Jule Styne--most flops of any major composer?

Posted: 4/13/07 at 4:46am

I'm a BIG Jule Styne fan but have to admit I only really know a number of his scores well--Funny Girl and Gypsy of course, Bells Are Ringing, Peter Pan... umm a few other songs... Anyway since I'm recently backtracking and trying to pay attention to musicals I missed before by fave composers I've been looking at his repertoire (this was starte dby me finding at a thrift store for 50 cents the Record of Prettybelle! how did I ever miss a musical with a song sung by Angela Lansbury called I'm Beautiful When I'm Drunk before! Should be my anthem...)

MAN the guy had a HUGE number of odd choices for musicals and *flops*. Wow! SOme real oddities--Treasure Island (Which I've heard the demo for) never even made it to Broadway but opened, as Pieces of Eight in 1985 iat the Citadel Theatre in my hometown of Edmonton of all places (it's a well known theatre--the revised version of Aspects of Love opened there but still not one known for trying out Broadway shows). ANyone know more about this?

And I never realized he was behind the infamous flop of Red Shoes (which STILL sounds liek a good idea for a show to me... Hrmmm

E

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 8:25am

He wrote the songs for My Sister Eileen, a movie musical version of Wonderful Town that is--except for one dance number with Bob Fosse and Tommy Rall--pretty awful. The score is utterly forgettable. It is ALWAYS a pleasure to watch Tommy Rall though, so the film isn't a total disaster. (BTW, this is the first film that Bob Fosse choreographed.)

Posted: 4/13/07 at 8:49am

You knwo I completely forgot he wrote that--though I knwo the movie fairly well--for the dances. Of course it suffers all the more compared to Wonderful Town (which got a surprisingly great tv version around that time too)

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 9:10am

He also wrote the score for "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" for television with his Funny Girl partner Bob Merrill.

Terrific music. A true holiday classic.

Styne is one of my favorites.

He wrote extensively and very successfully for Hollywood as well:

Anchors Aweigh
It Happened In Brooklyn
Romance on the High Seas

He was nominated for nine Oscars and won for "Three Coins in the Fountain."

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 9:22am

Styne is among the most underrated Broadway-Hollywood composers.

I'm finding a lot of wonderful Styne songs in a lot of the B-Musicals now at Film Forum, from EARL CARROLL SKETCHBOOK (1946), SWEATER GIRL (1942), HIT PARADE OF 1943, and best of all, SIS HOPKINS with Judy Canova (1941) where Styne collaborated with Frank Loesser. This Republic film was a revelation, jam-packed with laughs and great songs. I think it's one of the best musicals of the 1940s.

[Piercemn]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 9:27am

Don't forget, he also wrote High Button Shoes and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, two of the 1940s-1950s' most pleasurable musicals. Shoes introduced Nanette Fabray (Papa, Won't You Dance With Me) and Blondes introduced Carol Channing (Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend)

[devonian.t]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 9:34am

It has always struck me he never really locked with a director and/ or producer who would use him to the full- he really was one of the most gifted tunesmiths and, I understand, a lovely person, too.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 10:13am

I think Jule Styne is probably tied with Charles Strouse for most musical flops. It's insane how prolific these guys were. Though Styne, of course, had more hits.

[Enjolras77]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 10:25am

I am also a big fan of Jule Styne's work. Don't forget that he also penned Subways are for Sleeping, which although a flop, did win a Tony for Phyllis Newman. Of course the show is probably best remembered for David Merrick's infamous publicity stunts.

[WOSQ]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 10:28am

Bob Merrill had at least two major pre-Broadway failures as composer/lyricist: Breakfast at Tiffany's (a true legend) and The Prince of Grand Street (Robert Preston's last show). There may be one other.

Prettybelle for which he did the lyrics (music by Styne) died a horrible death in Boston.

There were a number of shows that didn't run in town either. Henry Sweet Henry comes to mind.

Considering Merrill's smaller output, his track record could be considered 'worse' than Styne's. Many (but not all) of Styne's failures were--how to put this gently--after his prime: Red Shoes, One Night Stand, Treasure Island.

Everyone with any kind of catalog has some bombs, Styne included (Subways Are For Sleeping--ugh). So did R+H, Porter and Sondheim. The last new Sondheim show to pay off in its original run was Night Music in 73.

I would love to get Styne's annual royalties from just one of his biggies like "People". Imagine how much money his estate gets from that one song in a year.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 10:29am

I know you are not intending to place blame on Styne for the failure of these shows, but it kind of comes off that way. As in, "Boy, did he write some crappy shows!" Some of the concepts were bad to begin with, but his work was for the majority, very, very good.

[philcrosby]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 10:36am

Let us not forget the great Harold Arlen who never really scored with a big Broadway musical -- BLOOMER GIRL was maybe his biggest hit on the Main Stem.

And yet he is the man who gave us the most famous song of this century, and his scores for all his failures are just lovely.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 10:47am

And yet he is the man who gave us the most famous song of this century

Harold Arlen wrote Jeepers Creepers? I didn't know that.

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 10:48am

No, he wrote "You Light Up My Life."

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 10:54am

I am a huge fan of Jule Styne. Don't forget HALLELUJAH BABY! which won the Tony Award for best musical in 1968. It had a book by Arthur Laurents and lyrics by Comden & Green. I think it is Styne's only Tony award for best score, amazing as that may seem, given all of his hits.

Among his flops I love the score to SUBWAYS ARE FOR SLEEPING and DARLING OF THE DAY, but dislike his score for HAZEL FLAGG, except for the songs "How Do You Speak to an Angel ?" and " Every Street's a Boulevard in Old New York". Styne worked a very long time on his final show THE RED SHOES and it must have been very hard on him to see it flop. I attended a preview performance when Jerome Robbins was there taking notes to help out his former GYPSY partner. The one saving grace for the score was the extended ballet sequence which is in the New York City Ballet repertoire.

I just got the DVD of Jule Styne's film ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS which features "It's Magic" as sung by Doris Day in her first movie.

Updated On: 4/14/07 at 10:54 AM

[Gingersnap2]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 11:12am

"And I never realized he was behind the infamous flop of Red Shoes (which STILL sounds like a good idea for a show to me..."

Or, as some people call it, "The Dead Shoes."

Hugh Panaro talked about it quite a bit in his Chatterbox interview with Seth Rudetsky a few years ago and a little bit in an interview we did for his web site while he was in Seattle. And I've chatted with him a little bit.

By Hugh's account, the problem lay with the director. He said the version of the script and the score they started with was great. After a break, the first director had been fired and the new director made things a living hell for everyone involved.

He massacred the original script...cutting some of the better songs, constantly rewriting parts that had no need to be tweaked, adding more dancing where it was not needed. Yes, it's a story about a ballerina, but there were random dance numbers all over the place.

In Hugh's words, the director "got away with murder" during rehearsals and previews...mainly because Jule was in poor health and on kidney dialysis at the time.

He was also, according to Hugh, pretty abusive towards the cast. He pretty much didn't want anyone who'd been hired prior to his arrival and found ways to fire anyone who stood up to him.

Hugh said the entire experience was a "nightmare" for everyone involved and there was a sense of relief that it closed a few days after opening night.

I've heard one of the songs from it, "When It Happens To You." It's one of Julian Craster's solos...Hugh did it at a cabaret benefit last year, joking we were some of the only people to ever hear it. It's a very nice song...typical Styne, I'd say.

[Enjolras77]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 11:33am

Speaking of the song "People". I read on IMDB that Styne originally penned the song to be used in "Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol", but didn't offer it in time to be included in the animation. Thus, the song was later added to Funny Girl.

[bschneid76]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 11:49am

Besides Gypsy, my all time favorite Styne show is Darling of the Day! I love all the songs on it.

I also love The No-Tell Motel from Prettybelle, he had an act of writing terrific 11 o'clock spot numbers!

[FranklinShepard-Inc.]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 12:35pm

He knew how to write catchy tunes, no doubt. I'm a sucker for the score to his incredibly bad show "One Night Stand" which closed on the roads 1981 I think. But some of the tunes are sooo much Jule Styne.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 1:20pm

Near as I can tell he ties with Charles Strouse (11 flops each) but Styne had far more hits (7) than Strouse (3).

Many of his (financial) flops at least ran the better part of a season: TWO ON THE AISLE (8 months); HAZEL FLAGG (7 months); SAY DARLING (9 months); DO RE MI (1 year); SUBWAYS ARE FOR SLEEPING (6 months); FADE OUT FADE IN (8 months) and HALLELUJAH BABY (9 months.)

[Piercemn]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 3:38pm

Bob Merrill also wrote the score for Carnival, and made a fortune from Patty Page's popular song, "How Much is That Doggie in the Window?"

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 3:43pm

My **** - cat that is - is named Jule Styne.

When I first read the title of this thread, I thought of Charles Strouse. Now that guy knows how to write a flop!!!

I think he should start writing sequels to his misses instead of his few hits.

Who else is eager to see "Nick&Nora 2: Asta's Revenge"?

[CastAlbumFan]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 4:44pm

What about Mitch Leigh? I always thought he was the composer involved with the most flops.

Posted: 4/13/07 at 7:08pm

Perhaps but Mitch Leigh isn't of the calibre (success wise--we can debate artistic I guess but I wouldn't :P ) of Styne.

Ginger great stories with Hugh--he apparantly didn't mention though that the director was the infamous/once great Stanley Donen! :) I didn't realize the Lar Lubovitch (what a nem) choreographyw as kept by the NYCBallet

"I know you are not intending to place blame on Styne for the failure of these shows, but it kind of comes off that way. As in, "Boy, did he write some crappy shows!" Some of the concepts were bad to begin with, but his work was for the majority, very, very good"

Sorry that was never ever my intention. Whatsoever. It just is fascinating when someone who seems to have such stunning Broadway instincts fails in huge "what happened' typs of ways.

(As for someone's SOndheim's comment--yes we kno his shows aren't huge hits but I thought hte original Into the Woods made a profit--at least with its big national tour--speaking of Lars Ludovitch again:P )

So no one caught Pieces of Eight?

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 4/14/07 at 2:31pm

I would love to see Asta seeking revenge by peeing on everyone in the cast of NICK & NORA 2, a sequel to the worst show I have ever seen in over 50 years of theatregoing. Poor Charles Strouse for teaming up with Arthur Laurents on that mess back in 1991.