BOOTLEG FILES 862: “Our Town” (1955 television musical production starring Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It’s complicated.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.
One of the most prestigious and ambitious series in the history of American television was “Producers’ Showcase,” which ran from 1954 to 1957 and offered live 90-minute plays starring A-list talent. The series aired every fourth Monday of the month and a total of 37 episodes were created.
An unusual feature of the show was its broadcast in color – at that point in time, most households only had black-and-white television. However, “Producers’ Showcase” used a compatible color technology that enabled the majority of viewers with black-and-white televisions to enjoy the program without any visual degradation.
Most of the “Producers’ Showcase” offerings were dramatic, but the series’ first major success was the March 7, 1955, broadcast of “Peter Pan” starring Mary Martin. This production was a restaging of the popular theatrical musical that was staged in San Francisco, Los Angeles and on Broadway
On September 19. 1955, the series unveiled a musical version of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” Unlike “Peter Pan,” this production was an original offering with a new score written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn. And while Mary Martin was theater royalty, “Our Town” went one better by having the reigning box office and recording industry star at its center – Frank Sinatra.
While Sinatra was a casting coup, his presence proved to be a headache for the show’s director, Delbert Mann. Sinatra’s approach to a production was to briefly familiarize himself with the material and then go forth in a one-take performance. Mann was a stickler for rehearsals and he found himself at loggerheads with his star, who successfully worked to remove the show’s conductor in favor of his preferred arranger Nelson Riddle. According to Dominick Dunne, who served as an assistant director on the show, Mann found it impossible to communicate directly with Sinatra – Dunne claimed that members of his entourage would block Mann and offer to relay whatever messages he had to Sinatra. When Mann called a dress rehearsal ahead of the live broadcast, Sinatra was a no-show – and this scared Mann to the point that he arranged for singer Johnny Desmond to be a last-minute replacement in case Sinatra didn’t turn up for the broadcast.
But Mann’s fears were for naught. Not only did Sinatra turn up for the broadcast, but he gave one of the best performances of his career in “Our Town.” Yes, Sinatra not that type of performer one might associate for the role of an observer of New England life in the early 20th century – with his contemporary wardrobe (complete with a cocked fedora) and his distinctive New Jersey accent, he is not a denizen of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, in 1901.
But Sinatra’s insouciant personality and his extraordinary vocal prowess changes this version of “Our Town” for the better. The adaptation by David Shaw strips away nearly all the secondary characters and subplots of the Thornton Wilder play to focus on the intertwined lives of George Gibbs and Emily Webb, played by Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint. Newman was an up-and-coming actor who had yet to secure a breakthrough role, while Saint was coming off her Academy Award for “On the Waterfront” but was not yet at a leading lady level. (Some sources claim Newman was a last-minute replacement for James Dean, but he was shooting “Giant” at the time and would not have been able to be part of this production.)
Newman and Saint are very good in their roles and in their brief musical segment together for the song “Look to Your Heart.” But Sinatra carries the bulk of the show’s score, notably the nostalgia-heavy title song, the ballad “The Impatient Years” and the second act opener “Love and Marriage,” which became the show’s best-known song (although, oddly, Sinatra didn’t care for it and never performed it in concert even though it was among his top selling records).
In retrospect, Sinatra’s then-contemporary presence works in this version because it offers a worldly-wise counterbalance to the naïve and innocent world of George and Emily as they slowly move from liking each other as friends to taking their relationship at a higher level. Sinatra also offers a jolting sense of sincerity in acknowledging Emily’s third act dilemma of moving beyond the mortal coil while still being cognizant of those she left behind.
Thornton Wilder reportedly hated this adaptation, but that’s easy to understand. Besides truncated his Pulitzer Prize-winning play and adding new songs, this version also eschewed the scenery-free setting of the stage show for distinctive sets and Sinatraesque humor – particularly the ending of the first act, where the reference to smoking was replaced with a comment on snacks and dieting. But most critics were appreciative of “Our Town” and it was one of the most popular shows in the “Producers’ Showcase” series.
Alas, back in 1955 there was no technology to preserve the live color broadcast, and the only copy that survives is a not-great black-and-white kinescope. Besides the problematic visual quality of the surviving print, music and performance rights to “Our Town” have kept it out of home entertainment release. A copy of this production is on YouTube via an unauthorized posting – and while it is not the best-looking upload, it nonetheless provides an invaluable glimpse into one of American television’s finest musical shows.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
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