Another stereo premiere - Van Johnson and Lucille Bremer (dubbed by Trudy Erwin) perform Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields' "I Won't Dance" in "Till the Clouds Roll By".
My favorite number from "Till the Clouds Roll By". Lovely Lucille was charming and a great dancer but Van- he had charisma galore! Of those 1,900 views this video has received, at least a 100 are mine. Can't get enough of it!
A charming number. Swing at its best. Also my favorite from this movie. He was a versatile song and dance man and a fine actor (one of Hollywood's most popular leading men in the 40s and early 50s); she was a wonderful dancer whose film career never really materialized.
My college film professor made us watch this film multiple times (to figure out why it's a lousy musical, basically!), and I remember her telling us that 1946 audiences went WILD when Van appeared in this number. They didn't know he could sing and dance either! It was a delightful surprise to people who only knew his prior film work.
That looks like tremendous fun, but I can only imagine how much hard work it was to nail down that routine. It was terrific and I've watched it several times, smiling in amazement all the way through. This movie predated my existence by about 17 years. No doubt, I missed some great films and I'll have to make a point of watching some of them before my time runs out.🙂
Unfortunately TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY is *not* a great film overall - we studied it in a Musicals class in film school in order to compare/contrast with musicals that actually were great. It has some standout numbers, like this one, but you might not want to add the entire film to your to-watch list :) Try THE BAND WAGON, TOP HAT, and THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT instead!
Van Johnson came from Broadway...he's an accomplished singer/dancer. Believe he was Gene Kelly's understudy in 'Pal Joey' 1940 before they both came to Hollywood. Unlike Kelly, in Hollywood Van wasn't cast primarily in musicals, so many never knew his background...when the occasional presented itself, he seem to enjoy surprising those unaware of is background. His mugging at 1:14-24 seems to speak to this.
Different time periods for the musicals, so dfferent styles. While I prefer the Astaire version too as I like that style more, this is a fine example of this style.
