CAROUSEL
(20th Century-Fox-CinemaScope 55) MONG much that is enjoyable, a great deal of Rodgers and Hammerstein is net my cob of corn, which no doubt helps to explain my luke-warm response to Carousel. {f this sort of thing is your dish you'll probably enjoy this film. Unlike the musicals of the Age of Minelli which I mentioned a fortnight ago, Carousel, a musical adartation by way of the stage of Ferenc Molnar’s Liliom, is almost a popular opera, comparable with the far more enjoyable Carmen Jones; and since so far I’m allergic to opera, too, it’s not surprising that I found some of the numbers which carry the story forward far too long. That’s also true of the film as a whole, which runs to well over 11,000 feet. And if, in the last scene or two especially, the corn isn’t quite as high as an elephant’s eye, it’s getting up that way. The story is about a merry-go-round barker, Billy Bigelow (Gordon MacRae), who, finding himself in heaven (a good opening, this), is. eventually offered a day back on earth to help his distressed daughter. Since I complained recently
about a musical that leaned too heavily on its story, I’m sorry to have to say of this one that with one or two notable exceptions, its best scenes are straight narrative. The outstanding exception is the sequence, and especially the dance numbers, which go with the rousing and enjoyable "June is Busting Out All Over." Compensating ‘to a large extent for the corn is the film’s healthy disrespect for respectability; it’s hero is a rather surly, rather lazy, rather hopeless fellow who has a good heart. Opposite Mr. MacRae is a fresh, attractive newcomer, Shirley Jones. Carousel, which Henry King directed, was shot in CinemaScope 55, which, in effect, brings the clarity of VistaVision, or something like it, to the CinemaScope screen,
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19560817.2.50.1.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 889, 17 August 1956, Page 26
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313CAROUSEL New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 889, 17 August 1956, Page 26
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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