Exclusive“Easter Parade” (1948): Music, Romance, and a Dance Through the Seasons

It only happens when I dance with you That trip to heaven till the dance is through With no one else do the heavens seem quite so near Why does it happen, dear? Only with you Two cheeks together can be so divine But only when those cheeks are yours and mine I've danced with dozens of others the whole night through But the thrill that comes with spring When anything could happen That'll happen with you I just finished talking to the manager. You'll open at the palace in ten weeks. Call it off. What? This is the big break we've been waiting for. We can't do it without a dance partner. Look, I've got a long list of names. Every one of them is a great dancer who'd love to be your partner. It's not that easy. You know I can't get along without Don any more than he can get along without me. Who says you can't get along without him? See these names? Any one of them has as much talent as he has. You're crazy. There's nobody like Don. He dances like a dream. He knows how to wear costumes. Because you taught him. And you could do the same thing with any one of these guys. Still wouldn't be like Don. You can dance with anybody. I guarantee that you can break in a new dance partner and open and be a smash at the palace. It's not much time. Here. Let's look at the calendar. Now let's see. Everything's all set. We start rehearsal on Monday. Four weeks of rehearsal. Four weeks on the road. Philadelphia and Boston. Opening in New York, April 6th. Look. April 7th. What about it? Easter. We'll be in New York in time for Easter. That's right. Just you wait. You'll be the grandest couple in the Easter parade. I'm Rebecca Brannan. I'm Tiffany Brannan. This is Real Thoughts on Cinema. Welcome to our Easter special. While there are countless songs about Christmas, most other holidays pale in comparison when it comes to fun, festive ways to celebrate. However, around the turn of the century, Easter was actually celebrated with just about as much grandeur and commercialism as Christmas. A large part of the reason for the popularity of the holiday was the Easter parade in New York City. Irving Berlin captured all the fun and festivity of this event and this time period with his song that eventually became the 1948 hit film, Easter Parade. Nadine Hale and Don Hughes, professionally known as simply Nadine and Hughes, are the hottest dance team in show business. However, the day before Easter, Nadine breaks the news to Don that she's going into a show alone since she hasn't signed any of the contracts for their team. Angry, Don decides to set out to prove that he can dance with anyone. His choice is a chorus girl, Hannah Brown, who has basically no dance experience. At first, they're a complete failure since he's trying to make her into another lesser Nadine. However, when he realizes he has to tap into Hannah's natural ability and charm, their team becomes a hit. Meanwhile, the personal relationships become very complicated, turning into a sort of love square as Don is still in love with Nadine, Hannah has fallen in love with Don, and in the middle of the two ladies also is Johnny, sort of a family friend. This was an MGM production. It stars Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Anne Miller, and Peter Lawford. It was produced by Arthur Freed and directed by Charles Walters. The heart of this film is the songs, particularly the title song, Easter Parade. I consider this one of two spinoffs of Holiday Inn, if you will, the 1942 movie, which featured all those different holiday songs that Irving Berlin wrote. Of course, he wrote this song long before Holiday Inn. He wrote it for a stage play back in 1933, but it was this song that gave him the original idea for having a Holiday Inn story, something about all these different holidays. He had that already, and then later he ended up writing a bunch of other songs, including the extremely popular White Christmas. But it all started with Easter Parade. This movie then grew out of that, and the score features a wealth of Berlin masterpieces. Of course, we have to respect Irving Berlin for writing not only great music, but brilliant words to go along with it. It's interesting that this was such a sensation at the time because now I think a lot of people wouldn't really know what it's talking about because the Easter Parade is something that doesn't exist anymore. Well, it does, but it's not the sensation it once was. There still is an Easter Parade in New York City. Really? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, you can look up. There are pictures now of the Easter Parade, people wearing really goofy outfits. It's funny because kind of like Mardi Gras parades or many other things we see today, people look just like this spoof, like they're wearing over-the-top costumes, kind of like the royal weddings where they wear little hats. It used to be real. That's what people actually were wearing their finest. Right. The idea of an Easter Parade goes back to medieval times, early church history as representing two different biblical events, the first on Palm Sunday with the spreading of palm prongs as Jesus came into Jerusalem, and then the procession as he went carrying his cross. So in memory of that, many different congregations would wear their very finest and walk throughout the town in a parade of some kind for Easter. So then in New York City and in the other big cities, but particularly New York, by the turn of the century in the late 1800s into the early 1900s, it became this grand festive event that a lot of people said no longer really had any religious meaning of people walking to and from church up and down Fifth Avenue. Even if they weren't going to church, it was just about putting on your fanciest, gaudiest clothes and looking good as the photographers could snap you and put your picture in the Rue de Gravure to quote some of the lines. But to go along with that, this huge commercial industry sprung up. Presents, clothes, food, candy, flowers, fake flowers. That was one of the biggest businesses. Fake flowers? Really? Making these fake flowers that were sold for and around Easter was a huge business in New York at this time. So the very opening of this film really reflects that. You see Fred Astaire, you know, Don, walking down the street whistling a catchy little tune, Happy Easter, saying Happy Easter to everybody. For years, this confused me. I thought that the film started on Easter and then I would always remember, oh no, it's the day before. Because from the modern perspective, you wouldn't really say Happy Easter any day except Easter Sunday. Right. But back then, it's like you say, Merry Christmas a month leading up to it. And that's what it was like. It's the Easter season. So it's, oh, Happy Easter, because he was preparing for that. That's so funny. I was thinking the exact same thing the last time we watched this. Like, oh, this isn't Easter though. And yeah, he's going along and buying all these amazing things for her. He buys a beautiful hat for her to wear in the Easter parade. He buys her a huge stuffed toy bunny. A basket of lilies? Yes, as well as some other odds and ends that you don't really see. A lot of, I assume, clothes or other kinds of gifts and packages. So this movie is very much about the secular celebration of Easter in the United States, particularly the Easter parade, which makes total sense considering that Irving Berlin was Jewish. The Christian aspect of Easter wouldn't have meant that much to him personally. But just like White Christmas celebrates the secular aspect of Christmas, this celebrates the secular aspect of Easter. And even that has been lost these days. I mean, beyond the Christian aspect is lost, it literally is very little besides a holiday for children and children who think that bunnies lay eggs, chocolate eggs in particular, or like the giant Easter bunny at the mall. Yeah, taking pictures of the Easter bunny and the stray cats painting eggs. Yeah, but there are so many rich traditions that used to exist, and most of them have religious origins, but they can be celebrated no matter what your faith is. And watching this movie is always part of the Easter season for us. It's such a fun movie. And it's great to watch any time of the year though. Yes, I think even though it starts and ends on Easter, it's sort of like White Christmas. It begins and ends with the holiday. It's in the title. It's very much about that. But there's a very unique and in some ways dramatic story aside from that. Although it is a fun movie, being a musical, it's mostly lighthearted. When you really get into it, it is quite a dramatic story, and especially as a performer, it's a very interesting film to watch because I think it's a very realistic look at professional relationships and how the lines are blurred between professional and personal relationships, especially when it comes to dance partnerships. This was very real for Fred Astaire because he had gotten his start with a dance team with his sister, Adele. Then when she wanted to get married, he kind of felt betrayed. He felt like he was left high and dry. Then he had this famous partnership with Ginger Rogers, and then in the late 30s, she didn't want to do that anymore. She wanted to do her own thing, be a more dramatic actress. And I think that the way Nadine wants to do her own thing is almost a commentary on both those situations. And then how he has to find this new dance partner. Now, the casting behind this movie was very interesting because just like it's hard to get the right dance partner in the movie, in real life, two of the main characters were replaced from the original casting. Originally, Gene Kelly, the other great dancer at MGM, was supposed to play the title, well, not the title character, but the leading man. That's right, and then he broke his ankle, right? And he recommended Fred Astaire for the part, who was actually retired at the time. He'd been retired for a couple of years. And he wasn't sure he wanted to get back into it, but he actually had been looking for just the right opportunity to get back out there and put on those dancing shoes. Because he was in his late 40s by this point. And this was certainly such a dance feature for him. It's kind of hard to imagine Gene Kelly in the part because I'm sure it was rewritten a lot. It's so tailored for him, and he did a lot of his own choreography, just as Gene Kelly did. So the premise would have been the same, but it would have been a very different interpretation. The dance style, the music, and doing Irving Berlin music was right up his alley. He did that in multiple movies. And I think it added in some interesting, like you said, kind of inside jokes and so forth, because of his having more of a definite famous partnership than two different ladies. Gene Kelly never did. He danced. And he had worked very successfully before that with Judy Garland in two movies. He'd already made first his breakout film for Me and My Gal, and right before this, The Pirate. So they were good friends, and it would have made sense that they would be together. But this was her first time working with Fred Astaire, and they're a great partnership, too. They really work well together. Then the other character who was replaced was Nadine. Originally, Sid Charisse was going to play this role. I can really see how it's sort of a Sid Charisse part. She was a beautiful ballerina, actually, who played very dignified roles, and this is really before she came into her own, being more featured as a star showcasing her own versatility. So instead, she would often play the other woman. Well, she did that as the other woman, not in a romantic sense, but the other real musical feature to Judy Garland in Harvey Girls. That was one of her earlier films, and many other films. But she tore a ligament. Yes, she did. And then Anne Miller had to replace her, and this is really an unusual role for Anne Miller. We've always all agreed this is her favourite part of hers because she's much more demure than she often is. Then, of course, there's the Shaking the Blues Away number she does in The Ziegfeld Follies, which is a classic Anne Miller number. Obviously, that wouldn't have been in there if it were Sid Charisse. No, it wouldn't have been very different. Even a ballet number. Yeah, it could have been. She might have been dancing on point. But this was the first MGM film that Anne Miller made as a featured. Really? And it began her very successful run there, so it was quite a break for her. And she really fits in well. And then you have Peter Lawford as the fourth character, sort of that fourth point of the love square, as really the best friend of Dawn, who is the romantic interest of Nadine, and then he's interested in Hannah. Very complicated. But he's such a nice guy, such a selfless person, that although he... You don't really know what feelings he has for Nadine. You know that he really is rooting for her to be with Dawn if that will make them both happy, because he does care about them both. He doesn't understand her selfish attitude, and that seems to bother him about her. But he's kind of happy to possibly romance and marry her if that will keep her away from Dawn because he loves Hannah so much he wants her to be happy with Dawn if he's the man for her. He's just kind of the one who's like, whichever girl doesn't end up with Dawn, he'll take her. So looking at the musical numbers, and this is really interesting, what do you think are some of the standout musical numbers? Well, the opening number, the Happy Easter number, is so fun because it's very much about... It's a very holiday-themed number, very festive, but then it goes almost directly into Fred Astaire's first solo, Drum Crazy. Right. That is amazing. You really get to see... He's a great drummer. That's not something you would necessarily think or expect or know. He taps, he drums on drums of every different size in this toy shop, and there's this cute little blonde boy with him, and he's just trying to get him to let go of this bunny that he wants to buy, so he gets him to be Drum Crazy. It's the most work anyone ever put into getting a stuffed toy bunny. And this wasn't the first time that Fred Astaire had done a dance with drums. He did back in 1937 in A Damsel in Distress, one of his lesser-known films, but he did a similarly impressive tapping, drumming, kicking the drums. He even has his cane and hits the drum like a golf swing. So it's a great showcase of his tap technique here. That's really one of his standout solos. Just in terms of songs, my favorite is It Only Happens When I Dance With You, which first he sings and dances with Nadine. It's not a big dance number because it's just in her apartment. No, it's more of an intimate ballroom moment. And then Judy Garland reprises it later, and it's just such a beautiful, heartfelt song, and it really just gets right to the core of the film and what a special relationship that is between dance partners, especially when it's the right person. And then there's a third reprise of it when Nadine gets him to dance it with her on the Ziegfeld Folly's roof. Even Peter Lawford does one song and dance, but mainly song, musical number. He's one of those people who really wasn't that talented musically, yet he was in a lot of musicals, and they let him sing, and they didn't overdub his voice, and he wasn't that good, but he sells the number. It's very real. He has a very unique speaking voice. You hear that in his singing. He knew how to sell a song, and it's very cute. He sings, I'm just a fellow with an umbrella. So he's got these huge umbrellas walking along and singing. I think he and Judy Garland seem to have a very good natural chemistry. Yes, they do. Smiling a lot in numbers, so it's very sweet and it's very genuine. Yeah, it's a very endearing moment. And then, like you mentioned, Anne Miller has her big solo, Shaking the Blues Away. She also dances in a couple of other Ziegfeld Bollies routines. Yes, of course, there's that beautiful number which displays all these beautiful girls on the covers of different magazines. Yes, it's very elaborate, interesting. It's sort of like the Beautiful Girl number in Singing in the Rain. Yes, if you're more familiar with that musical, you'll see this is a very similar number. And kind of an unusual novelty piece that's always stood out to me is the Couple of Swells number that Judy and Fred do together. It's just unlike anything else in the movie. You're not expecting it, but it's just hilarious. I really like that number for some reason. Well, it's so funny because she's dressed up like a man, like they're a couple of hobos with a five o'clock shadow and these baggy clothes. But she's still wearing bright red lipstick. Yes. That's the best detail. But kind of the point of the story is that he's trying to make her something that she's not, and then when he lets her be herself, she really shines and she's great. And when he's first trying to get her started, they do more ballroom-esque routines, such as he does much more successfully with Nadine. And it's interesting because Anne Miller is almost too tall to dance with Fred Astaire. She's taller than he is and she's wearing very flat shoes, but they work really well together because ballroom can work with the couple being about the same height, even the woman almost being taller. Yet Judy Garland is really short compared to Fred Astaire, who was short himself. But he's such a great dance partner, it works equally well with both women. Right. And you get to see him dance with three other not really notable girls and his other big kind of solo number, which is to the very... I think it's quite famous, so I'm Steppin' Out With My Baby, which Tony Bennett very famously recorded as well. And that's, I think, a lot like some of Fred Astaire's numbers in his earlier movies. Like in his movies with Ginger, there would be his solo. He always would do a solo like that. And with some kind of unusual... Film magic. He loved film gimmicks. He developed a lot of interesting film techniques and in this one, it's the mixing of real time and slow motion. In this one part of the number, the chorus in the back is going in normal time and he's in slow motion in front of them. Great double exposure. Yeah, that's very... A difficult technique to pull off and it's very... And it's a really neat kind of New Orleans Mardi Gras film kind of number and it's interesting, a few years earlier, I'm sure this would have been done in blackface, but even by 1948, that was already becoming sort of taboo. But you'll notice that the people are wearing slightly darker makeup. It's like a dark tan. Almost you could say it's more like brownface, but it's very obvious they are going for a New Orleans feel. So it's just like... Subtle. Just a slight nod to the minstrel style as opposed to, like you said, like 10 years earlier or even less than that, it would have been blackface. Judy Garland does a great job of keeping up with Fred Astaire with the dancing. Yes. And she does many different dance styles. I mean, first you have the kind of comical ballroom fails. Like their first debut performance, they're trying to do this graceful ballroom routine, and she's wearing this blue dress that has a bunch of little feathers that are shedding all over the place. And all the things where like you can't grab her hand, she pulls them off balance. It's so real. It's hilarious, but it's not exaggerated at all. They're total partnering fails. If you're a dancer, it's writing the line between funny and painful. It's like, even if you're a really great dancer and you have a lot of experience, those things happen. Yeah, you've experienced that. And the thing with the feathers is a commentary on something that happened with him and Ginger Rogers and their movie Top Hat. She had this dress that was solid feathers. Yeah, Ginger Rogers was actually a dress designer. She always wanted to design her own costumes, and she came up with this idea of all these ostrich feathers. And he hated that dress so much. Like, it's worse than Judy Garland's. It's like solid feathers. Like I said, they're all over the place. The skirt, the sleeves, and yeah, they kept coming off. They kept having to restitch them, and he was just getting a mouthful of feathers. Usually he had to like look at the dresses and say, okay, I approve. And somehow they kept him from approving that one, and so it became a joke between them. He called her feathers after that. That was her nickname. But then, after he realizes that that's not her style, they do some much more interesting novelty routines. Like I said, a couple of swells. I love a piano where he's pretending to play the piano, and then they're dancing around the piano. Fiddle Up, where they're both playing the violin while dancing around. Again, very similar to a number from Singing in the Rain. Well, Arthur Freed produced both films, so he was reusing some of his material. That makes three numbers in this that are dance numbers but are about instruments. The drums, the piano, and the violin. That's an interesting point. One thing that influences the music and the styles, especially of the costuming, is the historical setting. It's set around, well, in the year 1912. So this is right before World War I, and the costumes reflect that a great deal. I respect them a lot for doing a good job of having the costuming. More in the real-life costumes than in the dance costumes. The dance costumes are often quite modern. Sometimes more than other costumes. Sometimes more than Some of them are very historic for the period, and others are quite 1940s. And I understand there was a number, originally, to a song called Mr. Monotony, where Judy Garland had the look of the tuxedo coat, the tails, and top hat. With stockings. With stockings, which she later made famous in the Get Happy number in Summer Stock. Yes. And then after making it, they thought, that really would not be okay in this time period. That would have been so scandalous. So they replaced it with another number. I don't know which one it is. Yeah. Or maybe they didn't replace it, maybe they just cut it. Yeah, maybe. But then it ended up making its way into Summer Stock and was very successful there. So that's very good. There's that one time they were like, wait, that's bad, let's not do that. I respect that they thought about it that much. Yeah, that was good. Unfortunately, they didn't think about it before they filmed it. I'm sure it was expensive and everything. But that feature can be seen. It was included in one of the That's Entertainment features. A bonus feature on a DVD. And it's on the soundtrack, the song. But I definitely respect how dedicated they were to the grandeur of the costumes in the non-dance number and non-singing number sequences. And there are some really beautiful costumes in this film, which the two ladies wear. Nadine, played by Anne Miller, wears an assortment of extremely glamorous outfits in many different colors, usually with a large matching hat, and sometimes even with a dog to match. This is an outfit which she wears when she goes to a chic restaurant to have lunch with Johnny. It's a striped blouse with a white skirt, pearl jewelry, a bangle bracelet, a white fur wrap, and a large picture hat. My outfit is inspired by the last one Hannah wears while trying to be another Nadine, when she gets caught in the rain and meets Johnny for the first time. It's a long red skirt with a very uniquely cut black and red coat, a very notable red hat with feathers on it, and a unique hairstyle with black gloves. If you're familiar with MGM films of this time, you'll recognize a lot of the supporting characters, like Clinton Sundberg plays the bartender, Mike, yeah, in the restaurant where Don first meets Hannah. And throughout the film you see differences. Oh, I recognize that fellow. But one of the more interesting, random features is an almost cameo appearance by Jules Munchen, who would be a very successful comedy, and even musical comedy performer in MGM films up to this time. He plays the maitre d' at the restaurant where the characters go several times. They never manage to stay to eat, but they always go there and then they end up leaving. It's a good place to talk. It's a good place to talk, and it's just a beautiful, chic restaurant, but he plays this French maitre d'. Francois. Mm-hmm. And this was something they did at this time of making an audition in a movie. They would insert these random little scenes that are almost like these skits that have no direct bearing. pantomiming making a salad. Yeah, and it was a way, it was like a screen test to see how do people like this person? How does he look in the overall scope of the movie? And apparently he passed with Flying Colors because he would then be featured in many other MGM films. A couple of them opposite Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. He was in On the Town and Taking Up the Ball Game, right? Yes, he was, because he was really funny and entertaining. So this is an interesting cameo appearance in his first film. And one of the greatest things about it is you can see how much he's making Judy Garland and Peter Lawford laugh. You can tell it's very real. Especially Judy Garland who's cracking up the whole time. He's pretending to make a salad because he doesn't have any props, but he's just demonstrating how to make a salad. It's a real test of almost like mime. Yeah, it is. And you can see that he was a successful stage performer for that. This movie was very popular. It was the highest earning musical of 1948 and the second highest earning MGM musical of the entire decade. The top earning being Meet Me in St. Louis. So Judy Garland was obviously one of their top earning stars that decade. And it's no surprise because it really is the kind of musical that I always seem to want to watch it. Because it has a lot of depth as well as a lot of heart, a lot of really different musical numbers, a lot of very fun moments, some very meaningful moments. It offers Judy Garland a lot of range so she can be very sensitive and emotional. She was so good at acting upset and crying. And Fred Astaire also plays a very nuanced character. You see that he's a man who has a goal. He's looking out for himself but then he also is very sensitive. I mean, he's not just like mad from a business point of view. He's really emotionally attached to Nadine and then being hurt by her motivates a lot of his decisions. Only for him to then realize that he's grown to care about Hannah in a way that he never did about Nadine. So it's a really sweet story and it's very endearing. I think that anyone who loves musicals will really enjoy this film. And if you like later musicals or you enjoy singing and dancing I think you really could appreciate this film. It certainly is a great showcase for Fred Astaire and Judy Garland. I know we talked a lot about the music but I failed to mention her big kind of solo is the song Better Luck Next Time. Yes. It's almost an easy one to forget because it's just her sitting there singing to Mike. It doesn't have any of the flash of most of the other numbers. It's true. But it's just a really heartfelt moment and Judy really could sing that kind of a third act song if you will. Yeah it is. It is a really meaningful solo moment for her to express. Kind of similar to in the film Girl Crazy. She sings the song but not for me. Yes. It's that kind of a song and that's really where she's shown. I just like you said have always loved this movie and looked forward to Easter time coming around to watch it. But just within the last probably five years I think you know moving into being a professional dancer I've really developed even more of a new appreciation for it because you said it's very real and it kind of I think it's the kind of thing if you're looking at it from not being in the entertainment industry from the outside you can think this is very dramatized it's kind of romanticized in a way it's a very romantic story but I mean it's real. That's very much at least for me I don't know if everyone experiences that kind of thing but a lot of people do. A lot of people do yes and particularly being a dancer in any area of dancing and this is ballroom dancing it's the same thing in ballet that you really it's just a very unique kind of partnership especially if you're working with someone not just in one show but over a period of time and doing a lot of things together because it's the same time it's a professional relationship but it is so personal just physically it's hard for it to not become a personal relationship. And you see how ultimately Don isn't wrong like maybe he could have gotten someone who would be more like Nadine but Hanna does not replace Nadine and he fails when he tries to make her like that he has to go in a different direction and then he does that successfully with her and in that moment when he's dancing with Nadine again Fred does a great job of capturing this even though by this point he's in love with Hanna he looks really happy because he hasn't done really good ballroom dancing in a while Hanna's not very good at it he has something different with her but there's still a bit of like this was great and I don't have this anymore. Kind of a theme of the film is like you can dance with anybody? Yeah you can but you can't dance the same way with everybody you can't necessarily have the same thing. Just like we said would this movie have been great with Gene Kelly? Yes. Would it have been the same? Not at all no and it wouldn't have been the same with Sid Charisse not that it wouldn't have been as good it would have been better in some ways and not as good in other ways perhaps and that's why many Hollywood producers would wait years to make certain productions if they were set on having a certain performer and being not only dancers but being producers being directors have experienced this you can do something without the person or the people you wanted but it's probably not going to be the same result that you want. It could be a very good result but it's going to be different. Yes and that's good too. So if you want to look beyond the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies or the top five Judy Garland films you know beyond Meet Me in St. Louis, Summerstock whatever her top films may be I highly recommend this film it'll show you another side of both of them and just another great performance whether it's the 15th film you've seen or the first. It's a great introduction for classic film fans or maybe people who are less of classic film fans. It's available to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube and other major streaming platforms in a clear beautiful Technicolor copy. You also can buy it on DVD. We're so glad you could join us for this festive holiday special all about Easter and this wonderful movie Easter Parade. If you're interested in learning about more great classic films and traveling through them with us please check out our other episodes. There's a new one every week talking about a different wonderful classic film. Thank you for watching and Happy Easter!