Elaine Stritch in Call Me Madam--RARE VIDEO- Page 2

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 6:59am

I have to admit that if PalJoey hadn't mentioned it was Elaine Stritch in the first clip, I probably wouldn't have guessed it was her.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 9:35am

I'm the lone voice of dissent. I think Stritch is one of the most untalented actresses to come along. Not an ounce of subtlety. She's playing the same coarse fishwife she always plays. The braying donkey worked well for Joanne in Company but it doesn't fit the classy Perle Mesta.

I do however appreciate the clip. Russell Nype is great and I always wish his work was more acknowledged. A few years after this clip, he won the Tony in a show starring Stritch called "Goldilocks". She wasn't even nominated for the show.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 10:14am

I don't have the reverence for Stritch that some do, but I think she's great in that first clip.

But if Goth's right, I've totally misunderstood the point of the show--and Merman's performance in it--for many years.

[jayinchelsea]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 10:19am

We've all heard the Stritch story about her shuttling back and forth when understudying Merman, but it is amazing to actually see her perform the number with Russell Nype. Was she even 30 at the time? And yet she always looks and sounds exactly the same. For those of us who love her, and there are many, it's great to see this.

[MatineeLover]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 10:34am

Nype is fantastic as well.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 10:40am

"But if Goth's right, I've totally misunderstood the point of the show--and Merman's performance in it--for many years."

Stritch in that clip is like Lucille Ball in Mame(d). She can't sing the score, so she's going to rely on mugging and screaming and resort to tricks to put the song across. You will see the same thing repeated years later when Stritch tries to put over "I'm Still Here" and completely ruins the song.

Merman could obviously sing the score and could carry a role based on her natural ability. Her acting was sometimes on and sometimes off, but that took second place to her voice.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 10:55am

I just never would have thought to describe the character as "classy."

[Gothampc]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 11:08am

"I just never would have thought to describe the character as "classy."

You have to have some amount of class to be an ambassador to another country.

I see Perle Mesta as more Mame than Molly Brown.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 11:08am

double post

Updated On: 1/10/12 at 11:08 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 11:08am

Perle Mesta was all about NOT being "classy"--in real life and in the writing of the show:

I was she was born on a thousand acres of Oklahoma land.
Nothing grew on the thousand acres
For it was gravel and sand.
One day, father started digging in a field,
Hoping to find some soil.
He dug and he dug and, what do you think?
Oil, oil, OIL!



We know you hate Stritch, but don't turn Perle Mesta into something she ain't. She was very happy to be the "priestess with the least-est pro-to-col."

[Gothampc]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 11:11am

"Perle Mesta was all about NOT being "classy"--in real life and in the writing of the show"

Like I said, the USA doesn't send ambassadors to other countries who don't exude some amount of class.

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 11:14am

Goth, Ethel Merman played her coarse as well (but with a heart of gold). Did you ever see the film version where she reprised her role? She's constantly stopping herself from swearing, talks like "one the guys" walks like a truck driver, and is brash and brassy. It's written in the script that way, too, tailored for Merman.

I agree that Stritch is playing it that way (delightfully, I might add), but that's the charm of the character ... even if it's not the real Perle Mesta. Her most endearing quality in the world of politics is her inclination to say "I'll take the check," as they humorously point out.

She's not Mame at all, in other words.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 11:28am

"She's not Mame at all, in other words."

Perhaps "class" is the wrong word. I can see Mame letting go with a string of curse words, after all she was in the theater.

To me, there's just something off-putting about Stritch in that role.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 11:58am

No. To you, there's something off-putting about Stritch in ANY role.

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 11:59am

One of the things Stritch does that is a little off-putting is when, toward the end of the number, she starts slurring her words and braying a bit ... as if drunk. ("I'll drink to that!") Whether it's an artistic choice or an unintentional statement of the facts, I don't know. But it does make Mesta seem boozy and borderline "Martha in Virginia Woolf," which is definitely not the character or the way Merman had played her. As much as I enjoyed that clip, I winced a couple of times near the end of it, for that reason.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 12:01pm

"No. To you, there's something off-putting about Stritch in ANY role."

No, I really believe she deserved the Tony for A Delicate Balance. And she was good in the movie Cocoon II.

But I don't think she's a musical comedy star in anyway.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 2:38pm

But I don't think she's a musical comedy star in anyway.

...despite the fact that she's been performing in musicals on Broadway since 1947. That's 65 years of performing in musicals on Broadway.

...despite the fact that she starred in the national tour of Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam in 1952. That's 60 years ago. She starred. In a national tour. Of a musical.

...despite the fact that she played Melba and sang "Zip!" in Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey on Broadway in 1955.

...despite her starring role in Noel Coward's Sail Away on Broadway.

...despite her Tony-nominated performance in Stephen Sondheim's Company.

...despite her performance as Parthy in Hal Prince's revival of Kern and Hammerstein's Show Boat.

And despite her Tony-winning performance in At Liberty, recounting all this--and singing about it.

In other words, she's a "musical-comedy star" as far as Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, Noel Coward, Stephen Sondheim and Hal Prince are concerned.

But you, not so much?

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 2:40pm

Well, as long as we're being honest, I have to admit I find it a bit off-putting how Stritch shouts her way through YOU'RE JUST IN LOVE. I know her voice primarily from COMPANY, but she did so many musicals in the 1950s and early 60s, I just assumed she could actually sing when she was younger. (She's also delightful in the clip in other ways; I'm just not crazy about the vocal.)

But as for her being too rude or crude to play Perle Mesta, she isn't playing Perle Mesta. She is playing Sally Adams, a character based very loosely on Mesta but highly exaggerated for comic effect. PalJoey, as usual, picks out the most apt descriptions of Adams, but in fact the entire play is based on the conflict between the nouveau riche country rube set against Old World decorum (and greed). (As in FOREST GUMP, ignorance conquers all, a favorite American myth.)

Every joke in the show is based on this contrast. Sally doesn't actually fart only because the show was written in 1950. I saw Ethel Merman on stage in the show during her 1966 tour and though she was drop-dead funny, there was nothing "refined" about her portrayal. If anything, Stritch in that clip comes across as more sophisticated.

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 2:46pm

Stritch never had much of a voice. Ever.

That puts her in the same league with Channing, Mostel, Brynner, etc.

Those other non-musical stars.

EDIT: And yes, Gav, in my last post I should have been clearer about Mesta vs. Adams as the "character" she's playing.

Updated On: 1/10/12 at 02:46 PM

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 3:15pm

I think we all knew what you meant, b12b. I wasn't correcting you.

I was just making a point to the other poster. He can't fairly use Perle Mesta as an argument for how Sally Adams is portrayed. Mesta was just an inspiration.

And your point about non-singers in musicals is well taken. I'd even go so far as to say the most memorable and iconic roles in American musical theater tended to be tailored to the limited talents of performers who weren't true singers. (Harold Hill, Henry Higgins and Alfred Doolittle, Daisy Gamble, King Arthur, Dolly and Lorelei Lee, Mame and Mrs. Lovett, Ruth Sherwood, Charity Valentine and Roxie Hart, COMPANY's Joanne, etc. and so forth. We could go on and on.)

Every account I've read of Elaine Stritch on Broadway in the 50s and early 60s has been an unqualified rave. She must have been electric. I was merely surprised that one could be Ethel Merman's understudy without a big and true, Broadway belt.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 3:26pm

For one really true shining moment of Stritch subtlety, I Never Know When from Goldilocks is a beautiful example.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 3:37pm

Sorry, Mr. Matt--I forgot Goldilocks! (I knew I would forget one...)

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 3:41pm

It's actually my favorite Stritch recording!

[madbrian]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 3:52pm

For your consideration, Stritch's rendition of You Took Advantage of Me:
Stritch

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/10/12 at 4:25pm

There used to be an video of her doing that song on an Ed Sullivan show on the old BlueGobo site.