My new theme song

[randy_byers]

I watched The Band Wagon (1953) last night in honor of Cyd Charisse, who died this week. It was only the second time I'd watched it, and somehow the first time I missed a song that last night spoke profoundly to my heart:

How I love a glass of beer
More beer!
Beer goes very good with beer
More beer!
When I´m drinking beer I´m thinking,
Ach! Life is beer.
But there´s someone I love even more than beer ...
etc.

I'll drink to that! Thanks to smofbabe for the reminder that Charisse was in this one. RIP, Cyd.

Comments

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I don't know even know who Cyd Charisse is, or was. And who does he (or she) love more than beer? I'll trust that the music successfully set the lyrics, which are the sort of lyrics one too often finds married to wretched accompaniment. I love the line "beer goes very good with beer," which is SO true -- except when it isn't! In which cases beer goes terribly with beer!

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Cyd Charisse was an actress, mostly famous for her dancing, most famously with Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain, although also for the "Dancing in the Dark" sequence with Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon.

The song I quoted is actually sung by Astaire, with the first four lines being a call and response between him and Oscar Levant (whose character is accompanying on piano). What comes after the quoted part is a ditty about a fraulein named Luisa who is the only thing he loves more than beer. The song is, hmm, a German beerhall style.

[jerrykaufman.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten she was in Singin'.

I love CC in the mock-Spillane sequence. (Is it called "Slaughter on 10th Avenue"? I can't remember.) She's smoking hot in that.

The Bandwagon is my favorite musical.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's an amazing outfit she wears in the mock-Spillane sequence. Likewise the green outfit she wears in the Broadway Melody sequence of Singin', where she seems to be Scarface's moll.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

This obit has a couple of embedded video clips of her dancing: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b143128_cyd_charisse_dies_danced_with_astaire.html

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

I love Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I love Louisa, Louisa, love me...

That's my FAVORITE musical!

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

It was interesting to me how much of Astaire's character seems to be based on Astaire himself, and in particular on the history of the Astaire-Rogers films. I was also able to recognize Jack Buchanan this time from having seen him in Ernst Lubitsch's musical, Monte Carlo (1930). (He's much better in The Band Wagon!) And of course The Band Wagon is a variation on the backstage musicals that Busby Berkeley did in the '30s as well. But I guess Singin' in the Rain is too, and is exactly about the advent of movie musicals in the early '30s.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome.

We do everything alike, we look alike
We dress alike, we walk alike, we talk alike
And what is more
We hate each other very much
We hate our folks
We're sick of jokes of what an art it is to tell us apart

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

That's kind of a disturbing number! Especially when you hear that Nanette Fabray was injecting painkillers in her knees to pull it off.