The Best Things in Life Are Free

Mix a little "Singin' in the Rain" with a story line loosely based on the lives of the songwriting team of Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson, throw in a little "Guys and Dolls," and you end up with a fairly entertaining film containing several beautifully choreographed production numbers featuring Sheree North, Dan Dailey, Gordon MacRae, and (of all people) Ernest Borgnine. Set in the 1920s and made in the 1950s, like "Singin' in the Rain," the movie features a great song-and-dance session filled with gangsters dancing to the tune of "Black Bottom"--a song that made flappers go wild doing the Charleston--and showcases the dancing talent of Sheree North. "Oh Boy I'm Lucky" features the guys working through the writing of a song as a trio, no easy task. Other great DeSylva-Brown-Henderson songs featured: "It All Depends on You," "Sonny Boy," "Button Up Your Overcoat" and "Sunny Side Up," and the catchy title tune. "The Birth of the Blues" number displays North at her finest, against a background of jailbirds, some black and some white. It is interesting that when the prisoners are shown lusting after North, only the white prisoners are shown, but when the prisoners are making music in their cells, the black prisoners are also shown. The most cringe-worthy moments in the film are the appearance of Norman Brooks (playing Al Jolson) and Dan Dailey in blackface trying to act like Uncle Tom. Entertaining as the musical numbers are, the film stands as a testimony to apartheid America, where many states criminalized interracial marriage, and where black women were all loyal servants and elderly black men could be mocked with aplomb and referred to as "boy."

Not a bad bio as bio's go. I'm sure what you see in the film is NOT what really happened in real life for the most part. Still an enjoyable viewing, especially some great musical numbers like BLACK BOTTOM and BIRTH OF THE BLUES. Nice performances by all, especially Ernest Borgnine. Unfortunately this Fox MOD is in the pan and scan version, not Cinemascope as presented in cinemas. Strange that Fox, who invented the Cinemascope process would release some of their scope films flat. This really ruined my viewing experience. There is a disclaimer at the beginning that THIS FILM IS FORMATTED TO FIT YOUR SCREEN. This may have been true several years ago, but now 95% of the population have wide screen TV's, so why would a company who invented the scope process send out films in pan an scan? A tragedy indeed.

The Best Things In Life Are Free is once again the typical Hollywood musical biography where the main thing you come to hear are the songs. The output from DeSylva,Brown&Henderson certainly gives you enough material.

Buddy DeSylva came from a theatrical family and as played by Gordon MacRae was a man of ambition who enjoyed high living. Lew Brown who was actually born in Russia was a tough kid from the slums and Ernest Borgnine fresh from his Oscar in Marty certainly knew how to play rough characters. And the third member of the trio Ray Henderson is a family and home loving guy from the suburbs as written and played by Dan Dailey.

All three of these guys worked together and apart. It is not true as the film has it that Ray Henderson was an unknown who latched on by chance when he was visiting his sister-in-law to DeSylva and Brown. Henderson was already a composer of note when he made the two a trio.

DeSylva,Brown&Henderson as a team were together from 1926 to 1930 and wrote several Broadway shows and some early sound musicals. Another mistake shows them writing Sonny Boy for Al Jolson on the spur of the moment after a call from Jolie. Actually they wrote the entire score for The Singing Fool and then followed that up Jolson's third film, Say It With Songs.

The title song and The Birth Of The Blues are probably their best known work, but the rest of the score is like a step back in time to the Roaring Twenties. You'll find a lot here and so much more that may have been left on the cutting room floor.

I'm sure the trio did have the usual frictions that develop among creative partners. DeSylva in fact did leave the other two to become a film producer, first at 20th Century Fox and later at Paramount. In Star Spangled Rhythm, Walter Abel satirized him as B.G. DeSoto. DeSylva was the promoter of the career of Betty Hutton. The other two eventually went their separate ways.

Despite a more than usual amount inaccuracies, The Best Things In Life Are Free can't help being good with all the wonderful music these guys gave us. MacRae, Dailey, and Sheree North give us some really good musical performances, I only wish Dailey had some dance numbers for himself or at least some that made the final film. Acting wise Ernest Borgnine is memorable as the tough slum character who made it on Broadway.

There is also a very funny performance by former heavyweight contender Tony Galento as a bodyguard assigned to protect DeSylva after he runs afoul of gangster Murvyn Vye. Galento was certainly dedicated to his profession.

The film got one Oscar nomination for Lionel Newman for Best Musical Scoring and considering what Newman had to work with, maybe he should have won the award. The Best Things In Life Are Free is a great musical treat and reminder of the days when songs had real melodies.

I thought the chemistry among the three leads - Gordon McRae as Buddy De Sylva, Dan Dailey as Ray Henderson, and Ernest Borgnine as Lew Brown - was absolutely perfect even if not necessarily true. Probably the hardest thing to take at first is the excessively caustic nature of Borgnine's portrayal of Lew Brown until you get to know a little more about Lew, his background, and his friends and then things begin to make sense. There's a good contrast of personalities here - De Sylva civilized but selfish versus the street-wise loud and rude Brown who'd put it all on the line for a friend. Henderson's gentle family man play-for-keeps style versus De Sylva's flavor-of-the-month attitude towards women. I don't know if any of this was true, but as cinema I liked it.

Knowing something about the early talkie musicals and the composers behind them, some things did bother me. At one point the film has the three going out to Hollywood to work on the 1929 early talkie musical "Sunnyside Up". This was largely a homespun little film in the tradition of the early Fox musicals with even a harpsichord number included. Instead, what we see on the set is an elaborate fan-dance like number with a man in a tuxedo singing "If I Had a Talking Picture of You" accompanied by dancing girls with long red boas. This is not how I remember Charles Farrell singing this one. In fact, if there is one big complaint I have is that the songs are pure 20's but the choreography and tempo of the numbers are like something out of an MGM musical ballet with Gene Kelly that would have been popular at the time of the film's release - 1956.

The key to enjoying this film is to focus on the beautiful music, good performances, and the pleasant nature of the story. Do that and I think you'll like it. I don't think this was ever intended to be a serious biopic.

I have no idea how accurate this bio-pic is about the musical writing team of Lew Brown (Ernest Borgnine), Buddy De Silva (Gordon MacRae) and Ray Henderson (Dan Dailey) is, I have no idea as information about these guys' personal lives is scant on the internet. However, I strongly believe it's mostly fiction because that was the norm for films like this in Hollywood during this time. Besides, I find it very hard to believe Lew Brown could be this angry all the time! He did die from a heart attack...so who knows? Not surprisingly, the film only focuses on a small portion of their lives--from the time they teamed up in the 1920s through their time in Hollywood and Broadway.

Much of the film is your typical 1950s musical--with some incredibly irrelevant and artsy dance numbers that are dream sequences (sort of like shorter versions of the HUGE one in "An American in Paris") and some traditional song/dance numbers. In between, there is story...but often this takes a back seat to the songs.

Did I like it? Not much. It's reasonably well made and the trio wrote some very familiar tunes that are sometimes enjoyable. But Borgnine's one-note performance wasn't enjoyable and the other characters seemed underdeveloped...though not as badly as Borgnine's. MacRae had a nice voice and was a heel. Dailey played the piano and was bland. I really wish they'd eliminated a few songs and focused much more on the story...but that is personal taste and the 1950s musicals often were more music than story. Compared to these other musicals, this one is just okay...and the Jolson sequences are, not surprisingly, dated. Seeing a guy who's obviously not Jolson and hiding it by ALWAYS having him in black-face was kind of silly...and tacky.