Looking for Creativity in Movie Making
by John Aquino on 10/19/12
I’ve written a bit earlier in these blogs about creativity. I’d like to add some examples of demonstrations of creativity in the making of movies.
The composer George Duning was given a special assignment that tasked his creativity. He had been asked to write the score for the 1955 film Picnic, which was based on William Inge’s Broadway play. Joshua Logan had directed the play on Broadway and was given his first film directing assignment for the movie version. In the play, Hal and Madge dance to the song “Moonglow” by Will Hudson, Eddie DeLange, and Irving Mills as it is played by the band at the picnic. For the film, the studio, Columbia Pictures, wanted to use a newly-written composition, which might have Academy Award potential, rather than this 1934 song, but Logan was superstitious about it since the song had worked well on Broadway. He insisted that “Moonglow” be used, and the studio purchased the rights to use it.
When he saw the rough cut, however, Logan admitted that the song seem too slight for the occasion. Logan went to Duning and boldly asked him to write a new song that could be superimposed on “Moonglow.” Logan was really asking Duning to get him out of a jam by using the song that he had insisted on using but also by writing a new song that would make the scene better. Duning explained that Logan's idea of placing a new song on top of a previously written one was impossible, that the harmonies of the two different compositions would create dissonance. Logan got angry at him, and Duning asked Logan for time to see what he could do.
He came back with a solution. Hal and Madge , played in the film by William Holden and Kim Novak, start dancing to “Moonglow,” they look into each other’s eyes lovingly, and when “Moonglow” has been played once, Duning’s “Theme from Picnic” comes up full played by the string section and “Moonglow” basically becomes the rhythm section of the combined composition.
When he had finished playing it for Logan, the director became so excited he shouted, "They're going to think I'm a great big genius."
Duning creatively found a way to satisfy what Logan was after and still avoid musical dissonance. The score was nominated for an Oscar, and the “Theme from Picnic,” which combines “Moonglow” and Duning’s composition, became a major hit. As an illustration of how successful the blending of "Moonglow" and "Theme from Picnic" was, the owners of the copyright of “Moonglow,” who had granted the appropriate rights for use of the song to Columbia, sued Columbia saying that Duning’s theme had actually infringed their copyright. Columbia won, of course.
Creativity can also be using someone else's materials creatively. Roger Edens was a composer and musical arranger working at MGM. The studio had a young lady named Judy Garland under contract, and she had a very big voice. Edens created a showcase number for her in the 1938 film Broadway Melody of 1938 using a song that had been first sung in 1911 on Broadway by another performer with a big voice, Al Jolson. The song was "You Made Me Love You." Edens wrote a new introduction to the song called "Dear Mr. Gable" in which a star-struck teenager sings of her love and devotion to a photograph of MGM star Clark Gable. The introduction led into to "You Made Me Love You."
Edens later did something similar with another old song. Singing in the Rain was to be a 1951 MGM film showcasing the already published and performed songs of Herb Nacio Brown and Arthur Freed. The song "Singing in the Rain" was written for the 1929 MGM film Hollywood Revue of 1929 and sung by the performer Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards, who accompanied himself on the ukulele. (Edwards was later the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney's 1940 animated film Pinocchio.") Gene Kelly was to sing the song in the 1951 film, and a different non-ukulele approach was needed. Kelly was, after all, going to do exactly was the song said the singer was doing and that was sing and dance in the rain. In the film's plot, the Kelly character leaves his new love as it starts to rain and then begins to dance with abandon in the rainstorm. To segueway into the old song, Edens wrote a brief introduction that goes "Do-dee-do-do, do-dee-do-dee-do-do-dee-do-dee" that worked perfectly and is even today an inseparable part of the number whenever it is performed.
