The sky is blue
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The sky is blue |
| Original title | Blue skies |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1946 |
| length | 104 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Stuart Heisler |
| script |
Allan Scott Arthur Sheekman |
| production | Sol C. Siegel |
| music | Robert Emmett Dolan |
| camera |
Charles Lang William E. Snyder |
| cut | LeRoy Stone |
| occupation | |
| |
Blue is Heaven is a 1946 American musical film directed by Stuart Heisler .
action
Shortly after the end of the Second World War, radio presenter Jed Potter tells his listeners about a story that has not yet been concluded, that has to do with a beautiful woman and that is significantly influenced by Irving Berlin's songs.
The year is 1919: Jed is employed as a dancer in a revue and loves the chorus girl Mary O'Hara. He wants to get out of the revue with her and start a new revue in a better position. Both meet in a bar with Johnny Adams, who used to perform with Jed as a vaudeville artist. Mary is immediately fascinated by Johnny, and Jed tries in vain to win her over. He brings Mary out as a star in a major revue, but Mary waits in vain for Johnny for the premiere. He is an unsteady young man who has had countless bars in his past and gave them up whenever they went well. Elsewhere he kept building up a new club and everything started all over again. Mary is looking for something permanent, but can still imagine a future with Johnny. After the premiere, she goes to him and proposes to him. Johnny, unwilling to be tied, rejects her, and she breaks up with him. Jed has new hopes.
Even though Jed has been with Mary for the next two years, she can't forget Johnny. When they meet again, they are both in love as on the first day and marry a short time later. Johnny wants to settle down and promises that his current nightclub will also be the last in his life, but he soon breaks his word. He opens a new club in a new state and Mary follows him without complaint. She gives birth to a girl and Johnny makes up his mind to settle down for his family. One day, Mary takes a call from a buyer at the nightclub currently run by Johnny. She shows Johnny his broken word and gives him a choice: Either his family or his newly planned nightclub. Johnny decides to go to the nightclub and Mary leaves.
Years go by and Mary's daughter is growing up. Mary and Jed are engaged in the show Heat Wave , which will eventually take them to Chicago, where Johnny has just opened his current nightclub. A friend of Mary's goes to see Johnny, who is visiting his daughter for the first time in a long time while Mary is away. He learns from his daughter that Mary will marry "Uncle Jed" in the next week. When Mary and Jed show up at Johnny's nightclub to invite him to the wedding, Johnny is gone. Mary is upset and Jed realizes that she still loves him. He now gives up on Mary and gets drunk on the day of the premiere. Although he is supposed to forego a particularly difficult dance number in which he has to dance without safety on a hill on the precipice, given his condition, he refuses to cut his program. At the finale, he fell from the hill while dancing and the show had to be stopped.
Jed sums up on the microphone that he has never danced again since then and never saw Mary again. Johnny, who sang for the GIs during the war, is in the studio with him, singing You Keep Coming Back Like a Song . Suddenly Mary is in the studio door and she and Johnny hug each other and kiss. Jed also hugs her and all three leave the studio together.
production
Blue is the Sky was filmed in Paramount Studios from July 16 to the end of September 1945. The film premiered in New York City on October 17, 1946. In Germany, the film was shown for the first time on November 27, 1983 on ZDF as part of a Fred Astaire series.
Originally, Mark Sandrich provided as a director of the film and was closely involved in the preparations of the film, however, died in March 1945 and was replaced by Stuart Heisler. Fred Astaire, who had replaced Paul Draper shortly after filming began , wanted to retire from film after filming ended, whereupon Blue Is Heaven attracted a huge number of visitors and became the most successful Paramount film of the year. As early as 1948, however, Astaire replaced the injured Gene Kelly in Easter Walk and made other films in the following years.
music
Numerous songs by Irving Berlin can be heard in blue is heaven . The original plan was to bring together 42 Berlin titles in the film, but in the end 32 Berlin titles were recorded, including:
- A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody - sung by Fred Astaire
- I've Got My Captain Working for Me Now - sung by Bing Crosby
- You'd Be Surprised - sung by Olga San Juan
- All by Myself - sung by Bing Crosby and Betty Russell
- Serenade to an Old-Fashioned Girl - sung by The Guardsmen
- Puttin 'on the Ritz - sung by Fred Astaire
- I – ll See You in CUBA - sung by Bing Crosby, Olga San Juan
- A Couple of Song and Dance Men - sung by Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby
- You Keep Coming Back Like a Song - sung by Bing Crosby
- Blue Skies - sung by Bing Crosby
- The Little Things in Life - sung by Bing Crosby
- Not for All the Rice in China - sung by Bing Crosby
- Russian Lullaby - sung by Bing Crosby
- Everybody Step - sung by Bing Crosby
- How Deep Is the Ocean? - sung by Bing Crosby
- (Running Around in Circles) Getting Nowhere - sung by Bing Crosby
- Heat Wave - sung by Fred Astaire, Olga San Juan
- Any Bonds Today? - sung by Bing Crosby
- This Is the Army, Mister Jones - sung by Bing Crosby
- White Christmas - sung by Bing Crosby
- Always - sung by the choir
- Serenade for an Old-Fashioned Girl - sung by Betty Russell
Three of the songs were written specifically for the film: Running Around in Circles , You Keep Coming Back Like a Song, and A Serenade to an Old-Fashioned Girl . After music, it was the second time Bing Crosby sang the song White Christmas in a movie .
criticism
Variety wrote that all 32 tracks are "so skillfully arranged, accompanied and presented that the nostalgic music parade does not get boring." Fred Astaire's appearance on Puttin 'on the Ritz is the film's outstanding moment. The New York Times wrote about Astaire's Puttin 'on the Ritz that if this was Astaire's swan song from the film, he would at least say goodbye to the audience with the best dance performance of his career.
The film service called Blue Is Heaven a “revue film with brilliant dance scenes by Fred Astaire, who appears here with Bing Crosby”, but also noted the “cliché”. The Protestant film observer was disapproving : “Fade's American Irving Berlin musical from 1946 about going back and forth in a nightclub. Unnecessary."
Awards
In 1947, Irving Berlin was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Song for You Keep Coming Back Like a Song , Robert Emmett Dolan received an Oscar nomination in the category Best Film Music .
Web links
- Blue the sky is in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The sky is blue at Turner Classic Movies (English)
- Film pictures to blue is the sky on cinema.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ See article on Blue Skies at TCM
- ^ Blue Skies . In: Variety , 1946.
- ↑ See Trivia at TCM
- ↑ "... the rest [is] so skillfully arranged, orchestrated and presented that the nostalgic musical cavalcade doesn't pall." "Fred Astaire's' Puttin 'on the Ritz' [...] is the musical standout of the more than 30 items which have been retained. ”See Blue Skies . In: Variety , 1946.
- ↑ "If this film is Mr. A.'s swan song [...], then he has climaxed his many years of hoofing with a properly superlative must-see." Cf. 'Blue Skies,' With Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, Displayed in a Highly Entertaining Fashion at the Paramount . In: The New York Times , October 17, 1946.
- ↑ The sky is blue. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed May 25, 2019 .
- ↑ Evangelischer Film-Beobachter , Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 321/1969.