Broadway Revisited
(01/19/10): 10-04; January 23, 2010

with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, Dorothy Fields, and Oscar Hammerstein.

Gypsy overture-- 1; fades under)

Hi, this is Art Hilgart and this is Broadway Revisited, a weekly exploration of the songs and shows, composers and lyricists, and performers who created the American musical theater.

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Between 1904 and 1934, Jerome Kern wrote the music for more than seventy Broadway musicals. In the Depression, the demand for Broadway musicals was slipping, but movie musicals were plentiful, and in 1935, Kern and his wife moved to Hollywood. Today we'll hear a generous sample of the songs written for the movies by Jerome Kern.

We begin with the 1935 film of Roberta, Kern's last Broadway show, except for a 1939 flop. Two new Kern songs were added for the picture, and the studio asked Dorothy Fields to write the lyrics. Here they are.

1. Lovely to Look At (Capitol) / I Won't Dance (Columbia) 5:29

Gordon MacRae sang the first of those songs added for the film of Roberta, and Jack Cassidy and Kay Ballard sang I Won't Dance.

Dorothy Fields wrote those lyrics while Kern was on a trip to New York, but when he returned he was pleased, and when the studio asked him to write the title song for a picture called I Dream Too Much, he asked for Fields to write the lyric.

2. I Dream Too Much (Challenge) 2:27

Barbara Lea sang the Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern title song for I Dream to Much.

In 1936, RKO filmed the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein Broadway triumph Show Boat. Kern and Hammerstein-- who had also moved to Hollywood-- decided that there should be another song for the star, Paul Robeson, and they wrote one. Here is Robeson's recording.

3. I Still Suits Me (HMV) 2:40

With Elisabeth Welch, Paul Robeson sang the song written for him to sing in the film of Show Boat.

Roberta was a Fred Astaire picture, and the studio asked Kern and Fields to write an original score for another one, Swing Time, and they supplied enough songs for a Broadway musical. We'll hear three of them.

4. A Fine Romance / Pick Yourself Up / The Way You Look Tonight (Verve) 9:54

In those songs from Swing Time, we heard Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O'Day, and Fred Astaire, who sang The Way You Look Tonight in the movie.

For Broadway, Kern wrote mostly operettas, but in the "jazz age" of the 'twenties he also wrote lighter tunes. As you've just heard in those songs from Swing Time, Dorothy Fields brought him into the swing era.

For the 1937 film High, Wide and Handsome, Kern worked again with Oscar Hammerstein. Here are two of the songs from their score.

5. Can I Forget You / The Folks Who Live on the Hill (Audiophile) 6:16

Sandy Stewart sang those Kern and Hammerstein songs from High, Wide, and Handsome.

In 1938, Kern wrote a song for Joy of Living, again with Dorothy Fields lyrics.

6. You Couldn't Be Cuter (Verve) 2:02

Margaret Whiting sang that Fields and Kern song from Joy of Living. After Joy of Living, Dorothy Fields went back to New York.

Kern's next project was a Broadway show, Very Warm for May, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. Although the score contained the fine songs All the Things You Are and All in Fun, the show flopped, because of the very dated book.

In 1940, Kern and Hammerstein wrote the score for the movie One Night in the Tropics.

7. Remind Me (Decca) 3:11

Jeri Southern sang that Kern and Hammerstein song from One Night in the Tropics.

When the Nazis occupied France in 1940, Oscar Hammerstein wrote a poem about it, and Kern set it to music.

8. The Last Time I Saw Paris (Original Cast) 3:22

When Robert Clary, who sang that Hammerstein and Kern lament, was a child, he was taken from Paris, with his family, to a Nazi concentration camp. Only he survived. In 1941, The Last Time I Saw Paris was inserted in a Gershwin movie, Lady Be Good, and it won the Academy Award for Best Song.

In 1942, Kern wrote the songs for still another Fred Astaire film, You Were Never Lovelier. The lyrics were by Johnny Mercer. Here's Dinah Shore with two of them.

9. Dearly Beloved / I'm Old Fashioned (Capitol) 5:27

Dinah Shore sang those Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer numbers that Fred Astaire introduced in the film You Were Never Lovelier.

In the 1944 film Cover Girl, the Jerome Kern songs had lyrics by Ira Gershwin.

10. Long Ago (And Far Away) (Decca) / Sure Thing (Capitol) 5:45

Helen Forrest and Dick Haymes sang Long Ago (And Far Away), and Carole Simpson sang Sure Thing. Both songs were written by Ira Gershwin and Jerome Kern for Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelley to sing in the film Cover Girl.

For the film Centennial Summer, Kern was assigned to write with Leo Robin. Kern didn't like Robin's lyrics for All Through the Day, so he asked Hammerstein to write them. He kept Robin's lyrics for In Love in Vain.

11. All Through the Day (MacBride) / In Love in Vain (Capitol) 4:38

We heard Dick Haymes and Lena Horne with those songs from Centennial Summer. All Through the Day has lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein and the lyrics for In Love in Vain are by Leo Robin.

Centennial Summer was Jerome Kern's last movie musical. He agreed to write another Broadway musical, with book and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, but as it happened, Irving Berlin was to write Annie Get Your Gun with Dorothy Fields' book. Immediately after arriving in New York to begin the project, Kern had a heart attack, and he died in November 1945. He was only sixty, but for thirty of those years on Broadway and another ten in Hollywood, he wrote dozens of America's most enduring songs.

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Join us again next week for another Broadway Revisited. National distribution is funded by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it's produced with our engineer, Martin Klemm, in the WMUK studios of Western Michigan University. Our website with playlists, program schedules, and stuff is broadwayrevisited.com, and our e-mail address is Art@broadwayrevisited.com. And I'm Art Hilgart.

Total music: 51:11; Estimated talking: 6:20; Intro/outro: :30; Estimated total: 58:01.

Promo: Jerome Kern spent the last ten years of his life writing for the movies with Johnny Mercer, Dorothy Fields, and Oscar Hammerstein. Jerome Kern in Hollywood, this week on Broadway Revisited.