The blueprint for the play "Red Man and Green Girl" is based on a short story "Miss Sarah Brown's Pastoral" by writer Damon Rougnan. Several of the stories written by Damon Rougnan have been used as the themes of musicals, but it is said that when the Broadway stage industry first saw "Miss Sarah Brown’s Pastoral", it was originally intended to be compiled into one. Romantic stage play, and the script has been completed, and there is no plan to add singing and dancing to it, but because the producer saw the success of "South Pacific", after several considerations, he decided to hire the famous Broadway songwriter Frank. Rosser was responsible for writing lyrics and composing music, blending it with Damon Rougnan's other short story "Blood Pressure" and adapting it into a musical comedy. At that time, they still wanted to maintain the original romantic style, but when they asked someone to rewrite the screenplay, they encountered great troubles, because they changed 11 famous screenwriters in a row, but none of the scripts they got were able to make it. They were satisfied. In the end, they gave up their minds and overthrew the original idea. They decided that only a farce was a feasible solution. Finally, they decided to use radio and TV comedy writers who had no experience in stage productions-the 1930s. A script by a famous New York journalist, Albert Bross. Abel Bross won this opportunity with his casual humor and hearty character. It can be said that the choice of the screenwriter is also a big bet for the producer.
Abel Bross really did an excellent job of writing a moving story that matches the lyrics and scores that existed before the script. Abel Bross added some romantic comedy features to the show, especially in the portrayal of the pretentious but impotent Nathan Dietot and the nightclub singer Miss Adelaide. The work became a veritable romantic musical comedy. Frank Rother wrote many popular songs for the show, including "I've Never Been In Love Before", "Fugue For Tinhorns for the Pretentious", and "Tonight True Luck Be A Lady Tonight" and so on. Frank Rother wrote 14 songs without waiting for the script to be completed. After the script was completed, in order to better match the plot, Frank Rosser made only a few changes to his songs. This talent for creating musical songs is obvious. In this way, the classic "Red Men and Green Women" has been added to Broadway history. The plot of this play mainly describes the young church worker Miss Sarah Brown, trying hard to convey God’s gospel, faith and hope to some "lost lambs" active in Manhattan, and among the objects she preaches , Including two empty shell gamblers, Skye Masterson and Nathan Dietot. But she found that her own efforts had obviously not had much effect.
Nathan Dutote already has a fiancée in Adelaide, but the two have been engaged for 14 years, but they never get married because Nathan Dutote is not doing business. Nathan Dittot even made a bet with Skye Masterson to see if Skye Masterson could abduct the old-fashioned Sarah Brown to play with him in Havana. Of course, the result is that the unsmiling Sarah Brown unexpectedly fell in love with the glib Skee Masterson, and Skee Masterson and the gambler were also influenced, and the final ending was Skye. Masterson joined the ranks of the Salvation Army and married Sarah Brown, and Nathan Dietot and Adelaide finally entered the auditorium and completed the marriage event. Halfway through the second act, in order to fulfill his promise to Sarah Brown, Skei Masterson led 12 "sinners" to listen to sermons and wash their sins. The gambler bet that if he loses, he is willing to pay everyone a thousand yuan, but if he wins, they have to follow him to Sarah Brown's church to listen. Because this bet is really big, Skei Masterson sang his heart's prayer with "Luck Be A Lady" before throwing the dice, and it has become the most popular classic in the play.
Samuel Godwin, one of the bosses of MGM Films, is very fond of "Red Man and Green Girl", he did not hesitate to bid one million for the film rights, and even filmed it out of his own pocket with large capital. In addition to hiring some of the artists who have already participated in the show on stage to continue to appear on stage, in order to ensure that the box office revenue will not ruin his investment, he also invited Frank Sinatra, and has never filmed singing and dancing. The film's Marlon Brando and Jane Simmons jointly took charge, and in 1955 launched the film version of "Red Men and Green Women", which became one of the most profitable movies of the year. This "Broadway Musical Fable" vividly shows the image of some very high-minded poor and good people. It tells a story about love and ancient gambling games. The location of the story is mainly concentrated in the streets and nightclubs of New York and Havana. "Red Man and Green Girl" has created many vulgar and gorgeous characters. The protagonist uses New York slang to show the story of the United States during the Great Depression in the 1930s. We see a group of honest and hardworking people enduring hunger. Starving, another kind of criminals wandered the streets, showing a very ridiculous world scene at that time. The performance of this musical does not require the singer's voice and vocal skills, as long as it does not go out of tune, but it must be very good at performing, because the performance and dance components in the play are heavier. In short, the first impression of this movie is not singing and dancing, but witty dialogue, which is a rare comedy movie. In addition to the humor of the movie, the most prominent feature of the movie is singing and dancing. The song and dance of the film bears the distinctive mark of the musicals of the 1950s. The song is not beautiful, but it rhymes with the dialogue, and the tunes are all very traditional old-fashioned songs. I have to talk about the dances of the movie separately. They are very delicate, especially the coordination of group dances. You can use the word "tidy and uniform" to describe them. They look very comfortable. All these make the film very attractive in terms of singing and dancing, especially in a few large scenes.
The movie "Red Man and Green Girl" lasts for two and a half hours, but the beautiful tunes of Frank Rother and the singing and dancing created by Michael Kidd really make the audience feel the excitement of the characters and the shortness of time. Although Marlon Brando and Jane Simmons are not singers, due to the special needs of the plot, their imperfect and flawed singing makes you like these two characters even more. The film won the 29th Oscar nominations for best art direction, best photography, best costume design, and best music. Jane Simmons also won the 1956 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical Comedy category for "Red Man and Green Girl". Marlon Brando played the role of Skye in the film, and Frank Sinatra played the role of Skye Masterson’s best friend Nathan Dietot, although there was no chance to sing "Luck Be A Lady" in the film. "This song, but he later released a recording of the song in 1965, which caused a sensation and became one of his signature songs. Marilyn Monroe wanted to play the role of Sarah Brown in "Red Man and Green Woman". She called the director Joseph L. Mankiewicz: "Look, I have become a big star. I am currently shooting "The Seven Year Itch" directed by Billy Wilder." Who knows Joseph. L. Mankiewicz pushed her back abruptly. I don’t know if it’s because she said a name that the other party doesn’t like, it might be because Billy Wilder often criticized psychoanalysis in the film as worthless, or because of the classic Billy Wilder signed. The name card "Sunset Boulevard", the film is about the experience of a fallen female star. It just so happens that Joseph L. Mankiewicz also wants to make a film "Comet Beauty" on the same subject? In fact, it was Joseph L. Mankiewicz who won the Oscar for Best Picture that year, but he had an unexplainable resentment against Billy Wilder, and he was worried that his opponent’s comedy would be better this time. He is good. So Joseph L. Mankiewicz said to Marilyn Monroe stiffly: "Too Hollywood, you are too Hollywood." He said nothing to her: "Put on more clothes and don't meet people. Then twist your ass, and then we will talk."
Marlon Brando was not the first person to play Skei Masterson in the mind of director Joseph L. Mankiewicz at the time. The director was fancy Kim Kelly at the time. Marlon Brando was already a famous movie star at the time, but he was not good at singing and dancing. There were even rumors that some of Marlon Brando's voice was dubbed separately. According to the records of the crew at that time, in fact all the songs in the play were sung by Marlon Brando himself. Before that, he spent a lot of time practicing singing and dancing almost every day. In his debut song and dance drama, he brought people a serious and mature performance. This aspect did not damage his star image, nor did it cause damage to the film industry. The conflict between Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra arose before the shooting of "Red Man and Green Girl". Frank Sinatra believes that the protagonist of the musical, Skye Masterson, should have been played by him, but this role was then given to Marlon Brando. Frank Sinatra even thinks that Marlon Brando's protagonist in "The Wharf" was snatched from him, so the two have been full of hostility. This contradiction affected the entire shooting stage, and the two people began to hate each other. Frank Sinatra is not afraid of Marlon Brando at all, and calls him "the mumbling guy" because he can only pronounce it clearly when shooting. Is it settled? Never settled. Marlon Brando finally said: "Frank Sinatra is that kind of man. Even if he goes to heaven, he will give God all kinds of troubles and make him bald." Marlon Brando knows Frank Sinatra after all. Terra has a background in the American underworld, so no matter how dissatisfied with Frank Sinatra, he has repeatedly tolerated. What is regrettable is that the standard tunes performed by Frank Sinatra in this musical did not give him the opportunity to fully demonstrate the musical style he is good at. The performance of Jane Simmons in this film is not just an appeal to the spirit of women. The performances of other roles are also in place.
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