Finian's Rainbow (1968)

Good concept, poorly executed.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

"Finian's Rainbow" is a musical that never achieves what it should have, given the talents involved.Fred Astaire plays the whimsical Finian, who travels to America in search of the perfect place to put down roots and fulfill his magical calling. Petula Clark plays his long-suffering daughter, following across glaciers and into the Grand Canyon (if you can believe the nonsensical montage during the credits) to a little valley in Kentucky that is populated with simple folk who dance and sing daily.Fred's dancing is, at times, delightful. At other times, it is too derivative of his own earlier performances. Petula Clark is the best thing in the film, with a voice that caresses the Irish dialect and makes each song special. There is some beautiful music in "Finian's Rainbow", notably "Look to the Rainbow" and "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?"It is said that Hermes Pan was fired because his choreography was too dated. During some dance sequences the choreography does feel too old.Director Francis Ford Coppola created a film that has some wonderful moments mixed with some mediocre, slow sections. I prefer his very stylish take on the musical form, "One From the Heart", but "Finian's Rainbow" is worth watching, if only to see Fred and Petula.

Where to start? Well, the answer to that question is usually ... The Beginning ... and that is where this film began going wrong! The opening shows stand-ins, for Fred and Petula, traveling across America on there way to Fort Knox! I have a feeling that the film cutters didn't get much schooling, because, in one shot you have them at The Golden Gate Bridge (will they ever paint it gold), in another shot you see them at Mount Rushmore, and in the very next shot they are at the Grand Canyon! Petty silly mistake that even the director never noticed! And, while mentioning the Director ... this movie could've done better with a better director ... talk about delusions of grandeur ... if it weren't for the great cast, this movie would have lost every penny that went into it! I got so tired of seeing the color of yellow everywhere! The sets ... some are good, some are pretty pathetic. At one point you can see the squares of grass used to represent a lush Irish setting! And did I see yellow daffodils growing in bushes and trees? I think I did! And what about when the pot of gold is buried, with dirt shoveled into the pot ... and when it is found, by the death mute, there is no dirt in the crock? There is also a part when Petula is laying in the grass and begins to sing, but all of the sudden she's sitting up, then she's laying down again in the next shot.By the way ... there appears to be several sexual innuendos in the movie. One in the song about the mortgage, one during the first wedding scene ... plus a couple more.Petula Clark is great in the film, and it surprises me that she didn't do much after this film ... perhaps because this movie was lacking the quality it should have had, and the actor's careers suffered do to that? Or was it a problem of not advertising the movie and its stars well enough? Because the songs, the singing, the star power, and the acting, was fabulous ... however, a major downer was the prejudice theme within the movie, which is something I have a problem with when it comes to using prejudices in any form of entertainment ... its extremely subliminal, brainwashing! True, the stars got angry about anyone being prejudice against someone just because they're black ... which was good ... but these problems should not find themselves in any of our forms of entertainment! And the part in regards to the Senators bromo was too long! Anyhoots ... basically, there are plenty of goofs in this movie, it should get an award for them all ... or at least be entered into The Guinness Book Of Records! But, guess what ... I actually liking listening to this movie ... I just don't like watching it!By the way, I loved it when the deaf mute received her voice, and sang with everyone ... because she is no singer, but the realism of the moment was perfect directing ... it suited her part in the movie.

To nutshell it this garners a ten plus for Fred Astaire, a nine for the score and a three or four tops for everything else. Yip Harburg who wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the Book with Fred Saidy had a large streak of socialist/satirist in him - he did, after all, provide the lyrics for Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime, the great anthem of the Depression - and the Book was a major contributor to the success on Broadway in 1947. Twenty years later the goalposts had been moved so it would have been wise to retain the timeframe instead of attempting to update it but there you go. Though it's a great score even in the theatre it tended to be unbalanced with almost all the lyrical ballads in the first act and all the upbeat satirical numbers toward the end. Sadly it was Fred's last full scale musical which means it will always be dear to Astaire buffs, Pet Clark manages to hold her own but Tommy Steele camps it up outrageously as Og and isn't a patch on David Wayne who created the role on Broadway. See it for Fred and the score.

It took 20 years for one of post World War II Broadway's biggest hits to finally come to the screen. Finian's Rainbow ran for 725 performances in the 1947-48 season on Broadway and made a star out of David Wayne as Og the Leprechaun. Unfortunately in getting to the screen too late a lot of the satire and meaning of the book was lost on the audience of a different generation.The book of E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy is set firmly in the visionary years of the New Deal with its satire on racism and unregulated capitalism. An immigrant Irishman arrives at Rainbow Valley in the state of Missitucky bearing the pot of gold stolen from a leprechaun. Said leprechaun now played by Tommy Steele is hot on his trail and growing. In fact if he doesn't get it back and soon he's going to become a mortal.Playing the parts of Finian McLonergan and his daughter Sharon originated on Broadway by Albert Sharpe and Ella Logan are Fred Astaire and Petula Clark. Astaire in his last musical role hasn't lost a single step in his nimble feet though the part does not call for as much dancing as you would expect. In fact the dancing is mostly done by Tommy Steele and Barbara Hancock playing Susan the Silent. That I'm betting is different from the Broadway show where David Wayne, talented actor that he was, was no dancer.Finian's Rainbow was the first big budget film that young Francis Ford Coppola directed and he seems to have adopted the style Robert Wise used in West Side Story and The Sound Of Music. Especially the latter where the whole screen is filled with the vastness of Rainbow Valley and the players sing and dance in it. Every paradise does have a Grinch and in this case its Keenan Wynn playing old time southern Senator Billboard Rawkins. Back in the day before nationwide mass media and the southerners cleaned up their act somewhat, some of those guys let loose with some unbridled racism. Chief among them was a guy from Mississippi named Theodore G. Bilbo on whom Wynn's character is based. Audiences in 1968 would not know who Bilbo was so the point of the name is lost on them. But when Billboard Rawkins gets a good taste of how the other half lives, no one could miss that.Al Freeman's black scientist working on a menthol flavored tobacco could not be mistaken for anyone other than George Washington Carver who died in 1943. But by 1968 with a new generation of civil rights leaders, Freeman's character significance is lost.In a way though with Barack Obama's election to the presidency this year the vision of Finian's Rainbow might just be more relevant now than ever. And the Burton Lane-E.Y. Harburg songs will never go out of style. Old Devil Moon and How Are Things In Glocca Morra have become mega pop standards.If you can find it in addition to the original Broadway cast album which was Columbia Record's first in that category and the cast album for the film, I highly recommend the Reprise Musical Theater all star album of the songs of Finian's Rainbow. Frank Sinatra gathered many of his contemporaries like Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. Clark Dennis, Debbie Reynolds, Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby and the McGuire Sisters all do the songs from the score and it's a gem of a record. Hasn't been in print for years so get to those second hand stores.In the meantime watch and enjoy this film.