Bells Are Ringing

Arthur Freed's final musical production for MGM was this very bright musical comedy from Jule Styne-Betty Comden-Adolph Green, Bells Are Ringing. Sadly this was also the farewell film performance of Judy Holliday who was playing the role of Ella Peterson which she had created on Broadway.

Bells Are Ringing ran for 924 performances on Broadway from 1956 to 1959 and won a few Tony Awards including one for Judy Holliday as Best Actress. I'm sure the Tony went well with the Oscar she won for Born Yesterday up on her mantel.

According to a book about Arthur Freed and the films he produced at MGM, Bells Are Ringing was not an easy shoot. Judy Holliday was suffering a lot of health problems with bladder and kidney. In that sequence where she goes on a blind date and her dress catches on fire, Holliday was actually burned. And she had a constant battle with her weight.

Her leading man on Broadway was Charlie Chaplin's son, Sydney who also won a Tony Award and with whom she was involved with. MGM wanted a name with a bit more box office to it, so Dean Martin was cast as playwright Jeffrey Moss. Holliday got along with Dean, but she felt him to lackadaisical in his attitude. That might have been a problem later on, but certainly not here. I'm sure she'd have preferred Sydney Chaplin to work with again.

With the advances in telecommunications, Bells Are Ringing at this point has an almost quaint nostalgic look to it. I'm sure young viewers now who use cellphones and text messaging and have automatic answering systems built in to phones wouldn't even understand what an answering service was all about.

They certainly all weren't like Susanswerphone which is run by Jean Stapleton and employs two other people including Judy Holliday. Despite warnings by Jean to just take messages and a visit by police inspector Dort Clark who misreads what's going on at the Susanswerphone switchboard, Judy is a compulsive do-gooder who insists on meddling in the lives of her customers.

But she does it in such a sweet and winning way, Holliday creates one of the great screen characters and like Billie Dawn from Born Yesterday, one that originated on the stage. In one way Bells Are Ringing is a modern story, it's almost like an internet chatroom with Holliday running the board.

Besides Judy, Jean Stapleton, Dort Clark, and Bernie West who plays the frustrated songwriting dentist all repeat their roles from the original Broadway cast. Freed and director Vincent Minnelli pulled off some real casting gems for some of the other parts. Fred Clark as the producer who's trying to get a play out of Dino, Eddie Foy, Jr. as the dapper conman/bookie who is romancing Stapleton and whose activities arouse the police suspicions in the first place, and Frank Gorshin who I love best playing a second rate Marlon Brando imitator of a method actor.

Most of the musical score remained intact here. Arthur Freed would have been lynched had he attempted to bring Bells Are Ringing to the screen without Just In Time and The Party's Over. The last has become an automatic item the way Goodnight Sweetheart used to be signaling the end of an evening's festivities. And I do so like the Drop That Name number, try to see how many celebrities get their named dropped in that song.

Despite the problems it had with shooting, Bells Are Ringing is certainly a fitting climax for Arthur Freed's career as a producer. Judy Holliday made no more films, but did have another Broadway show, Hot Spot which did not have a long run. What a terrible tragedy, one so talented left us at age 44.

Still her fans can treasure her memory and her art in watching among other of her films, Bells Are Ringing.

Made late in the cycle of great MGM musicals, with the reliable producer-director combo of Arthur Freed and Vincente Minnelli, this is a fairly clunky adaptation of a Broadway hit. Despite some location filming, it looks stagebound, and the stylized playing and jerrybuilt musical-comedy plot look false as hell. Some excellent musical numbers from the original are badly truncated or left out entirely, and what's left is grotesquely over-orchestrated. One senses that Minnelli, in particular, didn't trust the material--look at how quickly he dispenses with the "Mu-Cha-Cha" number, seemingly embarrassed by its musical-comedy silliness--and the supporting cast seems to be playing to the second balcony.

That's the bad news; now we get, thank heaven, to Judy Holliday. Having played this part on Broadway for two years and toured with it longer, she looks amazingly spontaneous. Given her health problems at the time, she looks happy and healthy. And while we can't expect to experience her legendary warmth and charisma as stage audiences did, it's an incomparable performance. Every reaction, every inflection, every seemingly improvised movement rings true and lends depth and poignancy to a paper-thin character traipsing around in a contrived plot. What a lesson for any young actor in transforming everyday material into something memorable. My favorite moment comes early, when she's reclining on a sofa and looks up dreamily and starts singing, a capella and with perfect naturalism, "I'm in love..." I'm in love, too, Judy. We miss you.

I found Bells Are Ringing accidentally when I was researching another film project and it has become a favorite. While Holliday is sparkling in her role, it is Martin's low-key reactions (which are, of course, what made him such a great straight man) that send me back to watch the film again and again. It's a "don't-miss" for fans of Holliday, Martin and the musical comedy - heavy on the comedy - genre.

Ella (Judy Holliday) is an answering service operator (this was way before answering machines existed). She unwisely gets involved in the personal lives of her clients. She gets most involved with playwright Jeffrey Moss (Dean Martin) and ends up meeting him. However she tells him her name is Millicent Scott and they fall in love with each other...but she feels guilty for lying to him. Will their love survive? Well--it's an MGM musical. What do you think?:)

It's too long, there's some terrible overacting (especially by Frank Gorshin), it moves too slowly and the awareness that this was Holliday's last film (she died of cancer 5 years later) casts sort of a pall over this film but it's worth seeing. The songs are good, it's wonderfully directed by Vincente Minnelli and is in bright vivid color. However the main attraction here is Holliday. She played this role on stage and won a Tony for it and they (wisely) kept her in the film. She was sick when she did this but you would never know it. She was beautiful, bright and full of energy. In her music numbers she gives all she's got and comes roaring off the screen. Also it's her only color film. Worth seeing just for her.

"Bells are Ringing" is a must for Judy Holliday's fans. The bubbly star of some of the best comedies of the fifties, is the main reason for watching this musical, directed by Vincente Minnelli. Betty Comden and Adolph Green were the creators of the book and lyrics with music by Jule Styne.

The film was an excuse for showcasing Ms. Holliday and Dean Martin, who took over Sydney Chaplin's role. The two stars show an easy chemistry in their scenes together, even though the transfer to the screen seems somehow clumsy coming from an experienced director of musicals like Mr. Minnelli.

"Bells are Ringing" is a nostalgic look at the New York of the 1950s. It was quite a status symbol to have an answering service in those days before the automatic devices of today. There is a hilarious second plot involving illegal gambling by linking classical music works to the different races in several horse race tracks that are channeled through Susanswerphone service, which makes the police Ella is involved in the scheme.

Judy Holliday gave a tremendous performance in the film as the kind, but somehow naive Ella. Dean Martin is fine also as the blocked writer. In supporting roles Eddie Foy Jr., Jean Stapleton, and Dean Clark, are seen among others.