Finian's Rainbow (1968) In tracing Francis Ford Coppola's directing career, stretching over 60 years, I don't think there's a more bizarre, oddball entry in his filmography than this one.
(Even stranger, I think, than his semi-porno 1962 "The Bellboy And The Playgirls", which BQ reviewed way back on 4/12/19.....check it out....)
Even though bloated, disastrous adaptations of Broadway musicals were sinking the big studios into bankrupt oblivion, they couldn't or wouldn't stop making them......
And somehow, in a incomprehensible, serendipitous decision, Warner Brothers handed the director's reigns of this Broadway Behemoth to 29 year old Coppola, whom as you might guess, possessed no experience whatsoever in helming a mega-budgeted Hollywood musical.
( But to be fair to Coppola, the results here still remain way better than some of today's overstuffed superhero-comic-book, sci-fi-fantasy spectacles turned over to directors who normally made Sundance entries shot on their I-Phones and charged on their mom's credit card.)
"Finian's Rainbow", a crazy goulash of backwoods Americana cornball and Irish fantasy was a broadway hit dating back to 1947. But for decades, Hollywood avoided it at all costs......in the midst of its lilting, charming score and hillbilly antics was a powerful, satirical attack on deeply embedded Old South racism still very much a part of American society.
Perhaps ironic that it finally found its way to film in 1968, the pivotal calamitous year of assassinations, riots, continued Vietnam carnage and the oncoming darkness of Richard Nixon's election to the Presidency.
I'm already rolling my eyes far upward at the thought of describing the plot of this film, so for the sake of my own sanity and your kind patience, dear visitors, I promise to be mercifully brief.
A spry old Irish rogue (Fred Astaire) and his lovely-voiced daughter (pop star Petula Clark)wander across America until traipsing into the backward, backwoods State of 'Missitucky'...(a Warners backlot set only slightly less fake than 'Lil Abner's Dogpatch). Fred's stolen the proverbial pot 'o gold from a Leprechaun (played like a live action cartoon by British pop 'n stage star Tommy Steele) And the once little Lep (now full size due to Fred's theft) has chased him down.
Meanwhile, amongst the cornpone crowd, a old school racist windbag Senator (Keenen Wynn) oppresses the poor folk, both black and white......that is, until some pot 'o gold magic turns him black, forcing him to see life from a whole new......uh.....hue.
Even if the race-changing gimmick gives the project an immediate up-to-date timeliness. it seems jarringly at odds with the show's very antiquated, over-the-top 1940's theatricality (Supposedly Coppola made a futile attempt to dial down Steele's top-of-his-lungs performance, but I can't imagine why he be bothered, since the rest of the cast was already loudly playing to balcony anyway.)
But for anyone who's deep down a repressed theater kid who adores catchy, hummable show tunes (and you know who you are), the "Finian's Rainbow" score is a treasure trove. ("Ol Devil Moon", "Look To The Rainbow", "How Are Things In Glocca Morra", "When I'm Not Near The Girl I Love", etc, )
Completely at odds with his own 1960's sensibilities and cinema techniques, a young Coppola struggled mightily to graft a more contemporary vision to this ancient material....a true mission impossible that eluded him. A big Broadway show is a big Broadway show.....even a gifted director can't turn it into anything other than what it was to begin with. Loud, obvious and begging for a standing O.
Still reeling from the vast expense of "Camelot" ,budget-minded mogul Jack Warner forced Coppola to shoot the entire film on the backlot sound stages, which defeated Coppola's every effort to make it look more real.......not likely.
The end result of all this? A decidedly strange, neither fish-nor-fowl concoction, which veers from low comedy to drippy sentiment to pointed satire.....all of it wrapped up in way, way too leisurely 145 minutes..
But some good stuff along way....that legendary score, .the final singing-dancing magic of Fred Astaire's on display, Petula Clark lets loose with a big Broadway-worthy voice, young dancer Barbara Hancock shines as Susan The Silent, who communicates only through balletic leaps and bounds.....and Francis Ford Coppola avoiding the usual regimented dance numbers, opted to loosely stage them like spontaneous freeform partying.....(which, to be honest, probably resulted from his firing of Fred Astaire's long time choreographer, Hermes Pan.)
Overall, entirely watchable and passably entertaining if you've a warm spot in your heart for classic old musicals......3 stars (***). But if you don't......you'd best find a different rainbow.......
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