Cinevent Notes Past: MISSISSIPPI (1935) with W. C. Fields
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 1:24 pm
W. C. Fields played Captain Andy in Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's SHOWBOAT only once, for two weeks in August 1930 for the St. Louis Municipal Opera Company. The lucky people of St. Louis and outlying areas were the only ones to be so blessed as to see a man play a role he was born to play.
There were many roles Fields was born to play, Eustace McGargle, Mr. Micawber, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Pickwick, Cap'n Andy, what a wonderful Falstaff he would have made. Some of those roles he got to play, others, though plans may have been in the works, never came to fruition. Ziegfeld might have offered Fields the original Broadway role of Cap'n Andy had the two not been feuding at the time and Fields working for
Ziegfeld's rival Earl Carroll.
When Fields became a Paramount star for the second time in the early 1930's,there was talk about remaking SHOWBOAT with Fields as star. But Universal owned the film rights, paid a pretty penny for them, and certainly weren't going to part with them, planning their own 1936 remake that Fields was too ill to participate in even if Paramount had been willing to loan him out. So Paramount finally said the heck with it, if Fields can't captain the Cotton Blossom, he'll pilot some other damn showboat!
Casting about their own properties, the studio came upon Booth Tarkington's MAGNOLIA, which they had already made as THE FIGHTING COWARD a successful silent with Cullen Landis in 1924 under its own name, and remade with Buddy Rogers as RIVER OF ROMANCE in 1929 (featuring Fred Kohler Sr. as Captain Blackie, the same part he plays in MISSISSIPPI). Set among the Old South, with its tale of a Northerner unfairly branded a coward by an Old Southern family who sets out to prove himself otherwise. Well okay, it didn't actually have a showboat in it, but no reason one couldn't be added to the mix. So Paramount promoted Fields over Cap'n Andy and made him Commodore Jackson, commander of the River Queen, giving him the perfect opportunity to troll his way down the Mississippi and the cotton fields and the plantations, mint julep always in hand, of course.
Fields as Commodore Jackson was brilliant casting, but the part of the Fighting Coward was still open, and if this was going to be a musical like SHOWBOAT----that would require someone with a bit more singing ability than endless choruses of "GRUBBING!". Paramount was then grooming a radio crooner named Lanny Ross, singing star of NBC's MAXWELL HOUSE SHOWBOAT, so it seemed like a perfect fit. Production began in early 1935 under Edward Sutherland's direction, an A-picture budget, and Rodgers and Hart signed on to supply the music. From all standpoints, this looked like a winner.
All standpoints but one. Early in shooting, it became obvious that the colorless Ross was not up to the role. The powers that be at Paramount then decided that Ross would be replaced with another more proven Paramount star—Bing Crosby!
Was there ever a better trade-up in the History of Movies? Did Fields and Crosby seem as natural at the time as it does now? This was years before Der Bingle had proven time and again his ability to mesh his talents with practically everyone from Bob Hope on
down, and for a comic as idiosyncratic as Fields, he had already teamed with Chester Conklin, Alison Skipworth, and Burns and Allen, much less Mae West and Bergen and McCarthy later on. Fireworks may have been viewed on the horizon.
Crosby did not join the project without a few reservations. Apparently he was not completely impressed with the Rodgers and Hart score (don't scoff, they did have their ups and downs, remember THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT), and requested several new songs, including a new ballad and an interpolation of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home" now rechristened "Swanee River". This caused immediate friction between the composers and the singer, which unfortunately robbed us of Crosby recordings of many a Rodgers and Hart tune in his prime recording period.
But Crosby may have been right, for the new ballad Rodgers and Hart grudgingly supplied him was "It's Easy to Remember", one of their finest tunes, and Crosby's rendering of "Swanee River", despite some uncomfortable political incorrectness today, is an emotional and effective scene in the film.
Rumors of rivalry between the two stars were blatantly untrue. Crosby was a great Fields fan, and when warned by Sutherland that Fields was stealing the picture was reported by Sutherland to have said "Forget it, it's got my name on it, what do I care what Fields steals? I'm not a fundamentalist. This is business. If it's funny, okay. I think he's great!". In reality they were bound by the good ol' game of golf, and had known each other on the links since they had both come to Hollywood in the early thirties.
Fields does indeed steal the picture at every turn. Since his character's involvement with the plot of the original Tarkington story is tenuous to say the least, we're treated to some classic Fields bits as he strolls in and out of the picture. Telling his tales of Indian fighting to the innocent passengers ("I unsheathed my bowie knife and cut a path through a wall of human flesh—dragging my canoe behind me!), but cowering when a cigar store Indian appears on the boat, denouncing "Swanee River" as a tune no one will remember, then humming it through the rest of the film. Then there's the poker game sequence that fits nicely between his pool and golf games. In 1935, W. C. Fields was at the top of his career. Just finishing DAVID COPPERFIELD for MGM, and off to make THE MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE afterwards, Fields was making his best work before age, illness, and the hair of the dog began his long, slow, final decline. With his and Crosby's name headlining MISSISSIPPI, there was no question of it being a hit, and it was.Today (written in 2004), political correctness and rights problems kept MISSISSIPPI off TCM's otherwise complete tribute to W. C. Fields a few years ago, Cinevent happily gives you the opportunity for another roll down the river with Der Bingle and William Claude. Don't miss it!
RICHARD M ROBERTS
There were many roles Fields was born to play, Eustace McGargle, Mr. Micawber, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Pickwick, Cap'n Andy, what a wonderful Falstaff he would have made. Some of those roles he got to play, others, though plans may have been in the works, never came to fruition. Ziegfeld might have offered Fields the original Broadway role of Cap'n Andy had the two not been feuding at the time and Fields working for
Ziegfeld's rival Earl Carroll.
When Fields became a Paramount star for the second time in the early 1930's,there was talk about remaking SHOWBOAT with Fields as star. But Universal owned the film rights, paid a pretty penny for them, and certainly weren't going to part with them, planning their own 1936 remake that Fields was too ill to participate in even if Paramount had been willing to loan him out. So Paramount finally said the heck with it, if Fields can't captain the Cotton Blossom, he'll pilot some other damn showboat!
Casting about their own properties, the studio came upon Booth Tarkington's MAGNOLIA, which they had already made as THE FIGHTING COWARD a successful silent with Cullen Landis in 1924 under its own name, and remade with Buddy Rogers as RIVER OF ROMANCE in 1929 (featuring Fred Kohler Sr. as Captain Blackie, the same part he plays in MISSISSIPPI). Set among the Old South, with its tale of a Northerner unfairly branded a coward by an Old Southern family who sets out to prove himself otherwise. Well okay, it didn't actually have a showboat in it, but no reason one couldn't be added to the mix. So Paramount promoted Fields over Cap'n Andy and made him Commodore Jackson, commander of the River Queen, giving him the perfect opportunity to troll his way down the Mississippi and the cotton fields and the plantations, mint julep always in hand, of course.
Fields as Commodore Jackson was brilliant casting, but the part of the Fighting Coward was still open, and if this was going to be a musical like SHOWBOAT----that would require someone with a bit more singing ability than endless choruses of "GRUBBING!". Paramount was then grooming a radio crooner named Lanny Ross, singing star of NBC's MAXWELL HOUSE SHOWBOAT, so it seemed like a perfect fit. Production began in early 1935 under Edward Sutherland's direction, an A-picture budget, and Rodgers and Hart signed on to supply the music. From all standpoints, this looked like a winner.
All standpoints but one. Early in shooting, it became obvious that the colorless Ross was not up to the role. The powers that be at Paramount then decided that Ross would be replaced with another more proven Paramount star—Bing Crosby!
Was there ever a better trade-up in the History of Movies? Did Fields and Crosby seem as natural at the time as it does now? This was years before Der Bingle had proven time and again his ability to mesh his talents with practically everyone from Bob Hope on
down, and for a comic as idiosyncratic as Fields, he had already teamed with Chester Conklin, Alison Skipworth, and Burns and Allen, much less Mae West and Bergen and McCarthy later on. Fireworks may have been viewed on the horizon.
Crosby did not join the project without a few reservations. Apparently he was not completely impressed with the Rodgers and Hart score (don't scoff, they did have their ups and downs, remember THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT), and requested several new songs, including a new ballad and an interpolation of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home" now rechristened "Swanee River". This caused immediate friction between the composers and the singer, which unfortunately robbed us of Crosby recordings of many a Rodgers and Hart tune in his prime recording period.
But Crosby may have been right, for the new ballad Rodgers and Hart grudgingly supplied him was "It's Easy to Remember", one of their finest tunes, and Crosby's rendering of "Swanee River", despite some uncomfortable political incorrectness today, is an emotional and effective scene in the film.
Rumors of rivalry between the two stars were blatantly untrue. Crosby was a great Fields fan, and when warned by Sutherland that Fields was stealing the picture was reported by Sutherland to have said "Forget it, it's got my name on it, what do I care what Fields steals? I'm not a fundamentalist. This is business. If it's funny, okay. I think he's great!". In reality they were bound by the good ol' game of golf, and had known each other on the links since they had both come to Hollywood in the early thirties.
Fields does indeed steal the picture at every turn. Since his character's involvement with the plot of the original Tarkington story is tenuous to say the least, we're treated to some classic Fields bits as he strolls in and out of the picture. Telling his tales of Indian fighting to the innocent passengers ("I unsheathed my bowie knife and cut a path through a wall of human flesh—dragging my canoe behind me!), but cowering when a cigar store Indian appears on the boat, denouncing "Swanee River" as a tune no one will remember, then humming it through the rest of the film. Then there's the poker game sequence that fits nicely between his pool and golf games. In 1935, W. C. Fields was at the top of his career. Just finishing DAVID COPPERFIELD for MGM, and off to make THE MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE afterwards, Fields was making his best work before age, illness, and the hair of the dog began his long, slow, final decline. With his and Crosby's name headlining MISSISSIPPI, there was no question of it being a hit, and it was.Today (written in 2004), political correctness and rights problems kept MISSISSIPPI off TCM's otherwise complete tribute to W. C. Fields a few years ago, Cinevent happily gives you the opportunity for another roll down the river with Der Bingle and William Claude. Don't miss it!
RICHARD M ROBERTS