Wider Screenings HomePage

d. Henry King; pr. Henry Ephron; scr. Phoebe Ephron, Henry Ephron; ph. Charles G. Clarke; ed. William Reynolds; cast. Shirley Jones, Gordon MacRae, Cameron Mitchell, Barbara Ruick, Gene Lockhart, John Dehner, Claramae Turner (128 mins)

CAROUSEL FACTS: FILM TALES - Frank Sinatra was originally to appear in the lead role but backed out when he realized every scene would have to be filmed twice, once for 35mm and once for the new 55mm process; Gordon MacRae was performing a nightclub routine with his wife when he received a phone call that the producers of Carousel wanted him to replace Frank Sinatra at short notice; on its initial release the film of Carousel did poorly at the box-office although the soundtrack album was a best-seller; Shirley Jones admitted that this was her favourite Rodgers & Hammerstein score even though it was one of the least financially successful of their efforts; Studio C20th Fox put their energies behind the concurrent release of The King & I and so Carousel was overlooked for Academy Award consideration; SPONSOR DETAILS: This review of Carousel is sponsored by Inkstone Digital - the latest ebooks for as low as $8.95 with new titles added weekly (read more); Scrolling News Ticker by Mioplanet;

The Broadway musical partnerships between Rodgers and Hammerstein began with the highly-regarded Oklahoma!, closely followed by Carousel.

With the 1955 movie adaptation of Oklahoma! finding much popular and critical success, a succession of such movie musical adaptations was planned. Carousel thus followed the next year, re-teaming Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, the stars of the previous hit, and ensuring that a semblance of thematic continuity might emerge in these adaptations. Like Oklahoma!, Carousel was one of the first lavishly produced widescreen musicals and in this case was meant to demonstrate the sheer splendour of Cinemascope 55, a new film stock with added clarity and definition. However, Rodgers and Hammerstein were not able to exert as much creative control over Carousel as they were over the previous film. Thus, the movie version somewhat drastically restructured the stage version, adding a flashback structure and a bizarre heaven-set prologue that clearly established one of the characters as already dead, effectively removing the surprise his death carried in the stage version. This added a fatalism that ironically helped make the movie of Carousel the most complex and rewarding of the 1950s Rodgers and Hammerstein musical adaptations. Indeed, Carousel showed that such musical adaptations of hit stage productions were not under the obligation of total fidelity to the stage success.

The movie begins in heaven (perhaps at some kind of way-station), where a dead man (Gordon MacRae) is polishing stars.

He is informed that his wife and daughter are in trouble back on earth, but he seems to have mixed feelings upon hearing this. Nevertheless, when he hears that he may be allowed 24 hours to return to Earth he makes enquiries about this opportunity and subsequently has to relate his personal story to the angel / man in charge of such permissions. The flashback MacRae relates takes up much of the film’s running time, although is interrupted by returns to the heaven-set scene. Carousel then tells the story of a young woman (Shirley Jones) who falls for a rough-hewed carnival barker (MacRae) who works at the carousel. Something of a ladies’ man and a roguish lout, MacRae nevertheless finds feelings for Jones that lead to marriage. However, he has difficulties settling down and is unable to find a job. In frustration he is revealed to have hit Jones (this is not shown, only referred to). Friends from his past including a former criminal (Cameron Mitchell) soon exert pressure on him to return to his former ways. When he hears that Jones is pregnant, he is happy, but realizes that he cannot support a wife and child and so agrees to a criminal act with Mitchell. This goes terribly wrong. Now, MacRae ponders the chance to go back to Earth for a day and help those he left behind.

Carousel gains from having seen Oklahoma! before it, for it cements the theory that the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals of the 1950s were in part morality plays writ large (this would be confirmed later with the inter-racial romance theme of South Pacific).

Jones thus represents a morally stabilizing force, the kind of guidance that MacRae lacks but clearly desires on a level he cannot fully comprehend. He is thus in torment and confusion, feeling bound and frustrated by the promise of marriage in comparison to the freedom of his bachelor days. He both resents his inability to adjust, and resents Jones because of it as if she is somehow a reminder of his failing as a husband and even human being. He is a misguided soul who cannot deal with the new responsibilities offered him. MacRae plays the character as more darker, unkempt and disconcerting than the pure cowboy he played in Oklahoma!. Indeed, the character MacRae plays in Carousel is far closer to the moral ambiguity and brooding frustration of Rod Steiger’s role in Oklahoma!. This link is stated explicitly in MacRae’s death scene – when he dies in the same manner that ended Steiger’s life in the previous film. Likewise, there is more of a sense of desperation to Jones’ love here, the film an indirect answer to the question of what would have happened if she chose Steiger over MacRae in Oklahoma!

Again, contemporary moral issues are a key. Jones has to keep a standard of moral propriety or she will lose her job.

However, she is drawn to a far more experienced man, with a reputation for conning women. She seems to see some good in him, and it is perhaps this faith that MacRae responds to, as if he feels he could be a good man all along. Love in Carousel has the power to reform a personality and save it from a road to moral damnation – it is the most redemptive quality of human existence. But it is not easy to maintain and the film rigorously explores the ebb and flow of MacRae’s moral flux. Even in heaven, he feels that people are better off without him and that he in a sense has perhaps escaped the ties that bound him. He is torn between his rugged individuality and his sense of responsibility for other lives: a decision he must face even after death. Moral transformation is a major subtext here and would continue through into South Pacific. The film of Carousel is more complex and dramatically tighter than the previous Oklahoma!: the moral tension increases the sense of joy found in life’s happier moments because the film is clearer about the hardships they are measured against. Its fatalistic irony and moral ambiguity (Jones continues to love and justify a man who has hit her) manages deliberately as a central tension throughout, questioning just how reformative MacRae’s experience of love has been.

Vision
The widescreen letterbox visual transfer is wondrous, preserving the delicate colour hues of a film in which many critics have responded to the beauty of its use of twilight as an ideal time.

It is also presented in original widescreen, avoiding the fate that befell the region 4 DVD of Oklahoma! which was released in pan and scan only. The spectacle of Cinemascope 55 is thus preserved in all its splendour. The carnival and carousel make for an engagingly lively background, capturing the energy of MacRae’s life in contrast to the stability that comes later: his waterfront existence suggesting the raging tides that lie beneath his wavy surface – thus, the scenes set at water’s edge become symbolic of his psychological divisions. Back-grounds are always well lit and there is considerable depth to the frame. It is at its most beautiful at twilight and at night, the darkening blue sky ironically lending to the ambiguity and sense of inevitable and metaphorical darkness to come. It embodies the character’s predicament. Likewise, the glitz of the carnival is exciting, and the use of reflections on a watery surface quite thematically effective. Director Henry King stages the inherent musical numbers without excessive editing, letting the widescreen spaces do their intended job as spectacle. Likewise the scenes in heaven carry the sense of a fantasy, but are grounded by the flashbacks to earthly troubles not shed even in death.

Sound
The Dolby Digital 5.0 sound transfer is also most effective, preserving the subtleties in the original sound design. Thus, the sound of tinkling stars in the heaven scenes is delicate and makes for an ironic segue to the bustle of the carnival. The crispness to the details (including the busy sounds of a waterfront community) adds considerably to the sense of evolution and juxtaposition. The fine orchestration work brings out the fullness of the score with a spatial exuberance well served on the transfer. Voices are well positioned in space, tying neatly to the widescreen compositions and much is made of Cameron Mitchell’s voice functioning as a kind of devil’s advocate. MacRae makes the most of doubt and hesitance, breaking into joy only at the prospect of being a father, and then this too wanes. The use of carnival music motifs for frequent background scoring, signalling MacRae’s inability to put his past behind him, works well also. Sounds as well as visuals are purposeful and deliberate, and the pacing of the songs works for a fine sense of moral polarity and a man thrust between them. When necessary, the business or simplicity of the sound matches the visuals. Bustling noise carries a sense of exuberance in contrast to MacRae’s brooding approach to his personal dilemmas, the music tempo again underlying this highly conflicted and intense man. Hence, the DVD of Carousel is far more of an immersive home theatre experience than was the disappointing release of Oklahoma!.

There are only minimal special features. There is a trailer, a Movietone newsreel (shown in cinemas at the time), informative cast and crew biographies and brief but telling production notes. These set special features are comparable to those found on the other Rodgers and Hammerstein DVD releases – State Fair, Oklahoma! and South Pacific – now available.