Rose of Washington Square

If you liked Funny Girl, and what connoisseur of musicals didn't, you'll be interested to know it wasn't the first story inspired by Fanny Brice. Rose of Washington Square is a fictional-as advertised by the disclaimer in the credits-depiction of a Ziegfeld girl who falls in love with a gambler. Sound familiar? The names are totally different, so if you weren't looking for it, you might not immediately recognize the similarity to Funny Girl. Once Alice Faye started singing "My Man," hopefully you'd figure it out.

Tyrone Power plays the scoundrel, and he and Alice have as much sizzling chemistry as they always do in their movies together. Al Jolson, who spends more of his screen time in black face than out of it, plays Alice's devoted friend. Since this was the time period without video rentals, Al pleased audiences by repeating his signature numbers "Mammy" and "California Here I Come." In the story, Al's in love with her, but since he's up against Tyrone Power, he doesn't stand a chance. It's love at first sight for Ty and Alice, and even though he's no good, albeit incredibly shrewd, she can't let him go. Barbra Streisand couldn't let Omar Sharif go, could she? Make sure to go into this movie expecting a drama.

The title refers to Alice Faye as Rose of Washington Square, in this film that is loosely based on the life of Fanny Brice. You may not recognize it or realize that, if you didn't see "Funny Girl" just prior to it or knew certain facts about her and Nick Arnstein. But, Fanny and Nick filed a lawsuit against the movie, because songs that were included would have made it obvious to the current moviegoers just who it was all about. So, the executives had to edit or take out songs which were too closely identified with Fanny Brice.

But, the film stands on its own merits without knowing anything about them. Alice Faye may be the star (and she has some good songs, too), but it's Al Jolson that almost outshines her with some great show-stopping numbers: "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with Dixie Melody" and "California, Here I Come."

The only qualm I have is that, the song "Rose of Washington Square" that is sung here doesn't have the same verses that singer Ann Dee sings in "Thoroughly Modern Millie." It is the same song; that I know. The different movies just decided to sing different verses of it. I personally like the slow presentation in "Millie", where Ann Dee is sitting on top of a piano in the smoke-filled room in "Thoroughly Modern Millie". If only a movie had the song in its entirety for posterity.

That notwithstanding, this movie is out on an Alice Faye DVD collection (the edited version), so it has a chance of being discovered, which is good, because the music is too good to be buried away somewhere.

In this early version of the Funny Girl story, Alice Faye as Rose Sargent simply shines in her performance. Alice's warm contralto voice was one of the easiest to take of any musical star from the Thirties. She's helped her by a collection of post World War I standards and a new song written by the 20th Century Fox songwriting team of Mack Gordon and Harry Revel, I Never Knew Heaven Could Speak.

Other than the names were changed to make them ethnically neutral, Alice, as Fanny Brice, sings a lot of ballads in her own style. Fanny Brice as a performer was nothing if not ethnic. Other than her famous standard My Man, in which Faye reprises her well, Brice's repertoire consisted of comedy numbers mostly with an accent to identify her Lower East Side of New York Jewish origins.

Still Alice in her goyish version of Fanny was real enough so that Fanny sued 20th Century Fox to stop the film. She and Darryl Zanuck reached an out of court settlement.

Tyrone Power is Hobart DeWitt Clinton(Nicky Arnstein), a name certainly waspy enough to disguise any ethnicity. It's Ty's third and final film with Alice Faye. Whether played by Power or Omar Sharif, the husband's role is a tricky one. He's a charming con man and you can't make him to weak or the audience will never understand why Faye is even bothering with him. Of course if you have the looks of Tyrone Power, it's easy. But you do have to have the talent to match which Power does. In the storyline at the beginning, Power is identified as having served in the American Expeditionary Force in France in World War I. Deliberately put there to make the audience empathetic with him. After all in 1939 there were certainly a lot of moviegoers who were veterans or in the families of World War I veterans.

Al Jolson was here and shares the spotlight with Faye in singing some of his old standards from that period. He was very good in his part as Faye's confidante and fellow performer. But Jolson with his ego did not like sharing the spotlight with anyone. His three 20th Century Fox roles were supporting or guest star roles and he hated it. Equally I might add that Alice Faye couldn't stand him.

Irony of ironies, back in the day Jolson himself got into a famous feud with Walter Winchell who was the creative genius behind Broadway Through a Keyhole. That film was a disguised version of his own courtship and marriage to Ruby Keeler and Jolson was the one doing the suing then.

Alice Faye is not Fanny Brice in the film, but I'm happy with her just being Alice Faye.

This is an excellent movie musical from the 20th Fox studio, which made excellent movie musicals. Fox made all those great musicals with John Payne and Alice Faye, until she got supplanted by Betty Grable. It's all here - storyline, music, production values and a Who's-Who cast of memorable character actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

"Rose" is actually a revue with only one or two songs written for the movie; "I Never Knew Heaven Could Speak" is one and is the best song in the picture. The rest are songs from pre and post WW1 and are old standards - there are 20 songs in all. Then there is the Cigarette Dance which contains some trick photography and is very clever indeed.

It stars Tyrone Power and Alice Faye who handle acting chores, but the singing duties belong to Al Jolson, who at one time was considered the best entertainer of the 20th century on either coast. He comes alive when he sings his signature numbers but has a very limited acting range. This picture is seldom seen today because, for reasons rooted in the early part of the last century, Jolson sang in blackface. Apparently this worked for him but the film is no longer in the good graces of the PC crowd and those intimidated by them. The plot is based (loosely) on Fanny Brice and her husband/problem child Nicky Arnstein. As we know too well, Hollywood feels fiction is stranger than truth and punches up many stories that were good to begin with. Plus, they were true, and what fun is that.

Do yourself a favor; if you can find this picture watch it and see how Hollywood used to do it in the good old days. As I stated in the summary, that's entertainment in the purest sense of the term. I gave it a well-deserved rating of 8.

Very entertaining- a thinly disguised bio-pic of Fanny Brice. Power and Faye- at their acting peaks- are great as the leads. Faye is in great voice. However, Jolson steals the movie. At the age of 54, he was in the best voice of his career. His Rock- a Bye and California Here I Come are thrilling. I own the video, which also contains clips of several Jolson and Faye songs which were edited out of the final movie. a must for fans of the three stars.