Bells Are Ringing

Langat kuumina / Det ringer, det ringer. US © 1959 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Year of release: 1960. P: Arthur Freed [n.c.]. D: Vincente Minnelli. SC: Betty Comden, Adolph Green – based on their Broadway musical comedy (1956). DP: Milton R. Krasner – Panavision Lenses – Metrocolor – CinemaScope 2,35:1. AD: E. Preston Ames, George W. Davis. Cost: Walter Plunkett. Makeup: William Tuttle. Hair: Sydney Guilaroff. CH: Charles O’Curran. Songs: Jule Styne (music), Betty Comden & Adolph Green (lyrics). S: Franklin Milton (recording supervisor), Van Allen James (sound editor), Conrad Kahn (sound mixer) - Westrex Recording System - 4-Track Stereo. ED: Adrienne Fazan. C: Judy Holliday (Ella Peterson), Dean Martin (Jeff Moss), Fred Clark (Larry Hastings), Eddie Foy, Jr. (J. Otto Prantz), Jean Stapleton (Sue), Bernard West (Dr. Joe Kitchell), Dort Clark (Inspector Barnes), Ralph Roberts (Francis), Valerie Allen (Olga), Frank Gorshin (Blake Barton, beatnik actor), Nancy Walters (actress), Ruth Storey (Gwenn), Steve Peck (gangster), Gerry Mulligan (Ella's blind date). Studio: MGM (Culver City). Loc: East Village (Manhattan). Helsinki premiere: 10.3.1961 Gloria – telecast: 27.8.1983 Yle TV2, 12.5.2013 Yle Teema – VET 56367 – S – 3170 m / 116 min
    A vintage SFI-FA print with Swedish subtitles by Åke Åhlin viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Vincente Minnelli), 19 April 2016
    Original version: 3446 m / 126 min
    Judy Holliday, Jean Stapleton, Dort Clark, Bernard West, and Doria Avila recreated their Broadway roles in this film adaptation.
    The original Broadway production was directed by Jerome Robbins and choreographed by Robbins and Bob Fosse.
    Songs: "Bells Are Ringing", "It's a Perfect Relationship" (Judy Holliday), "Do It Yourself" (Dean Martin), "It's a Simple Little System" (Eddie Foy, Jr. and chorus), "Better Than a Dream" (JH, DM), "I Met a Girl" (DM and chorus), "I Love Your Sunny Teeth" (Bernard West a cappella), "Hot and Cold" (Bernard West), "Mu Cha Cha" (Judy Holliday, Doria Avila, Ruth Storey), "Just In Time" (DM, JH, chorus), "Drop That Name" (JH, chorus), "The Party's Over" (JH, chorus), "The Midas Touch" (Hal Linden, chorus), "I'm Going Back" (JH).
    Songs deleted: "Is It a Crime?" (JH), "My Guiding Star" (DM). There was an alternate take of "The Midas Touch". These have been released as dvd bonus materials by Warner Home Video.
    
From Wikipedia: "Based on the successful 1956 Broadway production of the same name by Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Jule Styne, the film focuses on Ella Peterson, who works in the basement office of Susanswerphone, a telephone answering service."

"Peterson, based on Mary Printz, who worked at Green's service, listens in on others' lives and adds some interest to her own humdrum existence by adopting different identities for her clients. They include an out-of-work Method actor, a dentist with musical yearnings, and in particular playwright Jeffrey Moss, who is suffering from writer's block and desperately needs a muse."

"Adding complications to the plot are the police, who are certain the business is a front for an "escort service," and the owner's shady boyfriend, who unbeknownst to her is using the agency as a bookmaking operation.

"Bells Are Ringing was the final musical produced by MGM's 'Freed Unit', headed by producer Arthur Freed, which had been responsible for many of the studio's greatest successes. The film also proved to be Holliday's last big screen appearance." (Wikipedia)

AA: While Bells Are Ringing is not a masterpiece of the dream team of MGM's Freed Unit, it is a worthy final MGM musical for Arthur Freed and Vincente Minnelli as well as a touching farewell for Judy Holliday. There is still a blend of grandeur, hallucination, and sensitivity in this picture.

Judy Holliday, one of the greatest comediennes of all times, specialized in portraying dumb blondes with her Mensa level IQ. We don't notice it but here she was already fighting terminal cancer. Holliday's career remained short but it included Born Yesterday, The Marrying Kind, It Should Happen to You, Phffft!, and The Solid Gold Cadillac. Harassed by the Hollywood black list, she re-launched her Broadway career with the hit musical Bells Are Ringing. In the film adaptation her performance as Ella Peterson is very moving. Ella overdoes her duties as the Brooklyn telephone answering service operator, even to the point of correcting data about Beethoven's symphonies, actually codes for illegal bookmaking.

Ella is too good at what she does, and empathizing with her clients and impersonating characters to meet their dreams she is losing herself. The moment of self-revelation takes place in the final movement of the story. "Who is me? I do not know myself who I am". Before that we have witnessed Ella's moments of disappointment, solitude and estrangement especially in the great party scene where Jeff Moss's The Midas Touch is being celebrated and everybody is dropping names on first name basis.

Dean Martin's film career had been revived by Frank Tashlin who directed the final, great Martin & Lewis movies, Howard Hawks (Rio Bravo), and Vincente Minnelli who cast him in Some Came Running. Here Minnelli elicits a good musical comedy performance from Martin, a bit in the same way as Billy Wilder in Kiss Me Stupid. Jeff's is a fight with the easy tempations of hedonism, surrounded by liquor bottles and showgirls.

As a musical Bells Are Ringing no longer achieves the mastery of Meet Me In St. Louis, The Pirate, An American in Paris, and The Band Wagon. When Dean Martin and Judy Holliday dance by the Brooklyn Bridge the production number is painfully vulnerable to comparison with the "Dancing in the Dark" number of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in The Band Wagon. We are far from that level, but Bells Are Ringing still moves me with its graceful, tender, and wistful virtues.

Within its dream logic Bells Are Ringing is a touching love story. Both Ella Peterson and Jeff Moss are fakes, but their encounter inspires something real, something deep inside both of them. "Better Than a Dream" is their mutual key theme song. This is essentially Minnellian: illusion has inspired them, but there is no future in living in an illusion, and true love is "better than a dream".

There are many interesting details in this movie. One of them for me, a Marilyn Monroelogist, is the appearance of Ralph Roberts as the farcical police spy. Perhaps there is a dimension here of spoofing the FBI witch hunt mentality of the era? Ralph Roberts was an actor who also worked as a masseur for Susan Strasberg who introduced him to Marilyn Monroe. Also Judy Holliday was his client. Roberts was one of the true friends and confidants of Monroe to the very end.

The colour is lush, warm, and glowing in this vintage print (might it be a Technicolor print of a Metrocolor film?) with splices here and there yet conveying an authentic sense of the visual world of Vincente Minnelli and Milton Krasner.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE BASED ON JEAN DOMARCHI:
OUR PROGRAM NOTE BASED ON JEAN DOMARCHI:

Minun sallittaneen aloittaa henkilökohtaisella muisteluksella. Kun Vincente Minnelli kävi Pariisissa viime elokuussa (valmistelemassa teostaan Neljä ratsastajaa), minulla oli usein tilaisuus jutella hänen kanssaan elokuvasta Langat kuumina. Tämä elokuva oli lähellä hänen sydäntään, ja kilttiä kyllä, hän kutsui minut yksityiseen esitykseen, jossa näin teoksen kokonaisena versiona. Sen jälkeen olen nähnyt elokuvan uudelleen ja ensivaikutelmani on vain vahvistunut. Langat kuumana on ihailtavan elegantti, älykäs ja räiskyvä elokuva.

Jos Minnelliä on ylistetty Cahiers du Cinémassa, niin kyllä häntä monet vanhemman kaartin kriitikot ovat yhtä voimallisesti vähätelleetkin. Jälkimmäisiltä ei puutu argumentteja, mutta yksikään niistä ei ole kovin vakuuttava eikä häiritsevä. Kyseessä ovat eriasteisen realismin kannattajat, jotka selvästikin tähtäävät aivan toisenlaatuiseen totuuteen kuin Minnelli. Yksikään Minnellin elokuva ei ole totutussa mielessä realistinen, sitä vastoin hän pyrkii äärimmilleen viedyllä tyylittelyllään luomaan kokonaan autonomisen maailman.

Langat kuumina on täydellisen onnistunut siinä mielessä, että jokainen jakso on rakennettu huolellisen tyylittelyn varaan sekä lavastuksen, kamerankäytön että näyttelijäntyön osalta. Kiinnostava on vaikkapa kamera-ajojen rooli. Paitsi että ne ovat sinänsä ihailtavia teknisiä suorituksia, ne myös merkitsevät Minnellillä keinoa välttää tavanomaisia kuvallisia latteuksia. Ne eivät myöskään ole pelkästään keinoja joidenkin psykologisten tai dramaattisten päämäärien saavuttamiseksi, ne ovat myös tapa vangita aika ja liike koko kestossaan. Omalla koristeellisella tavallaan ne viimeistelevät Minnellin autonomisen maailman.

Langat kuumina on ainutlaatuinen paitsi kamerankäytöltään, myös puhtaana musiikkikomediana. Harvoin on saanut kuullakseen yhtä miellyttävää ja laulullista partituuria kuin Jule Stynen. Molemmat romanssit (”Better Than a Dream” ja ”Just in Time”) ovat erinomaisen hienoja ja muut sävelmät (“Drop That Name”, ”The Midas Touch”, ”It’s a Perfect Relationship”, ”It’s a Simple Little System”) tavattoman hauskoja. Ja tämä panee ajattelemaan, että jos musiikkikomedia Ranskassa saa niin paljon vastustusta, niin se johtuu siitä, ettei se ole vientitavaraa sen paremmin kuin Racinen teatteri. Parhaimmatkin ranskalaiset musikaalit ovat täynnä viittauksia amerikkalaiseen elämään, joka ranskalaiselle katsojalle ei paljon merkitse.

Langat kuumina on joka tapauksessa valloittavaa katseltavaa ja kuultavaa. Tällä elokuvalla on myös neuroottinen, katkera puolensa, mikä muistuttaa joistakin Mad-lehden piirroksista, mutta se ei himmennä Minnellin taidonnäytteen loistokasta ulkokuorta. Tytön ja kosijan sekä Iskelmäkarusellin ohella Langat kuumina on musikaalin kestävä arvoteos, oikein kaunis värillinen unelma.

- Jean Domarchi (Cahiers du Cinéma 116, helmikuu 1961)