Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies: All The World Is A Stage - Part 5 of 12

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's All Go To The Movies:

All The World Is A Stage

Part 5 of 12

It's showtime, folks!

This is the fifth of a 12-part series of posts dealing with show business, be it the stage or soundstage.

Yes, show people, their tawdry little lives - in the theatre or movie studio - in all their glory, projected up there on the big screen, bigger than life; and they wouldn't have it any other way. For you see, they live for the stuff; the imitation glamor, the insufferable players, the exhausting rehearsals, and the oh-so important reviews - but above all else - they do it for the applause.

So hit the lights, for today, all the world is, indeed, a stage!

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The World's A Stage

(1922)

A screen star chooses to marry a salesman rather than an older admirer and sees her mistake when her husband becomes a shiftless alcoholic. The former suitor attempts to straighten out the husband and comfort the star. The accidental death by drowning of the husband allows the former suiter the opportunity to marry the girl of his dreams.

This American silent drama was directed by Colin Campbell and stars Dorothy Phillips, Bruce McRae, and Kenneth Harlan.

Dorothy Phillips

Dorothy Phillips was a rising star. In 1917, after appearing in 22 motion pictures in two years, she suffered from exhaustion and had a nervous breakdown, alienating much of Hollywood. She resumed her career in 1918 to even bigger acclaim and success. She was married to actor-director Allen Holubar  and the two worked together frequently, eventually forming their own production company.  They were married for 11 years until Holubar's death in 1923 from pneumonia, following surgery, at the age of 33. After his death, she did not return to the screen until mid-1925. Phillips also died of pneumonia - in 1980, at the age of 90. She is buried with her husband at the Secret Garden section of Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.

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A Stage Romance

(1922)

Edmund Kean, the nineteenth century English tragedian, saves a young woman from a fortune-hunting adventurer. He also saves a nobleman's wife from being led astray by the Prince of Wales. When Kean publicly denounces the Prince from the stage, he is exiled to America. The young girl he rescued becomes his wife and sails with him.

William Farnum and Peggy Shaw

An adaptation of the play Kean by Alexandre Dumas about the adventures of the British actor Edmund Kean, this American silent historical drama was directed by Herbert Brenon and stars William Farnum, Peggy Shaw, and Holmes Herbert.

William Farnum

William Farnum was an American actor and a star of American silent cinema. He became one of the highest-paid actors during this time.

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Backstage

(1927)

Julia, Myrtle, Fanny, and Jane - all chorus girls, after weeks of rehearsing for a show, find themselves stranded when their manager runs out of money. Evicted for not paying their rent, the four try various schemes to obtain food and lodging.

Produced and distributed by the independent studio Tiffany Pictures, this American silent comedy was directed by Phil Goldstone and stars William Collier Jr., Barbara Bedford and Alberta Vaughn.

A complete print survives at the Cinematheque Royale de Belgique in Brussels.

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Stage Fright

(1980)

AKA: Nightmares

A little girl named Cathy tries to keep her mother from making out with a man while driving one day and inadvertently causes her mother's death in a car crash. Sixteen years later, Cathy has changed her name to Helen and become a psychotic actress. Things are going fine with the production until horrible things starts to happened to the cast of her new play.

This  Australian slasher film, directed by John D. Lamond and stars Jenny Neumann, Gary Stewart, and Nina Landis.

 

Director John D. Lamond has said of the film: "Nightmares should have been a lot better. We used the Steadicam camera for the first time in Australia on that. It was all right, but it didn't have any story. The technique was all right. Brian May's music was great. It was dumped by the distributor. No-one tried, nobody did anything. But it should have been better. Because it was a real quickie. I had the chance to make a real quickie, they said if you don't take the money we'll give it to somebody else. That was back in the old tax regime. You had to get the money, make the film, be finished by a certain time, you couldn't take longer."

Features a soundtrack by Brian May, who is best known for his scores for Mad Max and Mad Max 2.

The film features a bitchy theatre critic named Bennett Collingswood who many observers felt was a veiled attack on Colin Bennett, film critic of The Age who was often critical of Australian films.

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All That Jazz

(1979)

Joe Gideon is a Broadway director, choreographer and filmmaker in the process of casting the chorus and staging the dance numbers for his latest Broadway show, which stars his ex-wife Audrey Paris in what is largely a vanity project for her in playing a role several years younger than her real age. He is simultaneously editing a film he directed on the life of stand-up comic Davis Newman. Joe's professional and personal lives are intertwined, he a chronic philanderer, having slept with and developed relationships with a series of dancers in his shows. Victoria Porter, who he hired for the current show despite she not being the best dancer, is his current side piece, while Kate Jagger is his current girlfriend. That philandering has led to relationship problems, first with Audrey during their now-defunct marriage, and also with Kate, who wants a committed relationship. Joe also lives a hard and fast life; chain-smoking, drinking heavily, and listening to hard driving classical music while popping uppers to keep going. In light of this, in addition to pressures from investors and meeting film deadlines, he is teetering on the brink physically and emotionally. With Kate, Audrey, and his daughter Michelle looking over him as best they can, Joe flirts with Angelique, an angel of death, all the while refusing to listen to what his body is telling him.

This American musical drama was directed by Bob Fosse and stars Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, Leland Palmer, Anne Reinking and Ben Vereen. The screenplay, by Robert Alan Aurthur and Fosse, is a semi-autobiographical fantasy based on aspects of Fosse's life and career as a dancer, choreographer and director. The film was inspired by Fosse's manic effort to edit his film Lenny while simultaneously staging the 1975 Broadway musical Chicago. It borrows its title from the Kander and Ebb tune All That Jazz in that production.

Bob Fosse considered playing the lead role himself. Producer David H. Melnick nixed the idea, pointing out that Fosse, who had a history of heart problems, wouldn't survive the shoot.

Paul Newman turned down the role of Joe Gideon. He wasn't comfortable playing a dancer and didn't bother reading the screenplay.

Jack Lemmon was considered for the role of Joe Gideon, but Fosse decided he was too old for the role.

Alan Bates was considered to play Joe Gideon, but was considered "too British".

Gene Hackman, Robert Blake, George Segal, Alan Alda, Jack Nicholson and Elliott Gould were considered for the role of Joe Gideon. Jon Voight also read for the role of Joe Gideon

Columbia Pictures did not originally want Roy Scheider for the role of Joe Gideon. They wanted Warren Beatty or a more critically acclaimed actor for the role. Bob Fosse stuck to his choice and fought for Scheider, eventually securing him in the lead. Warren Beatty was interested in playing Joe Gideon, provided he didn't die at the end.

Richard Dreyfuss was originally cast in the role of Joe Gideon but departed from the production during the rehearsal stage, citing a lack of confidence in the production. He later admitted that he made a mistake in passing up the chance to work with Bob Fosse.

According to Shirley MacLaine in her autobiography My Lucky Stars, the idea for this movie was hatched when Bob Fosse was hospitalized for a heart attack. MacLaine claims she was the one who gave him the idea to do "a musical about his death", though she said Fosse seemed to not remember this later. However, Fosse did offer her the role of Audrey Paris, she wrote.

Many of the characters in the movie are based on real-life characters from the New York theater world. Aside from Roy Scheider, Leland Palmer's character was based on his wife/frequent star Gwen Verdon. John Lithgow's character was based somewhat on New York theater director Michael Bennett, the director of Dreamgirls with whom Bob Fosse had a longstanding rivalry. The character of producer Jonesy Hecht was based upon Fosse's fellow longtime rival Harold Prince. 

Ann Reinking was more or less playing herself, though she had to audition several times before she was cast. The character of songwriter Paul Dann is a swipe at Stephen Schwartz, with whom Fosse had unhappily worked on Pippin. Jules Fisher, the lighting designer on many of Fosse's shows and, later, the producer of his show Dancin', makes an appearance as a lighting designer in the scene with Lithgow. Angelique (Jessica Lange) was based largely on Bob Fosse's late wife Joan McCracken, who passed away on November 1, 1961 and greatly influenced him in his early career.

The relationship between Victoria Porter and Joe Gideon was based on the relationship during rehearsals between director Bob Fosse and dancer Jennifer Nairn-Smith while working on the stage musical Pippin. Nairn-Smith appears in this movie playing a Principal Dancer.

The character Davis Newman (Cliff Gorman) was based on Dustin Hoffman, who had played the title role in Bob Fosse's earlier movie Lenny (1974). Gorman had initially portrayed Lenny Bruce in the original Broadway run of the play from which the movie was adapted, but was passed over in favor of Hoffman for the movie version.

 

Fosse continued to chain smoke unfiltered cigarettes while promoting the movie, to the incredulity of interviewers who asked how he could do so after suffering two heart attacks and making a movie featuring the destructive effects of drugs and chain smoking on his alter ego's health. Fosse joked that he cut back to five packs a day.

The film ran into budgetary issues at the $6.5 million mark. Columbia had no more to give, so Fox was brought on board to come up with the remaining $3.5 million needed.

The film was nominated for nine Oscars - including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor - winning four: Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, and Best Film Editing.

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Take Off With Us - Cast

from the 1979 motion picture All That Jazz