Have you ever wondered why one movie musical receives critical acclaim
and maybe even an Academy Award and another movie based on an equally
good Broadway musical ends up on a studio shelf, rarely seen after its
initial release? There are several key factors that lead to a quality
movie musical. These factors include a strong story line and
well-written screenplay, quality music, great casting, and effective
direction. Great choreography is often a plus but a movie musical,
unlike a Broadway musical, can be a quality movie without elaborate
dances. In this article, I compare two movie musicals based on
successful Lerner and Loewe Broadway musicals — “My Fair Lady” and
“Camelot” — and I discuss why “My Fair Lady” was an acclaimed,
award-winning movie that is still viewed and loved by millions of
people and why “Camelot” has become a mostly forgotten film.
Both plays were successes on Broadway, although “My Fair Lady” did
receive more praises than “Camelot” and it ran for a significantly
longer time. Nevertheless, “Camelot” had a healthy initial Broadway run
and both plays have had three short-run revivals on Broadway. Also,
both plays earned Tony awards for their male leads and Tony nominations
for Julie Andrews, the leading female star in both plays. Yet, the
movies based on the plays had vastly different outcomes, with “My Fair
Lady” garnering eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best
Actor, and Camelot earning only three minor awards. So, where did
“Camelot,” the movie, go wrong?
Plot and Screenplay
Both plays and movies were based on good works of literature — “My
Fair Lady” on the play “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw, and
“Camelot” on the book “The Once and Future King” by T. H. White. The
screenplays were both authored by an experienced and award-winning
author, Alan Jay Lerner, who also wrote the lyrics for the songs in
both works. Therefore, the story lines and screenplays do not seem to
be where the differences lie. In fact, the plot of “Camelot,” with its
historic setting, romantic entanglements and scenes of chivalry and
war, made it a better vehicle for film than “My Fair Lady” with its
dialog-filled, actionless scenes.
Quality Music
The scores from “My Fair Lady” and “Camelot,” both written by Frederick
Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, are wonderful, with a good blend of
beautiful melodies and sometimes poignant and other times humorous
lyrics. Both shows had one major hit romantic ballad — “On the Street
Where You Live” for “My Fair Lady” and “If Ever I Would Leave You” for
“Camelot” — and both songs were dubbed in the movies by professional
singers. The songs for the male lead are more melodious in “Camelot”
and, at least in the movie version, the male lead, Richard Harris, had
a better singing voice than Rex Harrison had in “My Fair Lady.” With
basically equivalent scores, it seems that it is not the music that
distinguishes the two works.
Casting
Although Richard Harris was the perfect King Arthur, casting is one
major area where the movie version of “Camelot” fell short of its
potential. Both plays starred Julie Andrews and her beautiful voice
added much to the already great scores, but, unfortunately, she was not
cast as the female lead in either film. However, the producers of the
movie version of “My Fair Lady” had the good sense to hire Audrey
Hepburn who was perfectly cast as Eliza Doolittle. She had the
innocence and fragility needed for the role with just enough fire in
her to finally rebel against Henry Higgins, while still leaving the
audience sympathetic to her. On the other hand, the female lead in
“Camelot,” Vanessa Redgrave, although an extremely gifted actress, was
miscast as Guenevere. She presents the character as a cold, selfish
woman who is indifferent to the tragedy she brings to her husband and
his empire. Unfortunately, she was permitted to do her own singing with
the result of a lessening of the impact of some of the songs in
“Camelot.” On the other hand, Audrey Hepburn’s singing was dubbed by
Marni Nixon, a singer with a beautiful, trained voice.
The casting of the third lead character in each film also differed in
quality. In “My Fair Lady,” Colonel Pickering was played by a
distinguished English actor, Wilfrid Hyde-White, whose acting was
excellent. Unfortunately, the key role of Lancelot in “Camelot” was
played by a novice Italian actor, Franco Nero, with limited command of
English. Although he certainly fit the role physically, with his
exceptional good looks, his acting was stiff and his delivery of lines
was almost robotic.
The male leads in both films were perfect. In fact, the casting of
Richard Harris probably saved “Camelot” from being a disaster. He was
so well-cast as King Arthur that after the film, he became associated
with the role and played it in several major productions, including one
on Broadway and one in London.
Direction
Both movies had well-known and well-respected directors, but their
approaches to directing the films were vastly different. George Cukor,
the director of “My Fair Lady,” let the story and music give the movie
its strength and character. There were no special effects used and no
unique filming techniques, but, rather, just good direction of
excellent actors and actresses performing on studio lots. Cukor used
the strong screenplay and beautiful music of “My Fair Lady” to guide
his direction.
On the other hand, Joshua Logan, the director of “Camelot,” used far
too many close-ups that had the audience focused on the leads’ make-up
rather than on the strong plot and music. In some scenes, instead of
presenting a natural context for appreciating the songs or dialog,
Logan chose to fill the large screen with the actors’ faces, resulting
in a distracting rather than enhancing effect.
Conclusion
Although both “My Fair Lady” and “Camelot” had the potential to be
great films, “Camelot” lacked two of the four factors necessary for a
quality movie musical. These factors, strong story line and
well-written screenplay, quality music, great casting, and effective
direction, could be used to compare other movie musicals, for example,
“Gigi” and “Brigadoon” or “Oklahoma” and “South Pacific,” and the
results would be similar. A movie musical that is deficient in even one
of the four factors could make the difference between a film that lives
on for generations or one that gets lost on a shelf.
Copyright 2008 Claire J Rottenberg, All rights reserved
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About the Author:
Claire J Rottenberg writes and publishes ebooks on Mac OS X. In
addition, she writes tips and tutorials for her company’s website: www.cjrtools.com/ebooks. Claire enjoys developing new websites and she has created one filled with information on movie musicals: www.musicals-info.com/movies.
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