THE PAJAMA GAME: Blu-ray (Warner Bros. 1957) Warner Archive

Interesting, to pause a moment and reconsider what directors, George Abbott and Stanley Donen’s The Pajama Game (1957) would have been without Doris Day. Despite her megawatt stardom at the time, the first choice to play the part of the sexy ‘good girl’, Katherine ‘Babe’ Williams was Janis Paige – but only if Frank Sinatra accepted the part of her lover, Sid Sorokin. Sinatra’s disinterest in the role sealed Paige’s fate, Jack Warner – despite sharing an affinity to bring as many of the Broadway show’s original cast to the screen – absolutely needed a ‘star’ to helm the movie. So, a moment’s pause here in honor of Janis Paige who, at 98-years-young, is still very much with us, and, as glamorous as ever – one of our last official links with that galaxy of stars who once populated Tinsel Town en masse and lent it its immeasurable uber-sheen. A bit of a sentimentalist, it has always been a regret of mine that Paige never became an A-lister in pictures; born Donna Mae Tjaden picked up at the Hollywood Canteen by a Warner Bros. agent whose first real break was appearing alongside none other than ‘then’ newcomer, Doris Day in Romance on the High Seas (1948). It was a short run for the sexy starlet who, after 1951’s Two Gals and a Guy (1951), traded in Hollywood for Broadway, where she made her mark, before embarking on a successful career as a cabaret singer. And then, there was Broadway’s The Pajama Game, in which Paige was Babe for the duration of its legendary run. Paige would return to pictures, in her best role in fact, in Silk Stockings (1957) – playing a slinky, though not terribly bright aquacade star. So, my heart breaks just a little that Paige was not allowed to reprise her star turn for the movie version of The Pajama Game. As lovely and melodic as Doris Day is, her ‘sex appeal’ somehow offers a mere flicker to that full-on flame Paige could exude with a mere flash of her sparkling eyes and wit.

The Pajama Game is based on the 1953 novel, 7½ Cents by Richard Bissell, transformed into a big and boisterous musical mĂ©lange by Bissell, and vigorous producer, George Abbott, who would remain active and hearty, working on projects well past his 100th birthday, dying 7 years later of a stroke at his home in Florida. Abbott was, in fact, dictating ‘revisions’ on a Broadway revival of The Pajama Game to his 3rd wife at the time of his death! For the film, Jack Warner personally selected Stanley Donen to direct – a decision that would ensure the picture’s ever-lasting success. Donen, originally encouraged by his mother to pursue a career as Broadway dancer, had appeared as a male chorine in another Abbott show – Pal Joey (1940), to costar his future screen collaborator, Gene Kelly. Impressed by ‘the boy’ – Abbott then hired Donen for his next stage spectacular, Best Foot Forward (1942). When MGM’s Arthur Freed bought Best Foot Forward for the movies, Donen came to Hollywood and, for the next 25 years, would steadily work his way from dancer, to choreographer, to co-director, and finally, the fully-fledged man behind the camera, responsible for such classic movie musicals as 1949’s On the Town, Royal Wedding (1951), in which Donen directed his childhood idol, the incomparable Fred Astaire, Singin' in the Rain (1952) during which his collaborations with Gene Kelly reached their creative zenith, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) – the musical knock-out not even MGM had any faith in initially, and, the ironically titled, It's Always Fair Weather (1955), to forever severe Donen’s co-working alliance with Kelly. 1957 was Donen’s banner year as a ‘breakout’ artiste of the movie musical; first, in his aspirations to direct Astaire again, alongside the luminous Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face (1957), but also, reuniting with Abbott for the movie version of The Pajama Game.

It was, in fact, Abbott who suggested Donen for the work, part of a deal made in trade to acquire the Warner-owned Gershwin library for Funny Face. And Donen would share his director’s credit again, this time with Abbott, the picture also featuring choreography by Bob Fosse, with whom Donen had rigorously clashed on the set of 1953’s Give A Girl A Break; a sadly underrated MGM musical that deserves future consideration. Entrusting Donen to the heavy lifting, Abbott basically spent his days playing tennis, intermittently to visit the set for only an hour or two at a time, run the dailies and go home. In one of those Hollywood ironies that never fails to raise a curious eyebrow, the film version of The Pajama Game, while remaining relatively faithful to the original Broadway derivative, and, exuding oodles of charm, was only modestly successful at the box office, despite resounding praise from the critics. No less an authority than Jean-Luc Godard extolled The Pajama Game as Donen’s towering achievement. Much of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross’ score survived the transition from stage to screen, the Abbott/Bissell screenplay remaining ever-faithful to its roots, with the story concerning labor disputes at the Sleep-tite pajama factory where workers' demands for a seven-and-a-half cent raise go unheeded. Love blossoms between the grievance committee head, ‘Babe’ Williams and Sid Sorokin (John Raitt), the newly appointed factory superintendent. John Raitt proved an interesting casting choice for the movie. For although he originated the role on Broadway, and, for the briefest wrinkle in time, set a new standard for muscled-up leading men in Broadway’s Carousel, Oklahoma!, The Pajama Game, Carnival in Flanders, Three Wishes for Jamie, and A Joyful Noise, he nevertheless lacked that intangible ‘star quality’ ideally suited for the camera. If the movie version of The Pajama Game has an Achilles’ Heel, it remains the utter lack of romantic chemistry between Raitt’s sinewy stud and Day’s antiseptic goodie-two-shoes.

The legacy of Broadway’s ‘Pajama Game’ is that it kick-started the career of Shirley MacLaine – Carol Haney’s understudy who had her big break after Haney injured her ankle. Indie movie director/producer, Hal B. Wallis was in the audience that night, and immediately signed MacLaine to a contract at Paramount Pictures. In retrospect, the Broadway incarnation of The Pajama Game was a much ‘bigger deal’ than the movie. Abbott’s boisterous stagecraft debuted on May 13, 1954 at the St. James Theater and ran for a whopping 1,063 performances. Donen’s movie had neither such a lengthy tenure nor, arguably, the success it deserved. Fair enough, Donen inevitably ‘opens’ things up for the screen, especially during the annual ‘staff picnic’ sequence, shot in the actual ‘great outdoors’ where Haney appears to perfection, dancing ‘Once A Year Day’ as Babe and Sid serenade the ensemble. And, while the Adler/Ross score includes such memorable pop tunes of their day as I'm Not At All In Love, There Once Was a Man, Steam Heat, and Hernando’s Hideaway, the most enduring song in the movie remained its love ballad, ‘Hey There’ – sung with considerable lust by Raitt. The staging of virtually all the numbers in The Pajama Game is enviably first-rate, thanks to the exuberance and eclecticism of its choreographer, Bob Fosse.

The Chicagoan-born, Fosse with ambitions of becoming the next Astaire, initially made only a modest mark in pictures, considered as ‘second-string’ in such high-profile movies as Give a Girl a Break, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis and Kiss Me Kate (all of them made and released in 1953). It was, in fact, his appearance with Carol Haney in this latter effort, dancing ‘From This Moment On’ that brought Fosse to Abbott’s attention. He was immediately hired to choreograph Broadway’s The Pajama Game, and later, to do the same for Abbott in Damn Yankees (1955). Fosse's distinctive style, to feature turned-in knees and ‘jazz’ hands is best exemplified in The Pajama Game’s ‘Steam Heat’ number, also showing off Haney’s terpsichorean prowess, flanked by dancers, Kenneth LeRoy and Buzz Miller. Tragically, Haney would not live long enough to establish herself as a bona fide star of the first magnitude. She died of pneumonia, complicated by diabetes and alcoholism in 1964, age 39, barely six weeks after choreographing Broadway’s Funny Girl, the legendary show to mark the official debut of Barbra Streisand. For the movie version, Donen endeavored to bring as much of the stage’s flavorful cast to the screen, including the aforementioned Raitt and Haney, alongside Eddie Foy Jr. (as Vernon Hines), Reta Shaw (Mabel), Thelma Pelish (Mae), Ralph Dunn (Myron Hasler), Ralph W. Chambers (Charlie), Mary Stanton (Brenda) and dancer, Buzz Miller. Perhaps, in hindsight and ironically so, this is one of the reasons the film version of The Pajama Game was not an overwhelming box office success – its myriad of talents, unrecognizable to the film-going public.

Despite its fidelity, the film shears six numbers, mostly for time constraints, including, A New Town is a Blue Town, Her Is, Think of the Time I Save, Sleep-Tite, Jealousy Ballet and The World Around Us. Arguably, the one unforgivable sin is the omission of ‘The Man Who Invented Love’, expressly written for Doris Day by Richard Adler, but deleted in favor of a reprise of Hey There. Mercifully, both Day’s recording of the song, and the outtake exist and are available for our consideration these many decades since the movie’s premiere. Incidentally, Day’s participation here made the film soundtrack a big hit on the ‘hit parade’ – hitting #9 in 1957. Rather ironically, Day’s performance in The Pajama Game was less than enigmatic, perhaps, partly, owing to her inability to find ‘ground zero’ in her performance as the interloper into a cast already well-seasoned and secure in theirs. That explains Day’s rigidity. John Raitt’s is quite another variety of awkwardness to reconsider. Indeed, George Abbott had recommended Marlon Brando to co-star, following Brando’s unexpected success in the movie version of Guys and Dolls (1955). As for Raitt, although he undeniably possessed an excellent tenor voice, and the handsome, muscular looks to have vaulted him instantly into the upper echelons as a leading man, he completely – and otherwise – lacks anything in the way of screen presence to anchor his performance. It’s odd too, because by all accounts, Raitt’s performance on stage was one of the original show’s irrefutable assets. How precisely he fails so miserably to translate any of this charisma to the screen remains a real head-scratcher; one, rather commonly to befall many a Broadway star attempting their big screen debut.

Both the play and the movie’s plot, revolving around an employees’ staged strike (lest they improve their prospects with a 7 ½ cent raise from management) seems superficial by today’s standards. So, it is important to reconsider that the average garment worker in 1954 made only $1.25/hr. or $50 a week. Thus, 7 ½ cents would have raised their pay scale by approximately 16% - a formidable increase. The movie’s plot begins with the installation of Sid Sorokin, hired as superintendent of the Sleep-tite Pajama Factory in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Sid is seen by his bosses as a tough and steady buffer between management and the workers, the latter increasingly discontented with lack of opportunities. Alas, Sid soon begins to develop a crush on Katherine ‘Babe’ Williams, a member of the employee union’s leadership. At the company picnic, Sid and Babe iron out the wrinkles in their romantic intensions. But Babe is concerned their respective roles at work, as management vs. labor, will eventually drive a wedge between them.

Her worries bear themselves out when the union pushes for a 7 ½ cent raise the factory's manager, Vernon Hines (Eddie Foy Jr.) absolutely refuses to entertain. In retaliation, the workers deliberately decrease their daily output and furthermore, sabotage the quality of the pajamas they do produce. Babe takes things one step further when she destroys a valuable piece of company machinery, forcing Sid to fire her. Suspecting management is up to no good, Sid is determined to investigate its bookkeeping, kept under lock and key in the rear office. To that end, Sid sidles up to Hind’s gal Friday, Gladys (Carol Haney), taking her on a cozy date to the somewhat seedy, Hernando's Hideaway, despite Hines’ insane jealousy.  Plying Gladys with enough booze to stifle a whale, Sid gains access to her key and, returning to the factory late that same night, discovers the company’s president, Myron Hasler (Ralph Dunn) has ‘unofficially’ instituted the 7 ½ cent pay increase months ago, quietly pocketing the overage for himself. Revealing he knows the truth to Hasler, Sid threatens to forward the ledgers to Sleep-tite’s Board of Directors lest the increase is not immediately passed along to the employees.  Thus, at the union meeting, Hasler begrudgingly agrees to the raise. When Babe realizes Sid engineered this reconciliation, having only the employees’ best interests at heart, she dutifully begs his forgiveness.

As a movie musical, The Pajama Game is a deceptively feather-weight. It’s ‘blue-collar’ appeal, while exhilarating on the stage, somehow evaporates almost completely in the film. Despite Stanley Donen’s very best efforts to will a faithful adaptation, the results, while yielding some very good things along the way, are cohesively less than impressive. In one of those Hollywood ironies that never fails to impress, it ought to be noted that the studios, as a rule, always fared better when creating original material for the screen than directly porting over hit stage shows. The Pajama Game is no exception to this rule. There is zero romantic chemistry between Raitt’s Sid and Day’s Babe – the actors, hailing from different and seemingly irreconcilable mediums, thrust together, but merely going through the motions of the plot, and, only intermittently to involve us in their formidable talents as singers. While the score remains superb, and Bob Fosse’s choreography is electric, it’s what happens between these songs and dances that really submarines The Pajama Game’s very best efforts to succeed as it should, and, in the final analysis, denies it the marker as a true masterpiece of the movie musical genre, instead, to be relegated as a modestly enjoyable, but hardly iconic installment into that massive and memorable pantheon of movie-land nostalgia.

The Pajama Game was photographed in WarnerColor - a process, basically, rechristened by the studio, but hailing from the Eastman Kodak ‘Eastmancolor’ line-up, affectionately known elsewhere as Color by DeLuxe, Metrocolor, PathĂ©color, Columbiacolor…and on and on. You get the picture – every studio had its own derivative. This streamlined ‘monopack’, meant to revolutionize the industry standard – Technicolor – and basically put an end to its cumbersome 3-strip process (though never to duplicate Technicolor’s rich and vibrant hues baked into that thoroughly impressive metal-based dye lot) came with its own litany of shortcomings, some painfully on display throughout the 1950’s. The Eastman process was far more economical, hence its widespread appeal and adoption. But the proverbial fly in its ointment was Cinemascope. Even though Technicolor became astutely acquainted as the processor of Eastmancolor negatives, there was a significant ‘loss of register’ in these anamorphic ‘scope’ prints, a fatal flaw to remain intact until 1955 as many Technicolor prints were later scrapped and reprinted by DeLuxe Labs. Hence, even Eastmancolor-originated films billed as ‘Color by Technicolor’, were not using Technicolor’s dye-transfer process, but instead processed by DeLuxe, owned by 2oth Century-Fox. Of course, the real problem with Eastmancolor (and its many branded derivatives) was its dye base, improperly stored, to exhibit an alarming rate of deterioration and color fading in a relatively short period of time, while Technicolor’s prints have remained largely intact and show, comparatively, little signs of significant fading.

Viewing a movie like The Pajama Game today, one might expect to find it looking haggard and careworn for precisely these reasons. Certainly, other WarnerColor efforts like House of Wax (1953), Dial M For Murder (1954) and Giant (1956)…especially Giant!!! – among others – have suffered this tragic, and devastatingly in-correctible fate. But The Pajama Game on Blu-ray?…wow! Owing to some digital-age wizardry reapplied to these analogue sources, keeping printer functions at bay, and dupes barely to last their transitions, Warner Archive’s new-to-Blu of The Pajama Game is nothing short of miraculous, showing off Harry Stradling’s cinematography to its very best advantage. Colors have been reproduced with remarkable clarity and richness. Contrast can scarcely be better, and the entire image exhibits a revitalized look, arguably, even better than its original opening night splendor. To clarify – nothing untoward has been done to produce an image NOT in keeping with the original intended look of the movie. What has been achieved, however, is spectacular, yielding a much more refined image. The Pajama Game has NEVER looked this good on home video. The DTS 2.0 mono sports an impressive ‘brassy’ appeal, free of age-related shortcomings, and sounds absolutely wonderful. Extras include the aforementioned deleted song, ‘The Man Who Invented Love’ and an original theatrical; trailer. Bottom line: The Pajama Game may not be a top-tier musical to remember, but it definitely sports enough assets to make it an enjoyable movie-going experience, if not to be retained in the mind’s eye for very long after the house lights have come up. WAC’s Blu-ray is perfection. Very highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

5+

EXTRAS

1

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