Les rois du jazz

Sheree North, a wonderful presence in too few films in the 1950's. She was up there with the best and you only have to see her in ' No Down Payment ' to see how seriously good she was. I am one of the lucky few who taped this film back in the 1980's when it was shown on UK television in Cinemascope. It leaves and breathes Cinemascope and yet crime of crimes it is only available in pan and scan. Why was this idiotic decision made ? My faded copy with dodgy faded colour is better, and many cinemas on re-runs would have shown it like this, and I am not complaining. The ' Black Bottom ' HAS to be seen on widescreen, and it is one of those great musical numbers that uses the full length of the screen, and Sheree North dances so perfectly I get vertigo just looking at her. And now where is this film in the history of musicals ? Nowhere near the top and it should be. Even Ernest Borgnine sings and he could!!! Also he gives a fine performance. Michael Curtiz, one of Hollywood's great directors gave us this treasure and it is an insult that this is a semi-forgotten film. It works on every level.

It's hard to believe Michael Curtiz directed this film. Mr. Curtiz, one of the most distinguished directors of the American cinema, doesn't bring anything new to this tired 20th Century Fox movie.

Maybe the three men at the center of the movie, the great song writing team of De Sylva, Brown and Henderson were too bland to merit a film that celebrated their lives. They made their mark in the theater in the early part of the 20th century, but as it plays on the screen, this musical feels dull and out of place. Some of the trio's best songs are heard in the movie. Songs like Birth of the Blues, which Gordon MacRae sings with panache. Also they wrote that sappy Al Jolson's standard, Sunny Boy, which is sung by the star in black face.

Perhaps the casting was the wrong choice for this movie. Gordon MacRae doesn't show any spark as Buddy DeSylva. Dan Dailey is also an enigma, the way he plays Ray Henderson. Ernest Borgnine is the only one that shows some life in his interpretation of Lew Brown. Sheree North is the good Kitty Kane, who played in most of the shows this trio wrote.

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.

Henderson, De Sylva, and Brown. Not exactly in the same league as Berlin, Porter, or Rodgers and Hart/Hammerstein. Still, you may know a few of their songs as they've lingered through the years - 'The Birth of the Blues', for example, or 'Button Up Your Overcoat'; they also wrote the campus musical 'Good News'.

The three mismatched songwriters are played here by Gordon MacRae, Dan Dailey, and Ernest Borgnine. Yep, and he even has a song or two. The stand-out though has to be MacRae's superb rendition of 'The Birth of the Blues', in which he proved yet again why he was in the top handful of singers in the movies. Girly support is from Sheree North, but she isn't very memorable. Nor, in fact, is the story of this trio - perhaps musical biopics were tired by 1956, or we were just wise to the cliches.

'The Best Things In Life Are Free' is worth a look when there are no superior musicals on, and is a fairly good example of colour and Cinemascope of the period. But a great musical, it isn't.

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.