Squilli di primavera

This picture is always a sempar fidelis-It's always faithful when viewing. It is certainly a rousing tribute to the march king-John Philip Sousa.

The film takes us from the career of Sousa is the Marine Marching band to life afterward. Interesting that he served 5 presidents during his tenure with the marines.

Robert Wagner and Debra Paget play the couple who worked with Sousa in his band and married. The film briefly relates how they thought they'd keep their marriage a secret from Sousa. Wagner made his film debut the same year as this film in the other rousing "With A Song in My Heart." He certainly got experience with crutches in both films. Paget, will forever be remembered as Lilia, the water-girl in the epic "The 10 Commandments." Ironically, her name in this film was Lily as well.

The music was excellently staged and Clifton Webb was in fine form as Sousa. Why? It always seemed that Webb, a fine actor, was always a perfectionist in his films. This film was certainly no exception.

Again, a definitely rousing tribute to a great American. Ruth Hussey, who played Webb's wife in the film, was totally subordinate here. That's how the lifestyle was in the 1890s.

What should be understood is that Stars and Stripes Forever is in no way a full biography of the famous March King which was the nickname given to John Philip Sousa. It is rather a portrait of the era known as the Gay Nineties in America where Sousa first achieved his reputation and prominence. Also included is a romance between fictional characters played by Robert Wagner and Debra Paget.

In that beard with those pince nez glasses, Clifton Webb looks remarkably like John Philip Sousa in that period and by reputation, Sousa was as much a dilettante as Webb normally played on screen which made him perfect casting. After leaving the Marine Corps band, Sousa formed his own orchestra which became world famous and toured the globe well into the Twenties.

But our story concerns Sousa the March King. Though he composed all kinds of music, it is his marches that have come down today and have given him his reputation. The Marine Corps official march, Semper Fidelis, was composed by Sousa and the incident involving President Benjamin Harrison as depicted in Stars and Stripes Forever is somewhat true. The Marine Corps Band was playing at a White House reception and the Harrison who was not the most social of presidents ordered Sousa to speed up the tempo so the receiving line would move at a brisk pace.

Ruth Hussey is cast in the Myrna Loy type role of the perfect understanding mate for her genius husband and she fulfills the role admirably. Even Clifton Webb does make you forget you're watching Clifton Webb and you do think you are seeing the real Sousa.

Stars and Stripes Forever is an admirable film and of course the finale does have several bands and marching armed forces personnel playing and marching to Sousa's most famous composition.

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

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.

The only indisputable and exciting great element in "Stars and Stripes Forever" is its music...

Clifton Webb does a fine work as the great band-master and composer of memorable marches who, on the 1890's, when he leaves the Marines Corps., forms his own concert band and travels around the world...

With the sensitive and beautiful Debra Paget as the singer-dancer, and the sympathetic and good-looking Robert Wagner as the horn player, the loving couple shares a real and firm part of the 'imagined' tale...

The great highlights of the picture are when a black choir is singing "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic," and the outstanding performance of "Dixie," played by Philip Sousa and his Orchestra as they enter the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta...

With Ruth Hussey playing Sousa's sensible wife, and with vivid costumes and a rich amount of Sousa's music, this colorful film is charming and entertaining all the way...