Word: hammerstein
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...wasted in this glossy but dim-witted adaptation of a favorite junior high school book. Summer is ostensibly about a small-town Jewish girl in Georgia who falls in love with a German P.O.W. (Bruce Davison) during World War II. For reasons that are not clear, Writer Jane-Howard Hammerstein short changes the love story to dwell on the her oine's father (Michael Constantine), a surly merchant with unexplained psychotic tendencies. McNichol and Davison just do not have much to do; their scenes are sexless tableaux vivants, designed to illustrate the story's ample collection of humanitarian...
...tune is too polished, too slick to work well. She obliterated Presley's rough edges and raw power. "Blowing Away," a lethargic, mournful ballad in which producer-manager Asher sings background, dies before it starts, lacking the poignancy that makes Ronstadt's slowest songs click. A 1934 Oscar Hammerstein song, "When I Grow Too Old to Dream," despite a pretty electric piano line, also falls short. Ronstadt plays with a cutesy, childlike voice which makes the song sound almost like a nursery rhyme set to music...
Musicals, of course, are not generally noted for their deep messages or weighty topics. Ever since Rodgers and Hammerstein hit upon the modern musical format with Oklahoma! in 1943, various artists have made rare, usually unsuccessful, attempts to transcend its fluffy nature. Company, however, is an exception, and even though it opts for a conventional pro-marriage outlook, it is refreshing to see a musical dealing with an adult theme...
...song-and-dance woman (Sissy Spacek) who enlists in a second-rate U.S.O. troupe during World War II. A shy orphan with a sweet smile and no discernible talent, Verna fervently believes that a U.S.O. tour overseas will speed her way to superstardom. She even imagines that Rodgers and Hammerstein will write her a musical after the war and promises her fellow troupers supporting roles. Though her pulpy fantasies of fame and fortune are ludicrously out of reach, her brave self-confidence wins over her battered G.I. audiences. The soldiers feel a kinship with the dauntless Verna because she, like...
Stephen Sondheim (A Little Night Music, Company) on why he made the decision to become a composer: "Oscar Hammerstein was my teacher from the time I was eleven. He kept urging me to write. I just wanted to be what he was. If he had been a geologist, I would have been a geologist...