Yet another botched musical!

"On the Town" tells the story of three sailors - Gabey, Ozzie and Chip - on 24-hour leave in wartime New York City. Gabey falls in love with a subway poster of Ivy Smith, "Miss Turnstiles" for the month of June. Gabey, aided by Ozzie, Chip and two of their gals, goes on a hunt for Ivy. After several adventures and a disappointing blind date with Hildy's roommate, Lucy Schmeeler, Gaby finds Ivy. But the leave soon comes to an end, and the sailors depart.

Let me say first that film version of "On the Town" is lively and entertaining, but no more so than many musicals of the 1940s, including "Anchors Aweigh," the very enjoyable 1945 movie starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly as two sailors on leave in Hollywood.

The musical score of that film (by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne) is excellent. Sinatra's rendition of "I Fall in Love Too Easily" still leaves me with chills. But I'll leave it to others to argue over which is the better film.

There are at least two ways to review "On the Town" or any other film of a Broadway musical: Take it for what it is, or express regrets over what it could have been. I fall into the latter camp.

"On the Town" opened on Broadway in 1944 and ran for more than 460 performances - a healthy run for shows of the time. It was an "integrated" show, in which the book, songs and dances were tightly bound to advance the plot. Choreograper Jerome Robbins created innovative dances full of energy (Robbins later developed a very bad reputation for his emotional tantrums.) The forerunner of "On the Town" was the highly successful Leonard Bernstein-Robbins ballet "Fancy Free." The creation of the musical play was inspired by "Fancy Free," though they have nothing in common except for the three sailors. Much of the money to produce the show was provided by MGM.

(The play was integrated in another sense: six of the performers were black, and they encountered racism when the show went on the road. Gregg Lawrence, in his biography of Jerome Robbins, wrote: "... the press reported that 'Negroes and whites' could be seen dancing together onstage, although one interracial number had been cut as potentially too provocative." In addition, the role of Ivy was played by half-Japanese Sono Osato -- courageous casting at a time when we were at war with Japan!)

In 1960 Columbia Records released "The First Full-Length Recording" of the show, which included members of the original cast:
(Nancy Walker as Hildy the taxi driver, Betty Comden as Claire DeLoone the anthropologist (she was called Claire Huddesen in the film), Adolph Green (Ozzie) and Cris Alexander (Chip) as two of the sailors. John Battles as the other sailor (Gabey) is not heard on the album (John Reardon performs in his place). This is the REAL "On the Town."

But producer Arthur Freed felt that the songs in the play were too sophisticated for film audiences (I suppose that anything more sophisticated than "moon, June and spoon"-type songs were beyond his grasp), so most of the numbers in the play were dropped and second-rate composer Roger Edens filled out the score (I have to assume that Comden and Green were dragooned into writing the uninspired lyrics that accompanied Edens' music). All of this confirms the saw that no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people.

Producers weren't entirely at fault. The Production Code Administration's censors were always on the lookout for anything that might violate its strict, moralistic code (the code was co-authored by a Jesuit priest, Father Daniel Lord.) One character omitted from the film is Judge Pitin W. Bridgework, Claire's fiance. The suggestion of illicit sex would never have been allowed. Moreover, in "New York New York," the city is referred to as "a wonderful town"; in the play it's "a helluva town." Believe me, it makes a difference.

Even the two of the three songs that were retained in the movie, "New York New York" and "Come Up to My Place," were reduced to shadows of the original versions. Leonard Bernsteins's jazzy score was castrated by orchestrator Conrad Salinger and clever lyrics were dropped or altered. These changes helped to ruin the film for me.

The play contained five ballets. For the film, Bernstein wrote the ballet "A Day in New York," wonderfully performed by Gene Kelly and other professional dancers. But that ballet wasn't really new because Bernstein created it by borrowing themes from the other ballets in the play.

Among the songs that were unfortunately omitted: "Lucky to Be Me," which has become a standard, sung by Gabey as he awaits his date; "I Can Cook Too," Hildy's witty mating song for Chip; "Carried Away," another funny number sung by Claire and Ozzie in the museum, in which they express a mutual weakness (the song was replaced by the silly "Primitive Man" number, which was only salvaged in part by Ann Miller's dancing; "Some Other Time," a poignant song, with a marvelous vocal arrangement, that acknowledges that the 24-hour leave is almost over (there are about two dozen versions of this song currently in print); "Ya Got Me," a propulsive, bouncy song with a Latin beat that the gang sings to Gabey to cheer him up (this was replaced in the film by an inferior, corny C&W song-and-dance number). None of those songs was too topical or esoteric for film audiences.

For many successful musicals, MGM turned to established outside composers and lyricists. "Meet Me in St. Louis," "The Harvey Girls" and "It Happened in Brooklyn" are just three examples of this.
Roger Edens, who won an Academy Award for his contribution - if you can call it that -- is simply not in their league.

I suggest that anyone who reads this review acquire or hear the 1960 Columbia album, or even the 1992 studio version that includes even more music.

Your high opinion of the film may change significantly.