{"id":47532,"date":"2025-05-02T08:00:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T12:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=47532"},"modified":"2025-05-02T11:54:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T15:54:47","slug":"the-bootleg-files-george-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/02\/the-bootleg-files-george-m\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: George M!"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 905: <\/strong>\u201cGeorge M!\u201d (1970 television adaptation of the Broadway musical starring Joel Grey and Bernadette Peters). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN: <\/strong>On YouTube.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: <\/strong>It fell through the cracks.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Not likely.<\/p>\n

On April 10, 1968, the musical \u201cGeorge M!\u201d opened on Broadway. The show offered a biography of the great entertainer George M. Cohan and featured a healthy serving of his classic songs. Joel Grey, coming off his Tony Award-winning performance in \u201cCabaret,\u201d starred as Cohan and an up-and-coming Bernadette Peters played his sister Josie.
\n<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge M!\u201d ran for 433 performances before closing on April 26, 1969. At the time, the Hollywood studios were still producing big movie musicals based on Broadway shows and would it have been logical for \u201cGeorge M!\u201d to make its way to the silver screen. However, there was another film on the same subject that had already achieved classic status \u2013 the 1942 \u201cYankee Doodle Dandy\u201d starring James Cagney in his Oscar-winning performance as Cohan \u2013 so the prospect of a big screen \u201cGeorge M!\u201d was nil.<\/p>\n

However, an opportunity arose to bring \u201cGeorge M!\u201d to the small screen via the Bell System Family Theater, which produced one-shot specials for broadcast on NBC. But rather than offer a filmed record of the Broadway production \u2013 complete with its large cast of singers and dancers plus elaborate costumes and sets \u2013 this adaptation decided to play it cheap by reinventing the show as a rehearsal for \u201cGeorge M!\u201d rather than the actual production. Thus, the need for special sets was replaced with a bare-bones rehearsal room, and the big production numbers were staged with as few people as possible. A good chunk of the two-act show\u2019s score was also cut to fit a tight 90-minute running time.<\/p>\n

To compensate for the reduction in flash and pizazz, the production brought in some notable (if less than boffo) talent to fill the supporting roles \u2013 Jack Cassidy and Nanette Fabray as the Cohan parents, Jesse White as showman E.F. Albee, Red Buttons as Cohan\u2019s creative partner Sam H. Harris, and rising stars Anita Gillette and Blythe Danner as Cohan\u2019s first and second wives. Only Grey and Peters repeated their Broadway roles.<\/p>\n

To its credit, \u201cGeorge M!\u201d offered a more accurate biography of Cohan than \u201cYankee Doodle Daddy,\u201d which omitted the messier aspects of the star\u2019s life \u2013 including the failure of his first marriage and his anti-union sentiments during the Actors Equity strike of 1919. <\/p>\n

But if \u201cYankee Doodle Dandy\u201d created a sanitized Cohan who was something of a too-good-to-be-true character, it also showcased Cagney in one of the great performances of film history. Indeed, it is difficult to watch Joel Grey\u2019s work without comparing it to Cagney\u2019s Cohan \u2013 there is no comparison, as the workmanlike Grey of this 1970 TV production never comes close to equaling Cagney\u2019s dynamic personality and the brilliant eccentricity of his singing and dancing in the 1942 film.<\/p>\n

However, this might be the problem of this adaptation of \u201cGeorge M!\u201d and not the fault of Grey, who performed several numbers from the show on Ed Sullivan\u2019s variety program \u2013 on Sullivan\u2019s stage, he brought energy and charisma that is not seen in the television version of the musical. But on the other hand, Grey was never a satisfactory on-camera presence until the 1972 film version of \u201cCabaret\u201d \u2013 indeed, that film\u2019s director Bob Fosse went into pre-production preferring to have Anthony Newley or (incredibly) Ruth Gordon instead of Grey, who was cast at the insistence of producer Marty Baum.<\/p>\n

Oddly, whereas Grey doesn\u2019t give it his all, the other cast members in \u201cGeorge M!\u201d give the impression of playing to the last row of the theater \u2013 everyone else is working overtime to sell their performances, particularly Cassidy and Fabray who invest their roles as the old-time vaudevillian parents of Cohan with the glorious show biz corn cultivated by the stars of that yesteryear circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge M!\u201d was broadcast on NBC on September 12, 1970, to decent reviews and nominations for Walter C. Miller and Martin Charnin\u2019s direction and for Alan Johnson\u2019s choreography. To date, there has been no commercial home entertainment release of the production \u2013 and, for that matter, \u201cGeorge M!\u201d doesn\u2019t get revived much in theatrical settings anymore. <\/p>\n

For those curious about this show, here is an unauthorized YouTube posting of \u201cGeorge M!\u201d along with the aforementioned presentation of the show on Ed Sullivan\u2019s program. Too bad Bell System Family Theater didn\u2019t spend the extra money to do the full show that Sullivan excerpted.<\/p>\n