensive dance routine set in front of a jazz club and performed by 13 dancers. Choreographed by Jerome Robbins, the number is fun, playful and silly, and captured with inventive camera work. The piece has the energy, and many of the dance steps, from “Hernando’s Hideaway” and “Once a Year Day” from The Pajama Game, which Robbins would direct the following year. It is incredible to think what the number would have looked like in color, or live in person. The live audience responded enthusiastically, not just at the end of the number, but throughout it too.
After a pause for advertisements (oh, for television specials to be broken into two acts with only one break for commercials!), the program returns with a skit on the stock market crash that makes clever use of television magic.
A segment on crooners follows, with Rudy Vallee and Eddie Fisher performing live, and Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby appearing on tape.
Wally Cox’s learning to dance segment is followed by a wonderful dance segment featuring the aforementioned ensemble. Once again, the piece is filmed with inventive camera angles and is a great capture of terrific dancing.
Celebrated singer Marian Anderson is introduced with a voice over and an image of an album cover. It is curious that no other performer is introduced this way. She sings a a beautiful rendition of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”
Whilst footage of the atomic bomb plays behind them, journalist Edward R. Murrow and Oscar Hammerstein discuss the future of the American people. They note that “if people have invented war, they better invent peace,” and discuss the importance of education, and promoting the idea of dissent not being equal to disloyalty. The duo also share that Americans are an “impatient and improbable people,” and that “we are unlikely to solve our problems with dollars or bombs.”
Henry Ford II makes an appearance, and wonders what the next 50 years will hold and encourage the audience to “greet the unknown with a cheer.”
The program closes with Marian Anderson singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
The Ford 50th Anniversary is a daring variety show that is unmatched in recent times in scope or tone. The difficult task of negotiating rights, royalties, and permissions to make this production once again available to the public would be an enormous undertaking. I hope one day it will be possible.