La parade de la gloire

When this movie was released it was the climax of one of those dreaded days when I had to accompany my mother on a downtown Boston, Massachusetts, shopping trip. I was never aware if my having to tag along was because she couldn't find a babysitter or because she wanted a little companionship, however young and immature, as she searched for a few things to update the family's wardrobe. By the time our trek through several department stores had bored me almost to the point of rebellion, we found ourselves entering the Mayflower Theater and I soon sat fascinated as this Technicolor treat unspooled before my amazed eyes. Even then I knew I wasn't seeing an historically accurate recreation of the life and times of the famous Mr. Sousa, whose music was familiar to me because of my father's enthusiasm for it. (He had played trumpet in his high school band.) But I knew I was seeing a glowingly colorful example of what Hollywood could do to entertain an audience in the mood for some patriotism, however jingoistic, with a touch of romantic flim-flam thrown in.

20th-Century Fox trowelled on the Technicolor; cast Ruth Hussey and Clifton Webb as about the most compatible-seeming mature couple one could imagine; assigned the ever-reliable Alfred Newman to supervise the music, which he did magnificently; and allowed two of its young up-and-comers, Robert Wagner and Debra Paget, to supply a little frosting on the cake. The end result thoroughly charmed that weary pre-teenager in 1953 and did, again, when I saw it on a TV broadcast many years later.

I have to confess that I watched it again to catch that absolutely amazing number, "Father's Got 'Em!", performed with energy to burn by the gorgeous Miss Paget in some of the tightest white tights I'd ever seen before or since. It's hilarious and a heck of a lot sexier than the struttings of most of today's so-called "divas."

Since this was a pre-CinemaScope Twentieth product, possibly produced while the three-strip Technicolor process was still in use, the VHS tape transfer may very well look as vividly rich as it did on that big screen so many years ago in Boston.

John Philip Sousa was not only America's "March King," he was a skilled organizer and entertainer who also composed much music now thoroughly unknown to most Americans (and fans elsewhere). His life spanned the era of an optimistic, brash America where live music was the only music to the burgeoning and eventually triumphant victory of an insatiable technology that even in Sousa's lifetime was employed to record almost everything. Sousa benefited from the new world of recording and he can be heard on compact disc in his later years conducting his famed quasi-military band.

20th Century Fox enlisted a cadre of fine performers for a seamlessly entertaining biopic of John Philip Sousa with a nice, anachronistically innocent, fictional romance interwoven with the band leader/composer's story.

As Sousa Clifton Webb brings to life a character who was, as in reality, ambitious and driven to succeed. Sousa left the Marine Corps, where he led The President's Own, to start his hand-picked band. In uniforms which the leader designed, the outfit mirrored great military bands (of which the U.S., as opposed to England, had a clear shortage during Sousa's life). Sousa understood the importance of touring and he was light years ahead of the twentieth century's pops ensembles in making his musicians - and his music - as ubiquitous as travel of his day allowed.

Sousa's patient and adoring wife, Jennie, is well played by Ruth Hussey.

A nice romantic plot is the courtship of aspiring singer Lily Becker and the alleged inventor of the sousaphone, Willie Little. Lily is the gorgeous Debra Paget and Willie the young and upcoming Robert Wagner. Neither character existed in real life but their romance is well threaded into Sousa's story and is coyly affecting.

1952 was a hard year for many Americans. A self-designated lame duck president presided over an unpopular war, the first in our history in which victory in the traditional military sense wasn't a strategic or political objective. "The Stars and Stripes Forever" was a refreshing patriotic film that didn't require thinking about the realities of the day. I remember seeing it as a kid and loving every minute. I still watch it occasionally.

Credit also goes to the producer and to director Henry Koster for including a scene at an Atlanta festival where a black chorus sings The Battle Hymn of the Republic under Sousa's baton right after a rousing version of Dixie was performed. This was two years before Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court's belated start of the final assault on the obscenity of legalized racial discrimination. I doubt everyone in the South felt good about that scene.

Musical pieces are well interwoven with the story and the final minutes have Sousa's most famous march, also the movie's title, played with a segue from his band to contemporary marching marines and soldiers. His superimposed spectral leading is a fine reminder of his role. A very nice touch.

Folks who only know Sousa from a relative handful of oft-performed and wonderful marches should check out his less well-known music. NAXOS is currently releasing a series of CDs of works that reflect Sousa's extraordinary creativity. But above all, Americans owe him an everlasting debt for composing stirring music that still animates listeners as it did when first performed under his baton.

10/10

Having spent 6 years in orchestras and marching bands before graduating from high school, often playing Sousa's best known marches, I anticipated this partial biographical film. Clifton Webb does indeed come across as the real Sousa and certainly appears much younger than his 60+ years. He much reminds us of Frank Gilbreth in "Cheaper by the Dozen", another perfect role for him. The inclusion of the fabricated young couple played by Robert Wagner and Debra Paget was understandable, serving to lighten things up from time to time as contrasted to Sousa's rather starchy exterior. However, they come across as basically a '50s show biz couple interjected into an 1890s historical film. I was disappointed that more of Sousa's best known marches were not featured, nor the background of how he came to compose some of them revealed. After all, he did compose more than 100 marches, of which at least 8 should be recognized by every American as classics. In addition to "The Washington Post", "Semper Fidelis" and "The Stars and Stripes Forever" prominently featured in the film, "The Thunderer", "The Liberty Bell", "King Cotton", "El Capitan" and "The Corcoran Cadets March" should be instantly recognizable. In the film, we briefly see Sousa on a ship talking to himself about an idea for a classic march. But, we never find out that it is Christmas day, he is on a ship bound from Europe to America and is composing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" in his head. Also, it could have been brought out that his popular march "The Liberty Bell" was due to have quite a different name. However, after he saw a large backdrop of the Liberty Bell and coincidentally received a letter from his wife saying his son was marching in a parade honoring the Liberty Bell, he changed his mind. Sousa's opposition to recording his band and to radio broadcasts of his band could have been brought out(True, radio broadcasting had not been invented during the time period covered). Although he did allow many recordings of the Marine Band around 1890, he later became strongly opposed to recordings of his own band until very late in his career. In this resistance to new electronic technologies that allowed many unseen people to enjoy his music whenever they wished, he was in sympathy with Irving Berlin.

Sousa was not quite the one-dimensional genius popularly supposed. The film brings out to some extent his ambition to be a composer for the musical stage. He also composed several novels. The film could have also brought out the fact that Sousa was recognized as one of the top trap shooters in the world and initiated a national organization for trap shooters.

Sousa's name and origins were a subject for speculation. Several sources claimed that he was from various European countries and that Sousa was a stage name, the "usa" part representing "USA", his adopted country. Im fact, he was born and raised in Washington, D.C., his father being a member of the Marine Band. His ancestry is mostly Portuguese and Bavarian, Sousa being a rather common Portuguese and Spanish name. Variant spellings include d'Souza, Soza and Sosa.

One of film's highlights is the defiant appearance of his marching band in a southern city after notification that it's booking had been canceled due to popular opposition. I don't know if this incident has any factual basis, but Sousa's music and band are depicted as seen by many southerners as a purely Yankee institution. We see the faces of a group of African Americans when "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is played, but I wonder what the reaction of the typical Caucasian southerner would have been. This inspirational Civil War favorite was in fact an unintentional collaboration between South Carolinian William Steffe, who composed the tune shortly before the Civil War, and unionist Julia Ward Howe, who provided the lyrics, one of various lyrics sung to this tune in both the North and South. Thus, it might have been interpreted as a unifying symbol.

I've seen Stars and Stripes Forever after more than forty years. It stands as an agreeable, happy musical, and the only musical biopic that I know, that doesn't falsify the man. The John Philip Sousa of the movie is the real John Philip Sousa. And Clifton Webb gave here his more mature and less hackneyed performance.

Although it probably only has the most tenuous connection with the actual John Philip Sousa's home life this is a highly enjoyable even rousing biography of the famed musician and band leader.

Clifton Webb is such spot on casting as Sousa from his resemblance to the man through his clipped speak and regal bearing it almost seems as if Sousa was invented for him expressly. Ruth Hussey is terrific fun as Mrs. Sousa, sassy and tart but displaying infinite patience for her persnickety husband. The two of them make a great pair showing in subtle ways that even though they have small habits that drive each other crazy there was a deep love the couple shared over the years.

In a fabricated subplot Robert Wagner and Debra Paget, both almost supernaturally beautiful, as a young musician and the music hall entertainer that he loves are bursting with vitality and youthful exuberance.

All of them are highly engaging but it's really the music that the film is about and it's stuffed from one end to the other with classic Sousa marches and his other compositions. The film is bandbox pretty, every frame practically pulsates with ultra bright Technicolor. There is one somber passage where the war touches all the main characters lives but overall the movie is a cheery experience and leaves you in a toe tapping upbeat mood at its conclusion.

A most satisfying diversion especially for lovers of marching music.