Search - Carousel on DVD

Whitewashed version of R&H's best musical

Ivy Lin | NY NY | 04/12/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel is IMO their best musical. Today it's still hard to find a musical that mixed realism with fantasy as perfectly as "Carousel." Billy and Julie are not simply a "musical" couple. Their relationship has a depth and seriousness that goes beyond one-dimensional adoration. Topics such as alcoholism, domestic violence, teenage promiscuity, they're all in Carousel.
Maybe the musical subject was too much for Hollywood to handle, because this movie adaptation is very whitewashed. The storyline remains the same: Billy is an underemployed Carousel worker. He marries Julie, a factory girl, but their marriage soon falls apart due to his violence and underemployment. Billy dies, but in heaven he sees his daughter (who was born after his death) become misguided and promiscuous. Billy's spirit descends to the earth one more time to save his daughter. But the emphasis of this movie adaptation has changed. Much of the dialogue has been cut, as well as the more adult musical scenes. The awkward, lovely dialogue during "If I Loved You" is massacred, probably because it was too much in a Hollywood musical for characters to flirt so openly. The characters wear very expensive-looking clothing, again all wrong for a blue collar New England town.
Gordon MacRae is Billy, and he's another major problem of the film. Originally Carousel was to have starred Frank Sinatra, but MacRae was the ultimate Billy. MacRae was good in the film "Oklahoma" as the sunny Curley, but here his good-ol'-boy chipperness is a detriment. One wonders why a Billy as pleasant as MacRae would become an unemployed wifebeater. He has a handsome baritone voice, but the overall effect is vapidity. Shirley Jones (the Laurey in the "Oklahoma") is lovely to see and hear. She has more depth and range as MacRae, but she's working alone here. Julie is not simply a good girl. In the original musical, her "bad girl" side is explored with the song "You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan." In this film,this song is cut. With many of her character-building moments gone, her Julie ultimately becomes another bland musical heroine.
It's a tribute to the strength of Carousel that the movie remains enjoyable and touching despite the whitewashing. Because this is R&H's loveliest score. I don't need to rename all the beautiful songs of the film, like "You'll Never Walk Alone" or "If I Loved You." But Carousel deserved a film that recognized that this was not just another sunny, smiley all-American musical. If ever there was a musical that deserves a cinema remake, Carousel is it."

A Musical But Not a Comedy!

A reviewer | Houston, Texas | 10/22/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Overall, an excellent movie that I would highly recommend. It really makes an emotional connection with the viewer. From the Golden Age of the Rogers & Hammerstein musicals; this one, however,is not a comedy. In fact, it is pretty much a downer-- a tragic story that stands in contrast to the sunny, optimistic tone of most musicals of the 1950's. The development of the characters is excellent. Well-produced, visually appealing, with emotionally charged music and dance sequences. I have only one complaint. Shirley Jones certainly has a great voice and lots of screen presence, but I find her unconvincing in the death scene and therafter in the story--just too sweet and smily-face for such grim, dramatic material.
I did not interpret this movie as condoning wife-beating. Billy Bigelow (played superbly by Gordon MacRae) is portrayed as a human being with the full range of human feelings, good and bad, capable of both love and anger. I think the problem with some of your reviewers is that such a portrayal does not fit in with the anti-male political corecness that is prevalent on this issue today."