Word: merman
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...VIDEO: " 'Hollywood Rhythm,' Kino on Video?s four-cassette release of 31 musical shorts from 1929 to 1941, is something to sing about," writes TIME's Richard Corliss. "They reveal terrific artists -- Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman, Ginger Rogers -- in their early prime, making the music that made them famous. The films have the audacity of the talkies? youth: the films are filled with racial caricatures, and you?ll hear ?hell? and ?damn? in the 1929 Makers of Melody. But the tunes sound fresh, the interpretations supple. They embody the spirit of the Hollywood musical...
...video becomes less compelling, however, when addressing Leland's death from AIDS. While Leland indeed might have sung Ethel Merman's hits from "Gypsy" at his death bed, it is frustrating to see yet another media portrayal of a gay man as a show-tune singing, camp-obsessed queen. It is hard to feel any connection to Leland, since Braderman rarely shows the substance and humanity behind the stereotype. Only when she shows the viewer a photograph of her friend, could I feel any attachment...
Over the years Midler saw the Russell film and Lansbury and Daly on stage. She never saw Merman. Yet it was Merman, whose voice and manner were as brassy as Midler's own, who haunted her. "It was one of those legendary performances I'd always heard about. Her spirit and the history of the part were always looming over me." There are moments when she seems inhabited by Merman's ghost, either in vocal inflections or in her movements, which are occasionally as corseted and semaphoric as the Merm's. Yet for the most part, Midler makes the role...
...Gleason in Take Me Along. Yet it is probably best remembered among devotees for a show business story called Gypsy, which was based on the memoirs of a stripteaser's rivalry with her actress sister but evolved into a harrowing portrait of their implacable stage mother, played by Ethel Merman in her final and, many feel, greatest origination of a Broadway role...
...actresses, the idea of emulating Merman is intimidating, but the part has proved irresistible. Rosalind Russell memorably played it on film in 1962. A 1974 Broadway revival brought Angela Lansbury a Tony award, and a 1989 revival did the same for Tyne Daly. Gypsy has never been better told nor Momma Rose more arrestingly played, however, than in the 3-hr. CBS television version to air this Sunday starring Bette Midler. If there is ever again to be a mass audience for filmed musicals more complex and less percussive than MTV videos, this is the vehicle to blaze the path...