Word: gaynor
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State Fair (20th Century-Fox) sure is a lucky little old title. In 1932 it was a bestselling novel by Phil Stong, in 1933 a hit movie with Will Rogers, Lew Ayres and Janet Gaynor, in 1945 a second hit movie with Dana Andrews, Jeanne Grain and Dick Haymes. And now State Fair has been turned into a (side bets accepted by Producer Charles Brackett and Director Jose Ferrer) third hit movie-with Pat Boone, Bobby Darin. Tom Ewell, Alice Faye, Pamela Tiffin, Ann-Margret, Wally Cox and an 800-lb. Hampshire hog named George...
Dunster House had two directors for this production, Gaynor Bradish and John Asher, which fact may account for its heterogeneity. They gave up one of the best possibilities of the play, that of delighting the eye with a great Roman spectacle, by giving it in modern dress. Weli, not quite modern dress. Men wore tuxedoes and lit their cigarettes with Zippo lighters, careful not to burn their Edwardian sideburns. Caesonia (Caligula's mistress) appeared in several very Roman costumes, one modern evening gown, and one outfit that would not have been out of place in the chorus line...
Show Girl (music, lyrics and sketches by Charles Gaynor; additional sketches by Ernest Chambers) is mostly Carol Channing, a real win-place-and-show girl with any kind of luck and, even without it, still pleasant to watch. In a "small revue" that could scarcely be smaller-besides Carol, just Jules Munshin and a singing French foursome-versatile Actress Channing performs in three out of every four numbers, often shifting gear right on stage behind a screen. She is very much a show girl in how hard she works, very much more than one in how neatly she gets...
...only as Alfred Lunt, but as a thinly veiled Impresario S. Hurok, Munshin has chances to show his mettle, and Les Quat' Jeudis are agreeably different, or French enough to seem so. As the author of almost everything spoken or sung, Charles Gaynor is not uniformly sprightly. Indeed, Show Girl is full of ups and downs, but is never long enough down for dire trouble, and is often high enough up with its star to be one of the season's few real sources of laughter...
Surprise Package (Columbia) is stuffed with expensive ingredients: Yul Brynner MItzi Gaynor, Noel Coward in front of the camera Director Stanley (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) Donen behind it plus a script by Harry (Reclining Figure} Kurnitz based on a novel (A Gift from the Boys} by Columnist Art Buchwald. But as far as entertainment is concerned, Package contains only what is known in show business as a bomb Director Donen clearly intended to tell a shaggy-dog story the way John Huston did in his hilarious Beat the Devil but unfortunately, Donen's dog turns...