OKLAHOMA!: Platinum Edition Blu-ray re-issue (Magna Theater Corp., 1955) Samuel Goldwyn Films

A queer twinge of irony courses through my veins every time I watch Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (1955), chiefly, because I cannot set aside the fact those golden rays of sunshine stretching across vast, bucolic spaces are actually Arizona country, not Oklahoma territory. Also, because I cannot help but ponder about the sort of movie musical Oklahoma! might have been, if produced just a few short years later, and, with a different director at its helm. Fred Zinnemann is a superior technician, as both the Todd A-O and Cinemascope versions of Oklahoma! attests. But he is not altogether in tune – literally – with the demands of this socially conscious piece of musical theater, neither with the pacing nor staging of a big and splashy Broadway-to-Hollywood hybrid. Regrettably, the song and dance sequences painfully illustrate this shortcoming. In general, Hollywood always did much better creating their own homegrown musicals, generally, cut from the more simplistic ‘boy meets girl’ milieu. In hindsight, Oklahoma! as conceived by Rodgers and Hammerstein is just too ambitious for Hollywood – even if half the creative brain trust toiling to bring it to the screen hailed from its Broadway origins. Instead, Zinnemann and company are attempting a bit of the impossible, to straddle a chasm between irreconcilable realms of stagecraft and more light-hearted movie pop-u-tainments.

Running 2 ½ hrs., Oklahoma! (its focus on reproducing the ‘stage experience’, right down to a deluxe roadshow including overture, entr’acte and exit music) earmarked the decade’s foray into grander entertainments, soon to engulf the 1960’s with an oft too vacuous elephantiasis.  What we get in Oklahoma! is therefore something of a show, the proscenium of ‘traditional theater’ never breached with the bug-eye lens of Todd A-O keeping an even more obvious distance between the swirling/whirling dancers and the audience than its Cinemascope counterpart. We are never part of this story or even beckoned to partake, Production designer, Oliver Smith’s idyllic reimagined country life circa 1900 is a completely sanitized and pristine wilderness, devoid of the rugged frontier quality so essential in our understanding of these lusty/hearty characters. The dancers perform some fractured Agnes DeMille choreography – DeMille unable to bottle the essence of her own magic for the film, somehow distilling her stage-bound terpsichorean brilliance into a cheap mime of its former glory. There is just no spark to her hoppity-hoppity /pseudo-balletic kicks and twirls, principally performed by dancers, Bambi Lynn and James Mitchell during the lengthy – and alas, tedious – dream sequence.

Ironically, one of the film’s hindrances is Michael Todd, the man integral in coaxing Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein from their innate distrust of, and distaste for Hollywood. Todd may have achieved a minor coup in securing the rights to produce the first R&H show in Todd A-O. However, it is important to delineate Michael Todd as a showman rather than a film maker. Todd’s driving ambition in acquiring the rights to Oklahoma! merely to show off his newly inaugurated widescreen process developed by American Optical, gives his patented technology the cache of wildly popular subject matter for its debut, something Todd’s other foray into widescreen (as co-investor/founder of the cumbersome 3-camera panoramic process, Cinerama) had failed to do. Even more paradoxically, it was Todd A-O’s promise of ultra-clarity ‘coming out of one hole’ and Todd A-O’s startling reproduction of sound, employing a derivation of Cinerama’s 6-track magnetic stereo, that attracted Rodgers and Hammerstein in the first place.

Viewing Oklahoma! today is like being teleported back to this exhilarating transitional period when technological advancements in sight and sound superseded what was actually being shown on these bigger-than-life movie canvasses. Regrettably, Todd A-O’s failure to gain general acceptance (it proved too costly to retool every theater in America to accommodate Todd A-O’s unique projection requirements) necessitated the photographing of Oklahoma! twice for a more widespread theatrical release – once, in Todd A-O, the other in the streamlined and cost-effective Cinemascope process, already fast becoming the industry standard bearer despite its own litany of shortcomings.  Ultimately, Todd’s edict to Fred Zinnemann was to ensure the Todd A-O version of Oklahoma! had all the advantages, the Cinemascope photographed almost as an afterthought, and often after optimal lighting conditions on location had begun to wane. They really are two separate movies to behold – Zinnemann, tweaking his staging as he went along, and Robert Surtees’ camerawork acquiring a modestly more agile approach to the material in the Cinemascope version. Todd A-O’s big ‘selling’ feature was that it could mimic the vast expanses of Cinerama without the unwieldy 3-camera setup, the bug-eye lens capable of taking in a breathtaking 180-degree vista. Too bad the staging of Oklahoma! did not lend itself to such visual grandiosity. With the exception of one or two establishing long shots, the bug-eye would be used sparingly – thus, rendering moot the whole point of photographing Oklahoma! in Todd A-O.

Neither version of Oklahoma! is completely satisfying, though the production has its obvious and undeniable assets to champion. Firstly, we get ex-Warner contract player, Gordon MacRae, elevated to A-list stature as cowboy Curly. With his rich and melodic baritone, looking sinfully butch in his bright orange shirt and chaps, MacRae is the embodiment of every young cowgirl’s naughty daydream - just the sort to teach pert and rigidly virgin-esque, Laurey Williams (Shirley Jones) a thing or two behind the barn. MacRae gets the cowhand’s share of the heavy lifting in Oklahoma! (musically speaking) and he is more than up to the challenge, breaking into the R&H songbook with ‘Oh What A Beautiful Mornin’ (it’s middle verse inexplicably omitted from the film – no ‘cattle standing like statues’ here, alas), tempting his would-be lover with ‘The Surrey with The Fringe on Top’ and later, ‘People Will Say We’re In Love’, belting out the boisterous anthem, ‘Oklahoma!’ and finally, tempting fate with ‘Poor Jud is Daid’ - a fairly morbid ditty, encouraging surly farmhand, Jud Fry to take his own life. Oklahoma! is Curly’s show and MacRae’s performance gives it the required ballast.

The film has less success with Shirley Jones in her big screen debut. Although undeniably in exquisite voice (her haunting and moody rendition of ‘Out of My Dreams’ will send chills down the spine) – acquitting herself rather nicely of the sob-storied ‘Many a New Day’ too – her trilling soprano the perfect complement to MacRae in both their pas deux ballad and the title tune – Jones’ screen presence needs some refining. Watching Laurey’s initial spurns of Curly’s advances is like listening to the shrill screech of fingernails across a chalkboard. Jones’ clipped delivery of lines like “Hmph…thought you was somebody!” acquire a haughty ‘Minnie Mouse’ quality - more laughable than endearing. There isn’t enough of the virgin in Jones to convey it convincingly as Laurey. So, her awkward translation becomes something of wounded sexual frustration, coupled with a schoolgirl’s persnickety investment to tease, instead of a sweetly innocent – if fearful – lure towards this young buck’s truer intentions.

Okahoma!’s supporting cast is superb. Charlotte Greenwood – whom Rodgers and Hammerstein had desperately wanted for their Broadway show, assumes the role of Aunt Eller with all the aplomb of a ripe old sage. Gloria Grahame is shockingly good as the daft and oversexed, Ado Annie Carnes. Gene Nelson, never better on screen than as hayseed buckaroo, Will Parker. And Eddie Albert, as comically vivacious peddler-man, Ali Hakim, and, Rod Steiger, a truly chilling Jud Fry ignite the screen. Finally, Jay C. Flippen as the courtly, Mr. Skidmore and James Whitmore, as Ado Annie’s caustic and short-fused pa are charmers in cameo. Some of the best moments in Oklahoma! are actually dedicated to one or more of these ancillary performers; just one of the awkward perplexities in the Sonya Levien/William Ludwig screenplay. As the audience, we are much more fascinated by Ado Annie’s lovelorn plight, struggling to make up her addlepated mind and/or fickle heart between the devious peddler-man and Will, who really does love her with all his heart – and loins – proving it behind a haystack in the third act.

The first of Rodger and Hammerstein’s major stage works to be adapted to the screen, Oklahoma! had its Broadway debut on March 31, 1943. With its integrated score, stirring choreography by Agnes De Mille and seemingly effortless social commentary, the play was an immediate critical and financial success, departing from the conventional wisdom of the Broadway musical revue. Its hummable songs are sandwiched between that ‘necessary evil’ of a threadbare plot. Based on Lynn Rigg’s, Green Grows the Lilac, (and original titled by R&H as Away We Go, Oklahoma!), the play’s most notable departure from conventions of the day was in its first act finale – a lavishly appointed and prolonged ‘dream sequence’ ballet – ‘Out of My Dreams’. This would be carried into the movie almost verbatim, staged against impressionist backdrops that, lamentably tear the viewer out of Oklahoma!’s fresh-aired vistas, replacing the tangible scent of tumbleweed and cornfields with a jarring, almost antiseptic theatricality. Agnes DeMille’s impressionist choreography, rather than liberating audiences into a surreal fantasy – as on stage, it dazzled as an extension of Laurie’s desire to reconcile her love for Curly – now, instead contributes to this overall embalming artificiality of a dream come nightmare. The smoke and filter effects, interplay of shadow and light, with wildly shifting locales still run the gamut of a young girl’s doe-eyed elation to terrorized fear at making a life-altering mistake. But the overall effect on film is rendered moot but the paper mache and plywood cartoonishness of these painted backdrops.

It is interesting to note, with the exception of their 1945 contribution to the screen, State Fair, Rodgers and Hammerstein vehemently resisted transforming any of their stagecraft into movies until the mid-1950's - a decade marred by the decline of the studio system and loss of audiences to television. In this turbulent epoch, the movies could no longer rely on the audience to buy what they were selling. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s initial resistance to Hollywood likely had more to do with the fact they were constantly producing for Broadway - one play per annum. Arguably, their hiatus from Hollywood allowed the movie musical to ‘catch up’ to the intellectual gravitas of their live theater. Alas, Fred Zinnemann’s casting as Oklahoma!’s director, brought nothing fresh or even inventive to the big screen adaptation.  Instead, the movie is astonishingly faithful to its stagecraft roots, on occasion, to become brutally stagnant because of this overriding arc of fidelity. Nevertheless, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s popularity, as well as that of their pre-sold works made the roadshow Todd A-O run of Oklahoma! at the Rivoli Theater a sensation, though ultimately, the Cinemascope version would be screened by a much wider audience.

Depending on the version being screened, Oklahoma! either opens with some sparkling red and white credits set against a black backdrop (Todd A-O version) or with our first glimpse of that famous ‘corn… as high as an elephant’s eye’, the camera zooming past its towering stalks to reveal a vast and fragrant countryside (also, an obvious backdrop of Arizona mountains), our first glimpse of Curly astride his noble steed, Blue. Immediately following either main title sequence, we get Curly singing ‘Oh What A Beautiful Mornin’ as he approaches the homestead of Aunt Eller, who works the land with her niece, Miss Laurey Williams and an impertinent and unkempt farmhand, Jud Fry. The latter is built like an ox and about a sociable as a long-horned bull stricken with mad cow disease.  Curly woos Laurey by enticing her to accompany him to the box social in his ‘Surrey with the Fringe on Top’. Even with all his charm it’s a tough sell. Laurey believes Curly is too brash for his own good and gives him the cold shoulder treatment. Aunt Eller is a different story, openly telling Curly if she wasn’t an old woman he would have pause to resist her amorousness.

As a show of her own conviction, Laurey elects to go with Jud to the party. Aunt Eller agrees to Curly’s proposal. To complicate matters, Curly also asks Gertie (Barbara Lawrence) – an absolutely obtuse flirt with a hideous cackle – to be his date. Aunt Eller leaves for the train station in her rig to meet Will Parker, who has gone to Kansas City to pick up some decorative lanterns for the Skidmore party. Will has also won $50 for bronco-busting, the necessary dowry old man, Andrew Carnes requires to grant Will his daughter, Ado Annie’s hand in marriage. We get a hint of Jud’s ominous predilection for very young girls, spying on Laurey through an open window as she undresses. Rod Steiger offers us a truly unsettling air of disturbing creepiness to foreshadow the film’s penultimate showdown between Curly and Jud for Laurey’s affections. At the depot, Will waxes about the wonders he has witnessed while in Kansas City. He also shares with some of the cowhands a gift he bought for Ado Annie’s pa - a kaleidoscope viewfinder featuring several photographs of a scantily clad women. What Will does not know, and neither will we until much later on, is the device, known as the ‘Little Wonder’ also comes with a booby-trap switchblade that, when improperly twisted, shoots like a projectile into the eye of the unsuspecting person viewing its images. Aside: why such…um… novelty would be invented in the first place is never entirely disclosed. Something from the Marquis de Sade collection, no doubt.

In the meantime, Laurey has gone to the nearby sump to bathe. Ado Annie arrives, revealing to Laurey that, in Will Parker’s absence, she has begun a new romance with the peddler-man, Ali Hakim who, frankly, is only interested in one thing – and it isn’t love. In short order, Annie lets this cat out of the bag with her pa too. Mr. Carnes, shotgun in hand, declares that any man plying his daughter with such obnoxious ‘sweet talk’ ought to consider it as prelude to a marriage proposal…or else. Will arrives with $50 worth of gifts for Annie’s pa. With his natural disdain for cowboys, Mr. Carnes refuses to honor their agreement on a technicality: $50 in merchandise is not $50. A quiet rivalry ensues between Will and Ali Hakim, the latter doing everything in his power to give Ado Annie back to Will and thus avoid having the barrel of her father’s rifle stuck in his backside for the rest of his days. Back at the farm, Laurey and Gertie get into a skirmish over Curly. He is pleased, as Laurey’s jealousy confirms he still has a fighting chance to win her heart. No kidding…people will say they’re in love. Having purchased an elixir from the peddler-man, reported to have magical properties of helping one see into their own future, Laurey takes a sniff of the perfumed water and promptly hallucinates the ‘Out of My Dreams’ ballet. Begun as euphoric elation, the ballet turns ugly – then, sinister – as Laurey finds herself standing next to Jud instead of Curly on her wedding day. Fleeing the altar, but cornered by Jud, Laurey enters a house of ill-repute. Jud paws and tears at her bridal veil - the symbolic deflowering of a virgin. To his detriment, Curly intervenes. He is mercilessly pummeled and then strangled to death by Jud. Laurey awakens from her horrific nightmare, only to discover a slightly more congenial Jud standing over her with a baleful grin, ready to escort her to the Skidmore party.

Immediately following the Intermission, we cut to the awkward carriage rid to the party. Jud deliberately slows the pace of his rented rig, hoping to take advantage of his date. Instead, Jud is surprised when Laurey takes hold of his buggy whip and strikes their horses. Spooked, the team bolts in a harrowing competition against a raging locomotive. In the Todd A-O version, we get some truly visceral imagery, the bug-eye lens rigged to the undercarriage and careening left to right, the sound of galloping hooves flooding the soundtrack. Moments before the horses run into the oncoming train, Jud regains the reigns, leaping from the rig to subdue his team. Laurey now takes hold of the reigns and whip, tearing off without Jud towards the Skidmore barn-raising. Declaring her love for Curly, Laurey attends an auction of home-cooked baskets made by the local girls, sold to the highest bidder. Jud’s arrival necessitates a confrontation as he attempts to outbid Curly for Laurey’s basket and thus, effectively win the right to possess her. Unable to match Jud’s bid with cash, Curley sells off his six-shooter and then his beloved horse to cover the cost.

Defeated, Jud recedes into the background, rumors persisting he was involved in a house fire elsewhere in the county, resulting in the death of a widow woman and her young daughter, about Laurey’s age. Laurey and Curly are married posthaste. Having purchased all of the items from Will, originally bought for Mr. Carnes, the peddler-man avails himself of the responsibility to marry Ado Annie. Will now has $50 and Mr. Carnes must honor their original agreement. On the eve of Laurey and Curly’s honeymoon tragedy strikes. The townsfolk, adhering to a very old custom - force the bride and groom to ascend a haystack while they pitch rice and other sundry homemade items at them in jest. Everyone is caught off guard when a nearby haystack appears to catch fire. As the panicked extras try to put out the blaze, Jud emerges from the shadows, setting fire to the haystack atop which Curly and Laurey remain. To save his bride, Curly throws Laurey to relative safety, then leaps in her defense toward Jud, who is impaled on the knife he intended to use to gut Curly like a pig. Having thwarted the prospect of a double homicide, Curly is nevertheless forced to endure a trial for Jud’s murder. As Oklahoma is a territory and not a state, the trial is held in Aunt Eller’s parlor where, after some pensive moments of debate, it is decided Curly acted in self-defense and Jud’s death was more an accident than anything else. Relieved and desperate to begin their lives as man and wife, Curly and Laurey depart as day breaks with the town’s folk escorting them to the depot, an ebullient reprise of ‘Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’ as the camera tilts upwards into vast blue skies dotted in white fluffy clouds.

The ending of Oklahoma! is too hastily dispatched in its optimism. Perhaps, already aware his lengthy preservation of this stagecraft has run well past the allotted time of even a roadshow, Zinnemann wraps everything up with expedience rather than pragmatic truthfulness. Despite this, and other misfires in Zinnemann’s direction along the way, the virtues of Oklahoma! shine through. The inescapably hummable quality of Rodgers and Hammerstein score and its superb rendering here, in 6-track stereo no less, coupled with Robert Surtees’ luminous cinematography on location, conspire for a big and boisterous scale. In the late 1990’s, Oklahoma! had a very limited 70mm revival on the big screen. Properly projected in Todd A-O, Oklahoma! really did live up to the hype of all the mid-fifties’ hoopla for ‘bigger and better’ movies. Alas, for many decades thereafter, nothing on home video ever lived up to that memory, chiefly as there was no earthly way to replicate 30fps Todd A-O to VHS, LaserDisc or DVD. And thus, only the 35mm Cinemascope version of Oklahoma! was allowed to prevail.   

Oklahoma! gets a Blu-ray reissue under the Samuel Goldwyn banner. Attention please: it’s the same 2-disc set that was previously released under the now-defunct 2oth Century-Fox Home Video banner in 2012. So, no upgrades in video/audio mastering. That’s a shame, because the Cinemascope version of Oklahoma! could certainly use some major clean-up and minor restoration. Todd A-O’s 30fps - irreconcilable with Blu-ray standards, results in a 1080i (rather than 1080p) presentation. The Todd A-O version has always looked a little anemic to my eyes, with muted colors that never entirely pop as they did on a large gauge film format. In Cinemascope, colors appear more vibrant. But the ‘scope’ version is riddled with so much age-related debris, it easily looks careworn and well below par for current Blu-ray standards in video restoration and mastering. Flesh tones in Todd A-O have an unusual, if intermittent jaundice appearance. In Cinemascope, flesh is more pink than natural. So, again – compromises/compromises!  There are some stylistic differences in the photography too. ‘Poor Jud is Daid’ has some very atmospheric lighting in Todd A-O that it otherwise lacks in the Cinemascope version. But there is a lot of black crush during this sequence in Todd A-O, virtually absent in the ‘scope’ cut. The audio is 5.1 DTS on both cuts. However, the Todd A-O sports a more refined soundtrack, owing to its 6-track magnetic stereo origins. For Cinemascope, the tracks sound great – but lack A-O’s sonic resonance. Extras are identical to the aforementioned Fox Blu-ray and include two audio commentaries – one for each feature. The late Nick Redman, President and Executive Director of the R&H catalog, Ted Chapin and actress, Shirley Jones chime in. There are junkets devoted to Todd A-O and a pair of featurettes produced in the mid-1990s, but NO documentary on the actual creation of this landmark picture. Clicking the ‘restoring Todd A-O’ feature actually produces a tiny box in the middle of the screen that scantily explains why this version is in 1080i not 1080p.  Bottom line: Oklahoma! is a cultural touchstone in American movie musicals. It’s not a perfect movie, however. Ditto for this Blu-ray regurgitation. Judge and buy accordingly.

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

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

Todd A-O version – 3.5

Cinemascope version – 2

EXTRAS

2.5