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Rainbow Review |
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Rainbow ReleasesEvery Rainbow Review includes a list of Judy related releases. This article was originally illustrated with nine high quality Judy photographs. You can see the article with all the photographs, along with many others, in Issue 26 of the Rainbow Review. Table of Contents:
Get Happy?Little, Brown & Company ISBN: 0316855952 £16 Random House ISBN: 0375503781 £19 Gerald Clarke's controversial biography was released in the United Kingdom in early November. It continues to raise hackles and cries of indignation from the Garland community. Scrape away at the surface, and there is an edifice of mediocrity about this book. Clarke apparently worked on "Get Happy" for "ten long, arduous, pleasurable and painful years. But it's done, it's out and I am as happy as the picture of Judy on the cover." The effort, quite frankly, is not evident. He appeared on "20/20 Tonight" in what some would describe as an act of cynical exploitation playing the private and sometimes harrowing autobiographical tapes that Judy recorded at a particularly low point in her life. They served only to reinforce to a shocked public the "sad life, sad death" scenario that often plagues analyses of her life and career. A question and answer session posted on the Internet went on to galvanise this mythology, and we've all been down this road a thousand times: sexual molestation at MGM; abortions; Ethel as prototypical stage mother; gay husbands, addictions. Yawn. Fact: the most controversial scene in the book, which recounts some sexual escapade in a restaurant, is based on a lie. Enough said. I was particularly irritated at Clarke's efforts to dress up stale and old-hat events in revisionist amateur psychology and heady literary allusion. During his research he'd had no personal or direct contact with any of Garland's immediate family. Lorna Luft went on the "20/20" show to dispute his claims and highlight all the "failings, mistakes, omissions and inaccuracies" in the book. None of her material, nor any of the upbeat and positive interviews with Mickey Rooney and Mort Lindsay, was used on the show. "We only said positive things about Judy and they didn't want to hear that. All Barbara wanted to ask about was the pills, being unreliable, all the problems," lamented Lindsay. Steve Sanders noted: "Lorna had her attorneys attempt to stop Clarke from using the tapes in his book, but the author got around that by lifting the information and paraphrasing and keeping quotes down to a minimum; that way, it would be considered 'fair use' and, therefore, unlikely to be legally challenged." Lorna also wrote a letter to Bill Goldstein, book editor of the Times. "I have kept silent about my feelings on Gerald Clarke's book on my mother. However, I must respond to the lies he wrote and has said about me. My actions, feelings and emotions as a daughter were never shared with Mr. Clarke. None of my representatives received any correspondence, and I open my own mail. In ten years of research, if he wanted to talk to me, he would have followed up his letter. I can be found. I am not a 'victim of her myth.' This book has merely added a few more fairy tales to the existing stories, legends and half-truths about my mother. I never called her a bitch. Never ever. And I never 'despised' her. How dare he question how well I knew my mother. We had help, but I had a mother. There was never a time when she was at home that I 'didn't see her for days at a time.' Whenever possible, she took us on tour with her, and, in any event, she called us every night. My mother was my biggest fan and attended many of the neighbourhood productions I appeared in as a child. However, I was never in a school play of 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown.' I have learned that the most outrageous, graphic and unnecessary story, which is completely unattributed in the book, was told to him by my mother's 'friend' Tom Green. This man has admitted that the story was totally made up. Thanks to Mr. Clarke, this ludicrous fantasy will forever be taken as gospel and reprinted over and over again." Janet Maslin wrote an illuminating critique of "Get Happy" in The New York Times entitled "Get Happy: the over-examined life of the 'real' Judy Garland." "What do Odysseus, Sir Galahad and pigtailed little Dorothy from 'The Wizard of Oz' have in common? Answer: lonely quests through hostile territory. But this is no parlour game. It's the high-minded desperation that serves as ballast for 'Get Happy,' Gerald Clarke's scandal seeking yet curiously wan biography of Judy Garland. Clarke puts himself at a serious disadvantage in moving from a fresh, witty, reasonably unexamined subject like Capote to a woman whose entire adult life unfolded in a climate of sob-sister press scrutiny. Her triumphs and calamities were chronicled with tireless vigour. 'I must say I never thought I'd live to see the day when anyone would be tossed into the jug for saying Judy Garland had problems,' wrote the columnist Dorothy Kilgallen after another reporter was briefly jailed for libel. Among the newspaper and magazine articles that this book swallows as reliable source material are 'The Real Me,' I'm Judy Garland - and This Is My Story' and 'Judy Garland Achieves New Level of Poignancy.' The basic trajectory of the star's life, from soulful baby precocity (she sang torch songs in childhood) to MGM heyday to descent into drug-addled misery, is thus well known. For instance, it was set forth in Gerold Frank's credulous but thorough 1975 'Judy,' from which 'Get Happy' borrows frequently. When it comes to an appreciation of Garland's talent, well, she herself once offered one: 'I have a machine in my throat that gets into many people's ears and affects them.' Try as he will to evoke mythology or Milton from time to time, Clarke has precious little to add to that description. What, then, warrants this new look at the life of Judy Garland? The opportunity to put her on the kind of pedestal that comes complete with pigeon droppings. In keeping with today's appetites for tabloid allegations couched as valuable data, Clarke devotes inordinate attention to determining just how bisexual were many of the men in Garland's life, just how many married men or father figures she fooled around with, and just how foul she could be while wallowing in substance abuse. The kind of nugget to be found here is the interview with William Tuttle, who was once head of MGM's makeup department and told Clarke of having dropped a Benzedrine pill while in Garland's presence. 'Like a dog jumping for a scrap,' Clarke writes gracelessly, 'Judy grabbed it almost before it hit the floor.' 'Get Happy' is thus ready to reel off incidents like Garland's pitching a self-destructive fit while wielding a hot curling iron, even if this episode comes second hand, courtesy of a hairdresser who described it to a friend. There's more in the same poisonous vein, much of it accompanied by craven page notes that explain 'the friend who told me the story has asked me not to reveal her name,' or 'the lover made that boast to a source who requested anonymity.' Rock bottom is reached with an anecdote about a wastebasket used as a chamber pot. Just how far over the rainbow need the reader go to get away from stuff like this? One nominal justification for this book is Clarke's access to previously unavailable autobiographical material from Garland herself. It's true that the tenor of her recollections - a childhood trauma here, a grope from Louis B. Mayer there - is just right for the author's purposes. Quoted in the book only briefly, her audiotaped rantings are excruciating, fuelled by the raging bitterness and pathos that shaped her final years. 'I'm an angry lady! I've been insulted! Slandered! Humiliated!' Clarke describes her as screaming. And: 'I hate anybody's guts who used me, because I wanted to be a nice girl.' Unquestionably, there is an art to the clever exploitation of such pain. Throw enough biographical mud against the wall, and a coherent picture may just take shape. But an author with a fondness for words like rutilant, cunctatory and exundant, and with a tendency to sound more like a perfunctory chronicler than a muckophile, is apt to lack the bare-knuckles brutality that the genre increasingly demands. Clarke winds up wavering awkwardly between the tut-tut outing of Garland's secrets and the clammy hyperbole of the reverential fan. When Garland's hand and footprints were immortalised in the sidewalk at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, he declares that 'like the image of some girl of Pompeii, immortalised by a belch from Vesuvius, her lithic impression would remain long after she herself was gone.' Get Happy leaves the Garland legend in need of a sharper lithic impression than this. As Clarke all too persuasively demonstrates, a yellow brick road paved with anguish-peddling anecdotes may not lead anywhere. For all its new embellishments, the life story told here sounds bleak and weary. It might have found more to work with had it gone on to consider the cult of unflagging adoration Garland has inspired, the larger implications of her lonely legend, and the Marilynization of her victories and frailties into the essence of a durable show business icon. Then, of course, there is her music, which tells a gut-wrenching life story of its own and remains magnificently evergreen in ways that Get Happy never begins to fathom. There will always be a deeper thrill in the astonishing drama of that voice than in the most tone-deaf ('Who finally introduced her to the pleasures of sex, and where and when, is a question without an answer') of biographical observations." Clarke himself proclaimed that "the biggest misconception is that her life was always unhappy. It wasn't. There were many periods of great happiness in her life. Judy had many, many lows but she also had many, many highs. One of her friends said that nobody could laugh like Judy and nobody could cry like Judy. There was no in between with Judy. It was either great happiness or great unhappiness. But when she was happy you knew it. She had the most wonderful laugh in the world. One man I talked to compared it to the sound of a waterfall. Happiness just gushing out of her and you can still hear it in her movies and in her TV shows. A wonderful throaty, infectious laugh." However, he lost this aspect of Judy in the book. Other journalists commented on the irony of the title, in a book that emphasised so heavily the woes. "Why not skip the irony and focus on the jolt Garland could give an audience when she was in peak form, giving performances that remain high points in the history of American entertainment?" Liz Smith supported this philosophy. "Like that other over-biographied star, Marilyn Monroe, there is little more to say, and less to be revealed. The 'truth' is in the work. Go pick up any one of Judy's two dozen major films, or a copy of the 'Judy at Carnegie Hall' CD. That is all you'll ever need to know about the greatest female entertainer of the century." Elizabeth Kendall of the New York Times also noted: "When all is said and done, it is Garland's singing, acting and even her dancing that make her unforgettable. She could not save herself off the stage, but on it she kept honing her craft, infusing whole movies and concerts with her own restless and transcendent vitality. Read 'Get Happy' - it is a riveting account. But rent a pile of Garland movie videos and compact discs. They tell the real story." Clarke feels that the book will help Judy's keep legacy going and bring her new fans. " I've given a new picture of Judy. I have not only discovered new information and a lot of it. But I've given a more accurate and I believe passionate picture of this electric performer. An unforgettable woman. I'd like people to appreciate what a remarkable woman, what a remarkable person she was. Deeply flawed but deeply human. I don't look upon her life as a tragedy as many people have done. I regard it as a triumph because she has overcome so many obstacles to entertain and give pleasure to so many people." God forbid that this is the final word on Garland. Little Voice2000 Buena Vista Home Entertainment £14.99 The DVD and video of "Little Voice" - starring Michael Caine and Jane Horrocks - is now available. Carnegie Hall2CD "Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall" 24Karat Gold 2000 DCC Compact Classics £40.99 This was released earlier this year to a fanfare of praise. "This new release will present - for the first time ever - the entire landmark concert that took place on April 23, 1961, exactly as it happened. DCC, known for its attention to detail, has taken great care to correct flaws on previous versions of the record. In essence, this is a new album both in its sonic quality and attention to historical accuracy. Judy At Carnegie Hall, one of the earliest live concert recordings ever made, stayed on the Billboard chart for 94 weeks - 13 weeks at Number One - and was the winner of five Grammy Awards, including Best Female Vocal Performance and Album of the Year. Singing songs expertly picked by Garland herself she was proclaimed by critics and public alike to be at the peak of her performing skills. Nearly 40 years after her most triumphant tour Garland has continued to be adored and to be rediscovered by new generations. This will be a new listening experience for those familiar with old issues of the concert and a revelation to those who have never before spent an evening with Judy At Carnegie Hall, the greatest live audio representation of one of the world's most enduring talents." The March issue of Ice Magazine ran a celebratory piece entitled: "The Ultimate Diva". "People have always told me that this was the greatest single night in the history of entertainment," A&R chief Steve Hoffman told ICE. "That's a hard thing to live up to, but she does. She was totally 'on,' and the whole audience was right there for her." He commented on the quality of the remix. "It's nice hearing her not squashed and buried in the mix of the orchestra," he says. "She's out in front now, a lot louder than the orchestra. It's like she's standing right there." This is as near to the original as you will ever get and includes the original live version of "Alone Together." There is also entertaining new dialogue. For example, she follows "That's Entertainment" with her account of the London journalist telling her just how marvellous she looked only to denounce her as fat in the press the morning after. Rex Reed in his New York Observer piece "The Cult of Judy" noted that the new release made you feel like part of the audience. He was one of the privileged few who'd been there that night and enthused that "this revisit is a masterpiece that will carry new generations of Judy cults, jaded old-timers and even non-believers over the rainbow - and keep them there." For this price the packaging and accompanying documentation is disappointing. This would have been a great opportunity for unpublished photographs and intelligent essays on the history of the show. Sadly it was not to be. David Torresen in "Blade" wrote a glowing review. "Few nights are as legendary in show business history as April 23, 1961, when all the planets aligned for Judy Garland and 3,165 rapt listeners at Carnegie Hall, including many of her peers in the entertainment industry (Rock Hudson, Leonard Bernstein, Julie Andrews, Henry Fonda, Carol Channing, Liza Minnelli, and on and on) and dozens of stunned critics. Garland, who by 1961 had already made several sensational returns to the spotlight in defiance of personal and professional turmoil, scored the comeback to end all comebacks that night, presenting twenty-eight songs in a deftly paced program combining her signature tunes with material she hadn't previously recorded. By all accounts, the Hollywood has-been was anything but. The resulting 2-LP set from Capitol Records, Judy at Carnegie Hall, holds the distinction of being one of very few albums of the era that has never gone out of print. Upon its release, it remained on Billboard's charts for nearly 100 weeks (13 weeks at number one), and garnered five Grammy awards, including Album of the Year, a first for a woman, and Best Female Vocal Performance. In the ensuing years it has always been available, whether on vinyl, reel-to-reel, cassette tape, or three different CD incarnations. Judy Garland's stunning concert performance at Carnegie Hall in April, 1961 has been released in its entirety on CD. The third CD version of Carnegie, recently released by DCC Compact Classics, is the first in any format to present all the songs in their original sequence. (Capitol's various versions have shuffled the songs, presumably for a more effective flow from song to song, and one CD version substituted Garland's live performance of 'Alone Together' with a version recorded in a studio, because the Carnegie master tapes for this song were thought to be lost or damaged.) DCC's version also includes some between-song banter by Garland, a clever raconteur, not found on earlier versions. Essentially this is a 'you are there' experience, from the minute the engineer pressed the 'record' button to the extended, jubilant cheers following the last of several emotional encores, 'Chicago.' The singer is in breathtakingly vigorous vocal shape throughout - if there's just one Garland album to own, unquestionably this is it. She had been honing this act since August of 1960, when she fulfilled several engagements in Europe and the States (similar concerts from Paris and Amsterdam have also been released on CD), working on a more manageable schedule than usual, and in amazingly good health considering that only a year earlier, while battling a serious case of hepatitis, her doctor told her (according to biographer John Fricke), 'You are a permanent semi-invalid. It goes without saying that under no circumstances can you ever work again.' The audience's affinity with a rejuvenated Garland is based foremost on her immediate vocal power, but also on its abiding affection for her earlier work on film, record, radio, TV, and stage, and its identification with her personal hardships. As Spencer Tracy said (quoted in the original Carnegie liner notes), 'a Garland audience doesn't just listen; they feel they have to put their arms around her when she works.' And as the late film historian Vito Russo wrote, 'When Garland sang her whole life was on that stage. She had the guts to take the chance of dropping dead in front of ten thousand people. And won.' Mort Lindsey's booming orchestra assists Garland on most of the numbers, but the album's true highlights are the scaled-down performances with a smaller jazz combo ('Puttin' On The Ritz,' 'Just You, Just Me'), and particularly with solo piano on a trio of exquisite ballads: 'You're Nearer,' 'A Foggy Day,' and 'If Love Were All.' Such rich, nuanced readings fly in the face of the commonly held image of Garland the belter." The Magic Of TelevisionCD Judy Garland "The Magic of Television Volumes 1,2,3" 2000 Type Cast Records, Singapore £14.99 each. This comprises tracks from the recent Pioneer 4-DVD box set, but is no where near the sound quality. Obviously, this release means that some rare material is making its debut on CD. Rather amusingly the executive producer is cited as Harold Gumm. The tracks in the first volume have been lifted from the "Just Judy" DVD compilation. Rhino ReleasesThe combination CD soundtracks of "The Pirate/Les Girls" and "In The Good Old Summertime/"Summer Stock" will be made available in the New Year via the Internet on a limited, numbered release from Rhino Handmade. There are also plans to release Gay Pur-ee on CD. There will be no extra tracks, alternates, or outtakes. A spokesman commented: "This label will give us an opportunity to finally free up all the great MGM material that has been so long unavailable due to the heavy expenses of marketing and distribution through traditional retail. By going directly to the collector market, in limited edition form, we can free up, literally, hundreds of scores, and get them to the people who want them, and do so in a business-like fashion. I think fans of the MGM musicals will be very excited by what the future holds taking this kind of approach for rarities." George Feltenstein noted that some titles like "Till The Cloud Roll By" and "Words and Music" were taking longer to release because "our sound elements on the entire recording sessions for both pictures are in tenuous condition. There are several tracks for which we need to find better sound elements before we can proceed with an album that would honour both films appropriately. We need to find a few more tracks through private/archival and collector sources before we can do these albums justice. I can assure all interested parties that these titles are high priorities once element issues are resolved." Annie Get Your GunDVD/Video 2000 Warner Home Video $17.50/$18 CD Turner Classic Movies Music/Rhino Movie Music 2000 $15 This great musical was released with supplementary material to delight Garland fans on video, DVD and CD in November. Advanced publicity noted: "With songs by Irving Berlin, including the classics 'There's No Business Like Show Business' and 'They Say It's Wonderful,' the original 1946 Broadway production was a huge hit. M-G-M acquired the film rights and cast Judy Garland as Annie Oakley. But after Garland recorded all the songs for the film, she was replaced by Betty Hutton. The resulting 1950 film became one of the studio's biggest-grossing pictures. Turner Classic Movies has assembled the definitive edition of the movie that features the thirteen unused Judy Garland versions [all in one place for the first time]. The tune that is sure to cause a commotion is a stereo version of Garland's rendition of 'There's No Business Like Show Business,' but fans will also be thrilled by the Betty Hutton outtakes." Extras include Garland performing "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly" and "I'm an Indian, Too," along with Hutton singing the Berlin ballad "Let's Go West Again." Unfortunately, the DVD does not include all of the treats that the advance publicity claimed that it would. George Sidney's audio commentary and vital context-building behind-the-scenes moments from Judy's "I'm An Indian Too" are missing. A week after the video release, Rhino/Turner Classic Movies issued an expanded soundtrack CD, which includes all of Judy's pre-recordings as well as other outtakes. The CD comprises all the songs from the film itself, a few underscoring cues, and all of the pre-recordings done by Judy and her co-stars. Many of these tracks have already been released on previous albums like Collector's Gems but the producers have subsequently found better source materials. A Star Is BornDVD 2000 Warner Home Video £27.99 The DVD was released in September. Extras in include: the 1954 theatrical trailer as well as the original theatrical trailers of the 1937 and 1976 versions, network telecast of the 1954 premiere, documentary coverage of the post-premiere party, three alternative filmings of the song The Man That Got Away and the deleted song When My Sugar Walks Down the Street. The Judy Garland Show Volume 4DVD Pioneer Video 2000 $21.00 In accordance with the plan to release the remaining Judy Garland Shows in single DVD format of four shows - each serving as 'supplements' to the first boxed set - Volume 4 was released in late 2000. These four episodes, Shows 8, 19, 24, and 25 originally aired in 1963 and 1964 and includes special commentary with Norman Jewison on Show 8. Judy welcomes guests Vic Damone, Robert Cole, George Maharis, Jack Carter, The Dillards, Leo Durocher, Jerry Van Dyke, Louis Jourdan, The Kirby Stone Four and Ken Murray. There's some wonderful material to see in this new release including the famous "Kismet" medley with Damone. Two of the four episodes are hour-long concerts with Judy singing for most of the programme. Rare, behind-the-scenes outtakes include one concert show in which the outtakes are kept within the body of the show so that viewers can experience all of Judy's banter with the crew and the studio audience. More releases are planned for 2001. Earlier this year there was talk of a second box set release, but Steve Sanders explained the motive for single DVD release. "It's not a marketing stunt or some such nefarious plot hatched by Pioneer. On the contrary, be grateful that Pioneer is releasing the material in single releases - in four-episode packages, not two, as in the past, let's remember! I say this because if you waited for a second boxed set instead of getting the material as they are releasing it as they go along, it might be for quite some time. The reason for this is because not all of the material became available to them at the same time and not all the material they had early on is in complete and/or in pristine quality. I can't express to you the amount of care, hours and money Pioneer has put in, and is pouring in, to completely restore and re-master these master tapes. Instead of waiting for all this to be done for one boxed set release, they instead are responding to our never-ending demand for Judy by offering these four-title releases as the materials are ready for release as they are restored and remastered. Also, they have been tremendously responsive in asking me what the fans want, titles to combine in releases, ideas for other DVDs. MGM Movies On DVDWarner Brothers wants to upgrade the masters on every title before they pursue DVD releases of Judy's MGM movies. "Meet Me In Saint Louis" and "Easter Parade" may appear in 2001 with supplementary material. Fingers crossed. Me And My Shadows"Me And My Shadows" will be released in the States on home video after the network telecast and will include the full four-hour edit. Warhol CalendarJudy is featured on the cover of Andy Warhol's 2001 Diva calendar. Andy Williams"The Best of the Andy Williams Show" 2000 Image Entertainment $20 Among the many guest stars included is Judy in the comedic clown scene from the 1965 show. The Further Adventures Of Little Voice2000 Liberty £16.50 Jane Horrocks, self-confessedly passionate about Judy, promoted her new CD "The Further Adventures of Little Voice" over summer. On the album she sings in the style of Billie Holiday, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich and Shirley Bassey. She was adamant to record Judy's "Just In Time" and noted: "It was very, very hard to do ... she had a superb range with this passion ... it was quite extraordinary." She appeared in a number of press and TV interviews. In the Big Issue (October 16-22) she noted: "I'm not really interested in modern music - I always harp on about the past. Performers of that era were much more all-rounders, which I love. Judy Garland could sing, dance and act, and I think it was a real, proper profession then, when you were forced to do everything. I don't think we've got anything to compare to the Wizard of Oz.". Find out about: Judy Events... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
