Am I the only one who thinks Lena Horne should have been cast as Julie in this version of the musical? A few years prior in TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY, Horne performed all of Julie's numbers and I would think that playing Julie in this remake would have been the next logical progression, but Horne was always wasted by MGM so I guess it should come to no suprise. Opinions?
shareI think that you make a good point but I think that Julie is supposed to be passing so if Lena Horne were to play her in this film it wouldn't have worked out.
shareActually Ava Gardner herself(who was a good friend of Lena's) said the exact same thing in her autobio. She said that Lena was "born to play the part". I personally am a huge Ava Gardner fan, but as an African-American female, I do appreciate the fact that Lena would have been beyond perfect. I mean, even Ava said it! Number one: Lena is very fair and playing the part of an African-American passing for White would not have been such a stretch. Number two: Have ya ever heard Lena Horne sing? Flawless! Granted, Ava could carry a note, but her voice is dubbed over by another woman's voice in the film because it wasn't as good as it could have been. All they had to do was cast Lena...it would have saved them a lot of trouble(of having to record and re-record the songs-Ava talks about this in her book also). It is such a shame that in those days an African-American practically made for a part could not play it simply because of racism and all the controversy that ensues as a result.
shareI have commented on this several times, but if you look at the roster of reviews on this film you will see, amazingly, just as many objections to this idea. People seem hell bent on arguing this, just for the sake of arguing. The argument is always that Ms. Horne was, somehow, still too dark to convincingly pass as a white woman. Yet she has stated several times in her own bio that MGM made her wear a specially created face makeup (called 'Light Egyptian') to keep her from looking white on film. Now this brings up two questions: (1) if they thought she looked white instead of black, exactly what did they hire her for, and (2) does this not underscore her natural advantage to playing a mulatto-skinned part should one ever come up? Just skip the Egyptian makeup. People conveniently forget that Ava Gardner wore a tanning makeup also. She is visibly darker in later scenes of SB, when Julie has fallen from grace. If they could darken Ava Gardner, why is it so far fetched that the opposite could be done with Ms. Horne?
BTW, these comments bear no reflection on the finished film. I thought Ms. Gardner was gorgeous and did a great, heartbreaking, performance. I just wished they hadn't looped her voice.
While it may be possible for a black woman to pass for white on the stage, where a lot of belief is suspended to begin with, a large movie screen is something else again. Even Lonette McKee had trouble doing it in THE COTTON CLUB, both as the character and as herself. There's just no way Lena Horne could have played a character passing for white on a forty-foot screen, not only because her features wouldn't be camoflauged in the close-ups, but also because of the public's perception of her as a SPECIFICALLY black entertainer in the 1950's. (No un-PC intended, I'm talking about the times.) It's just too much getting in the way. And then, even though she could certainly sing and shashay her way through a film like CABIN IN THE SKY or STORMY WEATHER, she didn't have the acting chops that the role of Julie requires. Even for MGM. And Julie HAS to be an actress passing for white.
shareI'll never understand why they dubbed Ava Gardner's voice. Her renditions of the songs were featured on the soundtrack album, and she sounded better than the woman whose voice they used...
shareAppealing as the vocals are on record and in limited frequency, they didn't translate well on a magnetic soundtrack at theatre projection levels. The verdict was that they came out "weak". Today, of course, this could be adjusted. The technology was more limited in 1951, necessitating a voice with the proper timbre.
shareIn "That's Entertainment, Part III", Ava Gardner's vocal tracks were restored to the print of her singing "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man". I wonder why in these days of film restoration, someone hasn't re-instated those tracks to the prints that now play on TV.
share"Now this brings up two questions: (1) if they thought she looked white instead of black, exactly what did they hire her for,"'
I believe she was hired on the insistence of Vincente Minnelli. Horne was sort of a protege of Minnelli. He had designed her stage show at one point in NYC, and he basically insisted when he signed a film deal with MGM that they bring her along. This was even before they had decided to do "Cabin in the Sky". It's notable that Minnelli was asked to direct her scenes in several of the anthology films she appeared in, including "The Ziegfeld Follies". Minnelli was a big believer in Lena Horne, and Ethel Waters (who had also previously worked with Minnelli in NYC on "At Home Abroad") supposedly felt that he was letting her steal scenes in "Cabin", and successfully lobbied MGM to remove a few of Horne's songs.
"and (2) does this not underscore her natural advantage to playing a mulatto-skinned part should one ever come up?"
The second question much harder to answer. But I'm pretty sure she was always thought of in terms of playing Julie, what I've heard is that she made some statements that criticized the MGM brass and that MGM had given up on her at that point. I read somewhere that at the time MGM did "Till the Clouds Roll By", the concept of doing "Show Boat" again was already being floated and her scenes at the end of that film were by way of a sort of screen test. But the thinking about her changed quite a bit over the next few years, I think maybe her politics played a part in that and just that she was very outspoken when she wasn't getting what she wanted.
Did I not love him, Cooch? MY OWN FLESH I DIDN'T LOVE BETTER!!! But he had to say 'Nooooooooo'
Lena has a great voice, but could she sing soprano? I've never heard her sing high notes.
shareI have no inside information on Hollywood machinations, but I have seen "That's Entertainment III", which shows test footage of her as Julie, and "Till the Clouds Roll By", and it seems pretty clear to me that not only was Lena Horne rejected for the part of Miss Julie because of her race and possibly her political outspokenness, but also that first, she was born to play that role, and second, that it was one of the biggest disappointments of her career. Her situation in American entertainment was as a sort of distant female analogue of Paul Robeson, another brilliant, multitalented African-American performer whose career was stifled by American racism and neofascist politics. He was, of course, much more politically controversial than Lena Horne.
Incidentally, has anyone tried to read the original Edna Ferber novel that was the source of the Broadway musical? I have. As widely as it may have been hailed as a classic when it was published, I found it almost unreadable now. Its style is extremely dated and its references are pretty obscure these days.
Ava Gardner was devastatingly beautiful. She was good in all aspects of this movie and well cast.
shareI'm a big fan of the original musical but as of yet I haven't essayed Ferber's novel. I'm kinda curious to try, guess I have to pay my library dues one of these days.
Of course Ms. Horne was far less controversial than Robeson, who continued to support the U.S.S.R. even after the Stalin regime's anti-semiticism had been exposed. I agree that Lena Horne would have been awesome in the role and I'm not sure if I mentioned that in my original post so I might as well add it.
Did I not love him, Cooch? MY OWN FLESH I DIDN'T LOVE BETTER!!! But he had to say 'Nooooooooo'
Nothing against Gardner, but I also would have preferred Horne.
shareBack in the 70s, on the old "Sonny and Cher" variety show, there was one program where Cher sang "Can't Help Lovin' That Man" and she was terrific. This was before she had started her acting career but I began thinking how she might have faired as Julie. I remember thinking that if I were a film-maker, a remake with Cher would be a task I would love to attempt. I think the earlier version is superior to this one, especially since the ending is so lame in this version. Cher is probably too old for the role now, oh well, what might have been!
shareTrivia
While at MGM, her appearances in movies were shot so that they could be cut easily from the film. This was because MGM feared audiences of the day--but especially in the South--would not accept a beautiful black woman in romantic, non-menial roles. Many in the business believed that this was the main reason she lost out on playing the mulatto "Julie" in MGM's remake of Show Boat (1951). Ironically, the role was played by one of Lena's close off-screen friends, Ava Gardner, who practiced for it by singing to Horne's recordings of the songs, and Lena had already appeared in the "Show Boat" segment of Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), in which she appeared as "Julie" singing "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" (which was, as all her MGM appearances, shot in such a way that it could be easily edited out of the film). Another irony is that she had been invited by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II themselves to play "Julie" in the 1946 Broadway revival of "Show Boat", but had had to refuse because MGM would not release her from her contract.
I'm postint this long after the discussion has ended but in light of Miss Horne's recent passing, I wanted to get my two cents in anyway. The Hollywood Production Code's miscegenation clause would have prevented Miss Horne from ever playing Julie LaVerne. I realize that over the years, Lena Horne discussed being robbed of the part, but she never would have been allowed to play it on film, at least as long as Joseph Breen and his commission were still around. The clause also prevented a number of Asian and other African American actors from progressing beyond supporting players in films and did not end until 1968. It was challenged by films like Island In the Sun and 1967's Guess Whose Coming To Dinner and thankfully, we know the outcome.
shareI was one of those people who thought that Lena Horne couldn't "pass for white" to play Julie, but after reading the comments in this thread, I've changed my mind. She was a beautiful singer and a beautiful woman. As far as the acting goes, other than "Cabin In The Sky" and "Stormy Weather", Lena Horne was never given the chance to actually act on film, so there is no way that anyone can say she lacked the acting chops to play Julie. I think she should have been given the opportunity.
share.........Lena Horne appeared briefly in "Till the Clouds Roll By" as Julia in "Show Boat". The movie was about Jerome Kern and the scene was not shown in the context of the stage production. Also Ms. Horne had way to much "light Egyptian" makeup on to be convincing as a black women passing as white. She did get to sing "Can't Help Loving That Man". Until Lonette McKee took the role in the Houston Opera's production of "Show Boat" during the early eighties and the nineties Broadway Revival no acknowledged black performer was cast in the part in real life..........In 1951 the Breen Censorship Office wanted much more then the exclusion of Lena Horne from the part of Julie. The Studio was pressured to completely remove the subject of miscegination from the story as had been done in the 1929 version. Never mind the 1936 Helen Morgan version had been given special permission to use the controversial theme. The studio stood its ground and it stayed in.........Interestingly lux Radio Theater did their own version of "Show Boat". Their solution to the miscegination problem was to make Julie an illegal alien whose husband agrees to join her when she is deported. That seems timely for something from seventy years ago.......When Lena Horne started in show business she was told she could easily pass herself off as Southern European or South American and she would have had more career opportunities if she did. She refused of course. Given that fact and if she didn't ware the skin darkening makeup the studio insisted on she may have been convincing in the role of Julie.
TAG LINE: True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.
Horne would have been great and more supportive of the storyline.
Granted Horne would have been great in the role as Julie but I think the Production Code would have prevented her from being cast. In 1949, Fox released a movie called Pinky which is a story about a young African American woman who passes for a white woman. The movie starred Jeanne Crain, which leads me to believe if they couldn't cast an African American for that film, there was no way Horne could be Julie.
shareI don't personally think the production code has any thing to do with it. With Julie you are talking about a character who is mixed race, but isn't supposed to look mixed race. Lena got away with it on stage, and did a good job in "Till the Clouds Roll By" but IMO is a little bit to obvious for a full film production.
Let Zygons Be Zygons.
Aside from the physical issue--Lena Horne did not look white--there was no such thing as a black actress and a white actor embracing on screen. It couldn't have happened. Period. Don't blame MGM, blame good old American racism.
shareIt wasn't just black and white being forbidden from embracing: the musical HIGH SOCIETY was released in 1956. It was a remake of "The Philadelphia Story" with the setting changed to Newport, R.I. (huh?) Anyway, Bing Crosby plays a songwriter who's also a sponsor of the summer jazz festival and invites Louis Armstrong and his band to perform. When the band arrives to stay/rehearse at der Bingle's crib, he greets them and takes either a suitcase or an instrument case from one of the musicians. I've read that the scene was cut in some Southern and Southwestern theaters because you couldn't show a white person "being subservient" to a black person.
May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?
I'm actually surprised at the amount of people saying Lena couldn't pass for white. With a bit of powder (I don't know how fair she was) I believe she could have been just fine. Plus it's more about the performance. Halle Berry did it for the series Queen and while she did not "Pass" she got the character spot on so in the end it didn't really matter.
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