“Rhapsody in Blue” (1945): The Music That Defined an American Sound

♪ Sea turtle dizzy Fish are jumping O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? So hush, little baby, do not cry Some days when you're singing Do you spread your wings And you take the sky? But dear little brother Nothing can harm you With daddy and mommy Stillborn Hello stranger Oh hi, how was your trip? Just great, I've never enjoyed a flight so much in my life You enjoyed the flight? Why was that? Well, United Airlines has this wonderful new safety video A wonderful safety video? That's hard to imagine I know, but it really illustrated how airlines connect the world by showing this family visiting all these different countries but with the same song playing in the background just in the different cultures' musical styles And the part that wasn't international made it look like you were boarding an Art Deco movie theater instead of a plane Wow, that does sound neat But where did the Art Deco part come in? That was the best part It was on account of the song they were using for background music Oh, and what song was that? You'll never believe this, but it was Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue I'm Tiffany Brannan I'm Rebecca Brannan Welcome to Real Thoughts on Cinema I've expressed many times that I consider George Gershwin to be the greatest American composer Well, it's true that he made an indelible mark on not only the American classical scene but the emerging jazz scene And would you say he pioneered the sort of crossover jazz and classical style? Absolutely Just from watching Golden Era movies it's amazing to see how many of the standard great American songbook tunes he wrote And there are many classic films which feature all Gershwin's scores But only one is really a perfect tribute to this musical legend That film is Rhapsody in Blue from 1945 This film is a biopic rather loosely based on George Gershwin's life story It begins when he's a young boy who wants nothing more than to take piano lessons And when he gets them he becomes a very accomplished concert pianist by the time he's a young adult However, his family is concerned that he needs to get a real job And he tries a couple as a piano player first working in a cabaret which he doesn't get a proper respect so he quits and then demonstrating music in a music store He ends up quitting that job as well or actually getting fired for playing his own music too much But before that happens he meets a young singer who's going up for an audition And there's an instant attraction between them As George begins to rise in the musical world with so many of his songs being published and performed As George begins to rise in the musical world with many of his songs being performed and produced by very famous entertainers of the day he starts to become an international personality But deep down, even with all his success there's something missing in his life when his genius becomes the focal point and he has to put aside things such as love This film was made by Warner Brothers It was directed by Irving Rapper and produced by Jesse Lasky with associate producer Hal B. Wallace It stars Robert Alda, Joan Leslie and Alexis Smith The focal point of this film, of course, is the music Yes, definitely Many critics of the day actually criticized it for being too much music or for being great music but not enough story to go around it But either way, it really is a tribute to the man and his music And they really, I think, try their best to cram every one of his biggest hits into just about two and a half hours which is impressive how much of his music is in this film It's kind of mind-boggling It is And I think it's actually very respectful to Gershwin that the focus is the music because there are more scandalous elements of his life You could have focused on that but his legacy is one of being this musical genius It's amazing how much he wrote in under 40 years It's kind of unusual for that because I feel like so often biopics become too much about we just want to show what was bad in this person's life like the dark side of fame or whatever else instead of just this is really a tribute to his genius and his music and that's really what anything about Gershwin should be And it starts from his early hits like Swanee, sung by Al Jolson to then his bigger classical works Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris Concerto in F the lesser known Cuban Overture Cuban Overture, yes And then of course his operas both Blue Monday and Porgy and Bess Right, and Rhapsody in Blue is the piece that is performed in its entirety of his classical pieces that's the only one you hear the whole thing and impressively they do the whole thing in about 9 minutes and most commercial recordings you'll find of that run closer to 15 minutes but they just have the brisker tempo and I think honestly that's more accurate to earlier recordings of it Right One thing which makes this movie such a great historical work besides the fact, obviously they changed some historical details but if you love music history and you're interested in the works of Gershwin this film allows you to see how these works were performed often times by the people who originally performed them Now of course there are recordings of those early days there are a couple of recordings of Gershwin himself playing the piano of Rhapsody in Blue but it sounds tinny it was recorded in 1924 as opposed to 20 years later with the highest quality Hollywood sound and visual it allows you to be there like you were there at the debut of Gershwin's music Right and it gives insight into how Gershwin wanted that music to be played Yes, if you've heard Leonard Bernstein's recording of Rhapsody in Blue or any of the more standard versions you'll hear you'll be a little surprised by how it sounds in this film it's a little different Now one thing that's great about this movie is that it features some people who really were his friends and colleagues Right Most notably Oscar Levant who was a pianist who was in many movies probably most famously in American in Paris Right but he was a close personal friend of Gershwin and wasn't this one of the few times that he actually plays himself? Yeah, yes it is He always sort of plays himself in personality but he actually is officially playing himself and thus we get to see not only a bit what his relationship was with Gershwin but his relationship with the music and he dubbed a lot of the piano music because Robert Alda couldn't really play the piano to that level he and another pianist dubbed all the piano parts and then Levant himself is seen playing Right a couple of times in the film Very notably Very notably he plays concerto in F which is interesting because that's also the piece that he plays in American in Paris Yes, yes it is an MGM film but also a Gershwin tribute and a couple other people are of course Al Jolson Right most famous for being in The Jazz Singer but before that he was a stage performer and he did debut Swanee and made it a real hit This was his last time really appearing in a feature film Right His last credited role Yes, his last credited role So it's interesting to see him reprising what he did best singing songs like that doing his bird calls doing his minstrel type show Also band leader Paul Whiteman he was notably the conductor and it was his orchestra which debuted Rhapsody in Blue Right with Gershwin himself playing it at the debut performance in 1924 and he did make two recordings with Gershwin both in 1924 one is a shortened version that's nine minutes and one is the full version but to see it performed live really the only thing that's different is that it's Robert Elda playing the piano rather than Gershwin himself but other than that it was the same Something really interesting that we noticed in a couple of scenes notably Rhapsody in Blue and I don't know I think it was American in Paris It was American in Paris, yes They showed him performing at Lima Concert and I noticed there are two pianos on the stage I don't think this piece calls for two pianos and then when I played a piece again later I was like alright now there's only one piano When it was Oscar Levent and I realized the other piano was being played by the actual pianist so that they could record the sound live Yeah Which if you don't think about it too much it's not distracting It's actually amazing They must have removed the inner workings of the piano That's quite brilliant I've heard of their doing that on other biopics because you have to hand it to Robert Elda he did a good job of looking like he's playing the piano Yeah, they do some overhead shots I'm convinced and then they do a close-up on the hands and then it's probably either Oscar Levent or the other pianist So you have to hand it to him who was doing a really good job of dedicating himself to the craft as much as he could but then that they used some really excellent pianists and credited them And they credited them Yes, that is very unusual Usually they're like yep, that actor's really playing it but they wanted this to be a tribute to music Right And so they didn't want to pretend like this actor could play the piano when he couldn't Not to that level They wanted it to be that tribute to his music And it's so interesting like you say What would you say is the most different thing about how Rhapsody in Blue sounds in this way the way Gershwin really wanted it? I noticed that that famous clarinet solo at the beginning it just has a different kind of little to it all the clarinet solo actually the wind instruments especially and a lot of that is just they're really even though this was made in the 40s they're really recalling the old style Jazz in the 20s and if you've studied old jazz style at all it's very different in the way certain instruments are played very notably saxophones the sound of the saxophone is very different I'd say it's jazzier It's bluesier I think it's done more symphonically now Partly because of who was playing it like now they have this Philadelphia orchestra It's a jazz orchestra so I think that makes a big difference Obviously they're amazing instrumentalists but they have that jazz experience And it's interesting to see what an unusual assortment of instruments it is There's a banjo in that piece apparently I was never aware of that So that in itself and the respect for Hollywood at the time Warner Brothers you'd think would be like cut to the chase that they would dedicate that much screen time to classical works Another interesting sequence is the Porgy and Bess scene Right showing what's really considered the first American opera You could argue there are other works that came first but the way it blended blues and sort of Native American rhythm I think it's that it's not just the first opera by an American It embraces Americana and it has that American jazz style American style of the African American spirituals and blues and jazz In that way it's a truer American opera than a lot of ones written later were because it really is embracing American culture the way Italian operas will embrace Italian culture or whatever country And it was noteworthy that it was the first opera that was all black people And to recreate this scene they recreated the set that was originally used and they had the soprano who played Bess sing the song Summertime which interestingly Bess doesn't sing in the opera I was unaware of that until you told me that I was sure she sang it I'm sure a lot of people think so Clara sings that song They're a lullaby right She sings it at the very beginning of the opera But if you check the key she actually sings it higher in the movie than in the opera probably because the woman who played Bess had a higher voice So but it's a she's a beautiful singer and it's a wonderful moment And then in the Blue Monday scene that's a much less known opera that he wrote Right and it's a even jazzier even bluesier Yeah and it's not shorter It's supposed to be a full performance of the opera It's just a little piece and then he built the opera off of that and I don't know is that based in fact at all? I don't think so He wrote it as an opera They made it more like a suite for the Dirt White Scandals Yes And they used dancers actually from the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo to act it out really dramatically and then they had singers dub it It's the same singer who did Summertime I was looking at the man and the girl and I was like I feel like they're not singing because they're kind of dancing They look very graceful I mean not to say that singers can't be graceful but they're just like those look like dancers and they're probably not also classically trained singers It took them quite a while to decide what actor they wanted to play the role of Gershwin Right Many actors were considered The most fascinating thing to me was discovering that Jack Warner said in 1938 that they'd gotten the rights to his life story and they were going to make it with John Garfield and that was just a few years after Gershwin died and seeing that Clifford Auditz was one of the people who originally worked on the screenplay although I think he ultimately ended up not being credited because I think it changed quite a bit and he and John Garfield had worked together a lot back in New York Yes Like the group theater so I imagine that was part of the connection there And Garfield had in common with Gershwin that he was Jewish But I would say And from New York Yeah I'd say the film implies that he's Jewish but downplays it I mean his father has a bit of an accent like a Yiddish accent Right I think Robert Alda is a better physical match Yeah He actually looks more like Gershwin Another person that they considered was Cary Grant Because he was a friend of Gershwin's right? Yes he was And he looks a lot like Robert Alda But he was decided he wasn't American enough because he was Welsh Well I have to agree with that It's all about that he's an American But he would end up playing Cole Porter That's right The director Irving Rapper really wanted to have Tyrone Power Is that right? Yes he did And apparently he stuck by that opinion even once the film was completed Like other than that he didn't have Tyrone Power he was happy with the film Now it's interesting that there are two women in Gershwin's life in this film and they both are fictional First Julie Adams who is a singer whom he meets as a young composer and then she becomes the leading lady in almost all his shows and then there's definitely a hinted romance between them she's in love with him He has feelings for her too but his career kind of gets in the way and she ultimately steps aside and acts like she isn't interested because she thinks he needs to be this eternal bachelor And then this wealthy divorcee who's been in Europe and he meets her in Europe played by Alexis Smith She's the other woman in his life but again Who also decides to leave him because she thinks she's a distraction But again both these characters were fictional Rather than having a couple of noteworthy women and sort of dedicating himself to music Gershwin was quite a womanizer and he had many affairs So instead they made it these two women And then you can have the classic kind of oh it should have been that girl but he had to make the sacrifice for music I mean it's a good plot device A really interesting and sort of heartwarming character who's largely fictionalized is his piano teacher Right Who is sort of unsure at first about his different musical styles and wants him to pursue classical music rather than just being commercial But there's a scene when he tells him he goes around his study and shows him different paintings and sculptures of all the different composers and how most of them were penniless poor and obscure but look what they gave the world And it's a very moving scene They play music by the different composers in the background Beautiful, brilliant scoring by Adolf Deutsch Yes He did a great job of weaving in those Gershwin melodies And there's a part I'm not positive about this but when he first tells his teacher I want to compose he starts playing a little something on the piano I don't think that's actually a piece by Gershwin but it really has elements of his style It has a bit of Rhapsody in Blue a bit of Concerto in F and Adolf Deutsch just kind of put that together It's really brilliantly done You immediately recognize that's the Gershwin style without it just being he sits on the piano and plays Rhapsody in Blue Oskar Lovant acted a bit as an advisor too because he knew him One thing which he kept urging the screenwriters to include was their frequent arguments They both were hotheads and they would get into fights a lot and he wanted to show that real element but they said no, no, let's just have you be friends the whole time They thought it would damage the characters on screen relationship Yeah, they thought that was too But the famous quote which Oskar Lovant is supposed to have said to Gershwin if you had to do it all over again would you still fall in love with yourself as featured in the film Yeah Now this film was made during the golden era of the motion picture production code between 1934 and 1954 when Joseph Green was the head of the production code administration And this influenced a lot of the composer biopics because there were many things that happen in famous individuals lives that really aren't proper subject matter for the screen according to the code Now a common misbelief I would say is that the code forced happy endings or forced everything to be neat and tidy because there are many life stories that are messy and they did depict For instance the Ziegfeld story they show that he got divorced and remarried Right I think as long as it wasn't too explicit they easily could have shown his being kind of a playboy And I think that of course they made up these two characters but I think they imply that he was interested in women who were perhaps looser with the relationship with the wealthy widow Because you don't know exactly what's going on in Paris She has a very worldly almost seductive air about her She's sort of an older woman and And there's something about his kind of careless manner in regards to Julie that implies he's not that serious romantically So I think they touched on that Yeah, I think so I think they just chose not to go down that path They wanted to kind of show him in a better light So they wanted to really focus on the beauty of his music and what he accomplished in bringing jazz into classical classical into jazz blues to the public eye and ears And the film does a great job of doing that It's a joy if you're a classical music fan or a jazz fan But I think that the story is paced and shown really cleverly so it's enjoyable even if you aren't the biggest Gershwin fan It can make you more of a Gershwin fan They do a clever job of showing different things Like, for instance, during that long Rhapsody in Blue section They show Oscar Levant up in a booth They show his parents They show his teacher at home on his deathbed listening on earphones They show Gershwin's hands They show the different instruments So you're not just sitting there watching a symphony No, it's not like a static camera It's very inventive and it keeps the action moving forward Yes, definitely And then they include a lot of the piece An American in Paris while showing a beautiful montage of footage of Paris And I think that's really a really clever idea It is And it seems like they were very careful to really try to show what each section was representing Yes Now, this film was released in 1945 but it was made much earlier Really, the first composer biopic was Yankee Doodle Dandy in 1942 starring James Cagney playing George M. Cohan It was a huge success and that inspired Warner Brothers to immediately make Rhapsody in Blue about George Gershwin and to cast Joan Leslie who played Mrs. Cohan as the And Rosemary DeCamp who played Yes His mother So clearly it was like let's do that again That was successful It was ready for release in 1943 That's kind of their answer to that Yeah It was the same studio It was, you know how Warner Brothers if they had a winning combination they would do it again Absolutely So they were like let's do that again Right But by the time they made it at that time it was during World War II and they were more interested in putting out wartime films Yeah, absolutely Movies like Casablanca Watch on the Rhine Films that were specifically about the war But since Gershwin died years before the war started the film seemed a bit antiquated So they actually put it on the shelf for a few years and didn't release it until 1945 after the war was over And thus many people see it as farther down the line in the history of the biopics but really it should be considered the second Yeah It's interesting to see any film like this that's set in the very recent past Like 20, 10 years before it was released It starts in the late teens Right Like around 1918, 1919 Then it's throughout the 1920s and it ends in the 1930s At the beginning they're really trying to capture the historical era The first costumes Joan Leslie wears have that late teens look She wears some things that are sort of flapper-like And then basically every costume that Alexis Smith wears is pure 1940s even though it's supposed to be the late 20s And kind of after her introduction Joan Leslie very soon starts to have a very forced hairstyle changes The men's clothes They stop wearing the collars It's just like Okay, now it's the 1940s It's funny Yeah, how it just kind of happens Why did you give up? But despite that even when they're not historically accurate there are some really nice costumes in this film My outfit is inspired by the gown which Julie wears the night that she decides she has to break things off with George It's a very similar style to this with a bejeweled top and some subtle jewelry to accent My outfit is based on the final costume which Alexis Smith wears It's a black around knee-length dress with interesting gold accents like a gold necklace and gold detailing at the waist She also wears some very fashionable hats throughout the film Personally, my favorite Gershwin piece is Concerto in F It's not as well-known as Rhapsody in Blue But of course if you've seen An American in Paris you've heard the third movement But I appreciate that this film you get to hear some of the first and second movements It's featured twice because first Gershwin is playing it and then later And it's a very climactic scene too It's when he has his first kind of fainting spell almost when he's really starting to decline in health And then at almost the end of the film Oscar Levant is on stage playing it when they get the news that Gershwin has died Yes And the point at which it happens is a very climactic moment in the third movement There's a gong and then sort of the main love theme if you will piece comes in again It's really really really dramatic Really dramatic Right So they come to the gong and then they stop and the conductor stops it to say George Gershwin has just died And I remember the first time we were watching it I was like when they play that melody now that's going to just like make me cry Yeah And then they cut to the end Yeah they skip ahead and it's not that much I love what they do in the music film but they really really miss the music How could you do it drives me crazy It is kind of strange because the film is so long I think you could have had another 30 more seconds I think you could have spared it That's something that's only going to bother someone who really knows Gershwin and is very familiar with the piece I wouldn't be surprised if it bothered Oscar Levant being a musician himself I thought it was interesting to see Oscar Levant in this film because he's so noted for being such a wit kind of sarcastic all the time that you get to see I think more emotional depth from him in this film than probably any of his others I think because it was very close to his heart when it's dealing with George getting ill and dying you see some real emotions I'm sure he was remembering that he actually went through that Not that long ago his friend had died That was his friend so I think that really brings something beautiful out that you get to see his real emotions because he really lived it I'm glad they took the opportunity to make this film when they still could use people like Oscar Levant Paul Whiteman Al Jolson Yes To play themselves Absolutely And to reprise how they debut these really famous works And I've seen Paul Whiteman in one other film Strike Up the Band and he's a wonderful personality on screen Yes, he's a good actor Very genuine and a great leader of these pieces How do you think this film is approachable and enjoyable to modern viewers? Well, Gershwin's music is timeless So as you said even if the plot isn't that interesting to you It's such a tribute to this great music If you either already know some Gershwin you'll love to see more or if you're a real aficionado it's just such a tribute to him It's a wonderful opportunity as you said to hear some of the original artists performing it in very clear recordings and getting to see it And of course it's fascinating that the United Airlines has this somewhat recent it was a couple of years ago now but this safety video that features Rhapsody in Blue and from looking at YouTube comments you can see that introduces just a lot of people to that piece So I think As they see that title they may want to see this film that is also named in that honour It was also very prominently featured in the 2013 film of the Great Gatsby Yes And as we're now reaching the 100 well we're now in the 100 year anniversary and passing that in the roaring 20s again Right And at least Jazz age music can be more popular I think a couple of people in adaptations this year in honour of the 100th anniversary have used Rhapsody in Blue So I think Gershwin's music is still circulating Yes In some different ways but people still know his name and they know his sound and recognize certain pieces and then if you're familiar with the Great American Songbook at all I think you'll be kind of shocked by just how many songs he wrote Yes There were a couple that I do have a pretty good knowledge of his repertoire but there are a couple that I was like I didn't know he wrote that one So It's really sort of a history lesson but it's also really entertaining and inspiring This film is available to rent or purchase for streaming on Amazon Prime Video YouTube and several other streaming platforms You also can buy it on DVD a nicely remastered copy from Warner Archive at Barnes & Noble Amazon Walmart etc As we mentioned this film really illustrates that Gershwin is a man on his own and that his genius has to be solitary However in the history of entertainment there are many famous partnerships both composers songwriting teams and acting teams Join us next time as we talk about a classic film which features one of the most famous married screen partners Thank you for watching Goodbye