The All-Singing, All-Dancing Show (II): Jack Buchanan, George Robey and The Red Shoes

If Jessie Matthews was Britain’s greatest song-and-dance lady of the 1930s, then one of her partners was unquestionably the most successful and internationally known British song-and-dance man of them all. His name was Jack Buchanan. Born in 1891, when Queen Victoria was still on the throne, he will always be associated with a suave, sophisticated style. He was to Britain what Maurice Chevalier was to France, and Fred Astaire to the United States. With his nasal singing style, and long-legged effortless dancing, he soon became a favourite of the West End stage musical. In fact, he was dubbed ‘Mr. West End’. Naturally, his debonair charm and good looks made him perfect for films, and it was not long before he was recruited into the industry and talents exploited.

Though Buchanan had acted in a couple of totally forgettable silent movies, such as Auld Lang Syne (1917) and Her Heritage (1919), it was with the advent of sound that he really came into his own. He was already a name on Broadway, having gone there with Beatrice Lillie and Gertrude Lawrence in an André Charlot and Archie Selwyn revue. But it was Jack who caught the Hollywood scout’s eye, and he was soon in front of the camera doing what he did best, ‘hoofing and singing’, in the first of many film musicals, Show Of Shows (1929), and in the next year Monte Carlo. That was followed by the film for which he will probably always be remembered, mainly because of his hit recording of the title song Goodnight, Vienna (1932).

It was no secret in the gossipy world of show business that Buchanan and Jessie Matthews had no love for each other. This was due to Jessie always preferring her ‘perfect’ dancing partner and husband, Sonnie Hale, to Jack. Nevertheless, such was their drawing power to theatre audiences that, often against their wishes, they found themselves co-starring with each other. One such occasion did, however, have a happy outcome for an unknown dancer who sat demurely in the wings patiently waiting for her big break. It happened one evening, whilst the pair were entertaining in a supper-time cabaret, singing a popular song of the time, ‘Fancy our Meeting’, with love in their eyes as they gazed adoringly at each other, and, as Jessie said, ‘with murder in our hearts’. Suddenly Jack recognized a friend at one of the tables and, right in the middle of their act, went gliding over to him and had a little chat. This was too much for Jessie, who stormed off, shouting that Jack could find someone else to partner him in future – or words to that effect. The girl who was in the wings, whose name at the time was Marjorie Robertson, at last had her chance to take over as Jack’s partner. She would become a huge star herself as well as a Dame Of The British Empire – under the name she soon adopted, Anna Neagle.

But back to Jack. Such trifles as this he took in his long, elegant stride. In fact, it’s almost true to say that he rarely put a foot wrong, and in 1953, at the no-longer-tender age of sixty-two, he co-starred in his most successful film musical, The Bandwagon. The other star was Fred Astaire. Directed by Vincent Minelli, it was a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic. No one could handle a top hat and cane better than Jack, apart from possibly Fred himself; and here they were together, going through their smooth paces in some wonderful routines. Of course, the film will also be remembered for a song which has become a show business anthem, ‘That’s Entertainment’.

That same year, Jack returned to Britain and again starred in a colourful musical, As Long As They’re Happy. His name will always be synonymous with style, and when it’s said that they don’t make entertainers like Jack any more, just one glance at some of his best musical movies defines exactly what they mean.

A young lady who co-starred in As Long As They’re Happy was sensible enough to change her real name before filming. Somehow, she assumed that Jean Shufflebottom would just not look good in lights. Jeannie Carson, on the other hand, was a much better fit and Jeannie would go on to make popular films in Britain as a song-and-dance star, such as An Alligator Named Daisy (1956) and Rockets Galore (1957), before taking off to the USA. There she was an even bigger success and starred on Broadway before going to Hollywood and playing in the title role of a top-rated television comedy series, Hey, Jeannie! Highly talented, noted for her effervescent personality, she never returned to her homeland.

George Robey could quite comfortably be placed in one of three categories – a fine character actor, the most highly rated music-hall comedian of his generation, or, as he appeared in the autumn of his life, a film star in British film musicals. On the halls, his top billing proudly proclaimed him to be the ‘Prime Minister of Mirth’, and for more than four decades he had audiences roaring with laughter at his risqué, double entendre jokes, a forerunner in style of Max Miller, Frankie Howerd and Max Wall. Few have equalled his outrageous antics as a pantomime dame. Then suddenly this great clown switched from what was then termed ‘low’ comedy to classic drama, and many observers of his day believe no one has played Shakespeare’s Falstaff better than Robey.

Robey’s song at the end of his long act, ‘If you were the only girl in the world’, still rates among the evergreens of music-hall signature tunes. Only Marie Lloyd’s ‘Follow the Van’ or Albert Chevalier’s ‘My Old Dutch’ perhaps bear comparison. And it was his confident voicing of a sentimental love song that made him a natural choice, even though he was by then almost sixty-three years old, to star as Ali Baba in the screen version of the smash-hit British stage show Chu Chin Chow (1934). The director was former silent-screen comedian Walter Forde, and he and Robey got along like a house on fire, sharing an understanding of the art of comic timing. The film was an enormous international success with its spectacular effects and catchy melodies. So successful, in fact, and so splendid was Robey’s performance, that the following year Alexander Korda signed Robey to a three-year contract, proudly pronouncing, ‘I regard George Robey as capable of rivalling in popularity any film star in the world. I have been considering for some time past the possibility of presenting him as a first rank film star.’ Impossible now to imagine anyone being presented with this sort of opportunity of stardom in a new medium at the age of almost sixty-five. But then, of course, George Robey was very special, and this was affirmed when he became the first music-hall comedian to attain a knighthood.

Much has been written about the formidable team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who took the British cinema industry by its well-tailored collar and shook new life into it as writers, producers and directors – titles they shared uniquely and jointly on all their major films for their Archers production company. There is also no doubt that their brand of sensory cinema accentuated the use of visuals and sound (music and FX) to the extent much of their output can be qualified as containing musical sequences even before they embarked on their landmark ballet film The Red Shoes (1948).

Even today, it remains for most ballet lovers one of the only to capture the true essence of the world of dance, with its magical allure and total dedication to its form. It featured a dazzling new star, Moira Shearer, who already had enchanted audiences at the Royal Ballet, but who had never, before The Red Shoes, acted in front of a camera. With the impresario Lermantov played with power and conviction by Anton Walbrook, and Shearer as ballet-crazed Vicky Page, the film established early on the almost fanatical zeal that is required by a budding prima ballerina, not only to get to the top, but, once she is there, how she can never let go.

‘Why do you want to dance, Miss Page?’ Lermantov asks her with barely concealed disdain. ‘Why do you want to live, Mr Lermantov?’ replies Vicky with all consuming passion.

Designer Heinz Heckroth and director of photography Jack Cardiff created a striking visual scheme, while the lyrical score by Brian Easdale, was conducted by the legendary, Sir Thomas Beecham. Pressburger’s screenplay drew heavily on the true story of the Ballet Russe, and in particular Diaghilev’s traumatic relationships with some of his artists. The memorable central ballet was created and choreographed by Robert Helpmann.

The climactic scene again owes its origin to a true-life incident. When Vicky Page dies on the night she is billed to make her triumphant comeback, a spotlight, not an understudy, takes over her role, poignantly showing us that this magical dancer was irreplaceable. This actually happened when the greatest of all ballerinas, the incomparable Anna Pavlova, died on the night of a scheduled performance: her part, too, was played on that night by an ethereal white spotlight.

The Red Shoes has achieved classic status as a film, and it’s no surprise that on its initial release it was nominated for four Oscars. Its lasting testament is in the technical and emotional resonance and influence it has had our future generations of filmmakers, a seamless, magical audio-visual blend.

Britain’s contribution to the film musical has had intermittent influence. At its strongest, perhaps, in the depressed 1930s, when ‘escapism’ was what audiences came to the cinema for, swept away with dance routines full of sparkle and vitality, catchy songs and imaginative photography, and dazzling visual effects. Primitive to the eyes of future generations, of course, yet important reflections on past eras, pioneering techniques that reverberate through film history.

The All-Singing, All-Dancing Show (I): Jessie Matthews

For too many years the British stage and screen musical remained in the shadows of American skill and innovation. As a result, its early successes tended to be overlooked, and the fact that the foundations of the medium were born in Britain often forgotten.

The roots are firmly planted in the tradition of seventeenth-century productions such as The Beggar’s Opera. But the musicals owed more than anything to the works of legendary Victorian establishment figures, William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. They were the first real words-and-music men in the modern sense and their contribution to the twentieth-century musical has been recognized such great American popular music composers as Cole Porter, Frank Loesser, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein, all of whom have at some time or other in their brilliant careers acknowledged the debt.

It was only in the late 1930s that Britain began to develop a deep inferiority complex about the ability to match the Americans, believing the song writers were not good enough, that the dancers just didn’t have the athleticism, and choreographers were too schooled in the ways of classical ballet to invent eye-catching, daring, and exciting dance routines. Fortunately, some screen musicals in the 1930s provide preserved evidence of British skill and imagination.

One of the legends of British musicals is a star who shone so brightly that Hollywood constantly beckoned, though she refused the call all her life. Her name was Jessie Matthews.

Yet this glittering, gamine star, who became the darling of three continents, could not have started in show business in a more humble way. She was born in a tiny Soho flat, No. 94, Berwick Street, on Monday 11 March, 1907. One of ten surviving children out of a total of sixteen, her running order at the time of her birth was number seven. Her father owned a green grocery stall opposite their flat, in the famous Berwick Street Market, and Jessie, like all her family, had a strong Cockney accent. Later, this vanished entirely as Jessie became known, not only for her breathtaking dancing and her charming singing, but also for her precise, ultra-posh elocution. Her climb to fame – and it was fame that few female British musical stars have ever equalled; Gertrude Lawrence, Evelyn Laye, Anna Neagle and, much later Julie Andrews, probably the only contenders – began at a very slow pace.

Coming from such poverty gave Jessie a determination to succeed, despite a background that made it far from easy. She was, however, born with wonderful physical assets, an elfin beauty, large sparkling eyes and a body that appeared to be boneless. Jessie could make dancing seem effortless. She could kick higher and more attractively than any dancer before or since. Only a Pavlova had her kind of natural ability in this exacting physical art. She began ballet dancing at the age of ten, and startled her teachers with her stunning gifts, performing exercises in her first lesson that it took fellow pupils more than a year to achieve. A professional debut came two years later in a children’s play called Bluebell In Fairyland, a Seymour-Hicks production at the famous old music hall, the Metropolitan Theatre in Edgware Road. She was following literally in the footsteps of Marie Lloyd, who had trodden those same boards only a few weeks earlier.

At the age of sixteen, Jessie was a ‘standby chorus girl’ in the show London Calling. Its star, Gertrude Lawrence, and the best high kickers in the line were chosen by the impresario André Charlot to open a new revue on Broadway. Jessie this time was promoted to full chorus lady. The revue was a smash hit and established the careers of Gertrude Lawrence and Jack Buchanan in America. But Jessie herself had to patiently wait almost five years for the vehicle that was to propel her to stardom. That opportunity came in the Noel Coward revue This Year of Grace, which opened in London at the Pavilion on 22 March, 1928. Her co-star was Sonny Hale, who was later to be her husband. But enormous scandal was created before that happy event, because at the time of their ‘engagement’, Sonny Hale was already married to another big musical star, Evelyn Laye. The divorce action captured worldwide headlines when the judge insisted that Jessie’s love letters be read aloud in open court and then made cutting remarks about her character.

Painful as this kind of exposure was – she was to claim that ‘the scars would remain with her forever’ – it did nothing to detract public interest from her talent, and after a series of small film parts, she was taken under the wing of Victor Saville. It was Saville who saw the enormous movie potential of Jessie when he was looking for a girl to play Susie Dean in the film version of J.B. Priestley’s Good Companions. Saville himself was without doubt Britain’s leading musical film director, and at the time of his search was working for Gaumont British. In the company of producer Michael Balcon, often regarded as the British film industry’s first ‘tsar’, he watched some of Jessie’s rushes and knew this girl was not only right for the part, but that she would be a major film box-office attraction. They were proved right, and one film success followed another with amazing regularity – films such as Gangway, Head Over Heels, It’s Love Again.

In the film Sailing Along which, owing to the impending threat of the Second World War and her failing health, was her last screen musical for twenty years, there was a brilliantly staged routine choreographed by Buddy Bradley. It started with a tap dance, switched to mime, and then to ballet. Its ‘on-screen time’ was seven minutes, and Jessie and her American partner, Jack Whiting, danced for nearly a mile with the camera tracking them across a set so large that it had to be built over two vast sound stages. To this day, it’s regarded as one of the finest dance routines ever to be captured on celluloid – on either side of the Atlantic.

But it was, perhaps, in the film Evergreen, based on her stage role, that she really reached her pinnacle. The film, which was directed by Victor Saville and choreographed by Buddy Bradley, with numbers such as ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and ‘Over My Shoulder’ by Harold Woods – a song that was evermore to be associated solely with her – had them queueing at all prices. It could have marked an even greater turning-point in her career, and one on which we can now only conjecture. For when Fred Astaire and sister Adele, his dancing partner at the time, went to see Jessie in the show One Damn Thing After Another, Adele, who was thinking of getting married and retiring, said to Jessie, ‘If I do leave, promise you'll take my place. You'll make a perfect partner for Fred!’ When Evergreen was being planned, Victor Saville went to see Astaire to offer him the costarring role with Jessie. Fred leaped at the idea, but RKO had signed him to a long-term contract and refused a release. Had they done so, it would have been Fred Astaire and Jessie Matthews who danced those wonderful routines in Evergreen, instead of the very able, but far from spectacular, Barry Mackay.

It is intriguing to imagine that, had Saville’s idea of teaming Astaire and Matthews materialized, there would have been no need for Fred to hunt for a new partner (who, as it happened, turned out to be Ginger Rogers), and filmgoers the world over might have spoken in awe of the magic of Fred and Jessie. But that, as they say – and Jessie would have been the first wistfully to agree – is show business!

Films: June 16 - 22

The Fortune Cookie (1966)

The Black Stallion (1979)

Perfect Sense (2011)

Woorijb (The House Of Us) (2019)

Mongtajoo (Montage) (2013)

Choiakeui Haru (Worst Woman) (2016)

The First Of The Few (1942) ///

The Fortune Cookie (1966) Caustic, cutting, often very funny study of desperation and greed as insecure Jack Lemmon is injured during a football game and pressured by shameless Walter Matthau into scamming insurance. Bitter view and leisurely style allows whiplash dialogue to shine.

The Black Stallion (1979) Suffused with lyricism amid simple narrative framework, a boy and horse form formidable bond when shipwrecked. Teri Garr and Mickey Rooney provide able emotional support as a horse racing legend is born. Evocative visuals, exciting adventure, movingly told.

Perfect Sense (2011) As a global virus gradually strips away human senses, scientist Eva Green and cook Ewan McGregor spin through attraction, lust and need. Some provoking ideas and evocative breakdown of society, yet narrative dynamics are flat and emotions never really convince.

Woorijb (The House Of Us) (2019) Delicate, observant study of childhood friendship as 12-year old Kim Na-Yeon's anxiety of fractured home sees release with equally uneasy new friends, 9- and 5-year old sisters. Careful visual palette and tidy structure soften emotional impact.

Mongtajoo (Montage) (2013) Intense and involving, grieving mother Uhm Jung-hwa and obsessive policeman Kim Sang-kyung hunt down abductor of her young daughter. Strong visuals and central performances, though late timeframe shift clouds narrative twist amid solid dramatic revelations.

Choiakeui Haru (Worst Woman) (2016) Slight, oddly engaging view on art of fiction, communication and modern relationships as unsure actress Han Ye-ri weaves through relationships and meets budding novelist Ryo Iwase. Misleading English title misses poignant humour and generosity.

The First Of The Few (1942) Stagy, winning slice of biographical propaganda tells struggles of dedicated Leslie Howard as RJ Mitchell to design and construct Spitfire plane. Able support from Rosamund John and David Niven, fine William Walton score, stirring and uplifting finale.