State Fair ( 1962 )

Often when a film becomes a smashing box office success, the production studio that made it believes they can replicate its ticket sales with the next generation, and so, every 15-20 years the same titles crop up with new casts and slightly modified scripts.

State Fair is one such film. The 1932 novel by Phil Strong was brought to the screen in 1933 as a Janet Gaynor/Lew Ayres hit for Fox Studios. It told the story of the Frake family and their adventures at the Iowa State Fair, focusing on the romantic entanglements that the two teenage children, Margy and Wayne, get themselves into. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II then set this story to music for the 1945 Technicolor musical adaptation starring Dana Andrews, Jeanne Craine, Vivian Blaine, and Dick Haymes. This was a most entertaining production and it set the bar high for future remakes, one of which was State Fair ( 1962 ).  

For this picture, Fox took the opportunity to cash in on the popularity of two of the top singing stars of the era - Pat Boone and Bobby Darin - and paired them up with two pretty gals, Ann-Margret and Pamela Tiffin, to make what they considered prime bait for the younger generation. To lure in the older crowd, one of Fox's biggest stars of the 1940s, Alice Faye, was cast as Melissa "Ma" Frake and Tom Ewell, a popular stage and screen actor of the 1950s, was cast as Papa Frake. Richard Rodgers also added a few extra tunes to spice up the picture. And so, with an ideal cast, a dependable and well-used story, and lush Cinemascope, the brass at Fox thought this remake would be a box-office hit. They thought wrong. The film lost nearly a million dollars. 

In life, imitation is often the sincerest form of flattery but in Hollywood it is a sign of unimaginative filmmaking. The 1962 version of State Fair tries so hard to have the bucolic charm of its predecessors that it fails to stamp its own impression, which is unfortunate since it really only disappointments when it attempts to duplicate the 1945 version. It is during these scenes that the acting seems bland and uninspired. The cast is uncomfortable in their roles and the entire production comes off as an apology to the audience for having such a "hokey" old-fashioned plot to work with. They should have taken a cue from Bye, Bye, Birdie ( 1962 ) a musical which oozes with small-town naivety and yet is perfectly at home in its own generation. There certainly is nothing hokey about a fair....unless you make it out to be. 

Screenwriter Richard L. Breen adapted Sonya Levien and Paul Green's original screenplay in an attempt to inject some new verve into the story and moved the Iowa setting to Dallas, Texas which, not surprisingly ( since Texans do everything big ) features "the largest state fair in America". It was filmed on location at the modern Dallas fairground which boasts nearly 100 acres of exhibition halls, dance and dining venues, and a stock car track.  Pat Boone gets to try his racing skills on the track and Ann-Margaret performs a show-stopping rendition of "Isn't it Kinda Fun" at a Hollywood Bowl style outdoor theater on the fairgrounds. The giant 52' tall Big Tex who booms his welcome speech to the fairgoers, continues to greet visitors today. 

Pat Boone, who could croon as well as Dick Haymes, and Ann-Margret were the only redeeming actors in the film. They added a genuine warmth and sincerity to their parts, which the rest of the cast should have mirrored. Pamela Tiffin, sweet as she looked, was no comparison to Jeanne Crain. Her airy interpretation of Margy lacked a depth of character, and one had to wonder what she saw in Jerry Dundee ( Bobby Darin ) who seemed bent on simply making her one of his conquests. Tom Ewell did an adequate job in the role that Will Rogers originally performed in the 1933 version, but Alice Faye was wasted - and wooden in the few scenes she had. She had signed for the part believing that she would be reunited with her screen partner, Don Ameche, and be directed by Henry King ( who filmed the original '33 version ). Instead, Jose Ferrer took the reins....and found himself riding a dead horse. Or was he the man to blame for killing it?

The South-of-the-Border Musicals

When Carmen Miranda sambaed her way into the Broadway musical revue scene in 1939, her energetic style and eye-rolling fractured musical interpretations of English words, took America by storm. Soon everyone was swaying their hips to the bongo-beating rhythm of the Bando de Lua and taking six easy dance lessons from Madame La Zonga. 

Meanwhile, in Hollywood, 20th Century Fox was getting their top talents together to produce a colorful musical treat to dazzle the moviegoers and please the president. President Roosevelt, that is. He was reaching his hand across the border to encourage trade and wanted all of Latin America to know we were their neighbors. Darryl Zanuck, always a friend of the Washington politicians, was more than glad to help. He saw the Good Neighbor Policy as a good box-office policy and quickly thrust the studio's loveliest leading lady, Alice Faye, into their most entertaining new musical to date, Down Argentine Way. Alas, the lovely lady had an attack of appendicitis and so the glamorous Betty Grable stepped into a role that would ultimately launch her into pin-up stardom. 

Down Argentine Way tells the story of a wealthy girl who has a romance with a dashing and equally wealthy Argentine horse breeder, Don Ameche. The movie dispensed good cheer and tropical radiance to moviegoers nationwide whilst it gaudily painted a Utopian perspective of the elite Argentine horse set in lush Techni-colors. But, more astonishing than the fiery new Latin scenery it showcased, was the introduction of the much publicized Brazilian sensation, Carmen Miranda. Never was there a performer more delightful and engaging to watch. She was mesmerizing. With arms waving, fingers clicking, and her fruit bowl top jiggling, she cheerfully invited the audience to taste life, love, and romance "The South American Way". In one short musical number she did more to promote South America then ten ambassadors could have. A strong supporting cast which included Charlotte Greenwood, Henry Stephenson, and J. Carroll Naish, and Fox's customary vivid tones and razor sharp imagery helped to ignite Down Argentine Way into a zesty box-office bombshell. 

In 1941, Betty Grable took a trip to the sunshine state in Moon Over Miami and then paused for some dramatic roles in black and white films, which gave Alice Faye plenty of time to recuperate and then have a moonlit romance with Don Ameche south of the border herself - this time in Rio. In That Night in Rio, Don Ameche takes on the duel roles of an aristocratic baron and a debonair entertainer, with Faye playing the baron's confused wife. The story was a reworking of Folies Bergere ( 1935 ) starring Maurice Chevalier. Even though the risque quality of the original was replaced by Ameche's more humorous performance, the film was visually appealing, featured a supporting cast including S.Z. Sakall, J. Carroll Naish, Frank Puglia and Leonid Kinskey and spotlighted some splendid Mack Gordon/Harry Warren numbers, including two of Miranda's most imitated songs, "Chica Chica Boom Chic" and "I'yi, Yi, Yi, I Like You Very Much". 

Having a look-a-like husband must have been too much stress for Faye, for that very same year she was off with the tall, dark, and handsome John Payne for a Weekend in Havana. This light-hearted comedy/musical cast Payne as the son of a ship company's owner who travels to Cuba to handle a case involving one of the company's ships which has gone aground. One passenger ( Faye ) refuses to sign a waiver unless she gets reimbursed for her vacation...now. And with a guarantee that she'll have a good time. Payne undertakes to personally show her a "good time" and ends up falling for her charms instead. 

Weekend in Havana was originally written as a Henry Fonda vehicle, but when he declined the part it was offered to Don Ameche, who also refused. Step in Payne! The movie has a quick pace, beautiful sets, lovely costumes ( by Gwen Wakeling ) and a great supporting cast including George Barbier, Cobina Wright, Leonid Kinsky and Billy Gilbert. Cesar Romero, the debonair dancer, was featured in an entertaining supporting role as Carmen Miranda's wayward beau who had a fancy for the pretty women and high stakes gambling tables. The role suited Romero's personality and gave him a chance to showoff his fancy footwork in several numbers.

In 1942, Fred Astaire danced his way across the border to Argentina with Rita Hayworth, who never looked lovelier than in You Were Never Lovelier. This monochrome musical told the story of the Acunas, a rich family who must marry their daughters off in accordance with famiyl tradition...eldest first, down to the youngest. As second sibling, Rita feels the pressure from her younger sisters but has not yet met a man that she liked.....until an American dancer ( Astaire ) stumbles into her life. 

Shortly before the United States' entry into WWII, the US Department of State commissioned a Disney goodwill tour of South America in the hopes that Walt Disney would produce a film based on the material he gathered on the journey...which he did. Nelson Rockefeller guided Walt Disney and a staff of animators, technicians and composers on a several week tour of the samba land. They came back with rumba on their brains, tropical colors in their washes, and a heap of new material to work with, resulting in a series of short cartoons inspired by the colorful nations. The government wasn't all too pleased with this however, since each cartoon would only be valid in the country at head, so Walt Disney had his four shorts strung together and filled with some of the 16mm color footage taken during the trip. What then resulted was a cartoon too long to be a short, and too short to be a feature. Nevertheless, upon its release ( in 1942 ), Saludos Amigos was a tremendous success and unlike the previous Fox musicals, actually showed its audience footage of South America. 

In the first of the four cartoon segments we find Donald Duck, a typical tourist, exploring the surrounding mountainside region of Lake Titicaca with a stubborn llama. We are given a brief aerial tour of the route from Santiago, Chile to Mendoza through the eyes of Pedro, the little airplane, and then Goofy learns the way of the gauchos in the Pampas region. A visit to South America is not complete without seeing the Carnival in Rio and so, in the final segment, Joe Carioca gives Donald a watercolor tour of the continent. 

Saludos Amigos allowed the Disney animators to dabble with new animation "gags" and its commercial success encouraged Disney to produce a similar South American cartoon - The Three Caballeros, released in 1945. This kaleidoscopic film centered around Donald Duck's birthday and the special box he received as a present from his South American pal, Joe Carioca. Inside he finds a reel of film bearing the titles Aves Raras ( rare birds ) which introduces us to a Pablo the penguin cartoon. An old Uruguayan gaucho then tells us the story of another "strange bird" - the flying donkey : the playful Burrito and his young friend Gauchito. Donald opens his last gifts which include a wild rooster and Joe Carioca himself, who then take Donald on a whirlwind flying carpet tour over the beaches of Acapulco. 

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer missed the Latin frenzy of the early 1940s but decided it was better late than never to join the bandwagon and in 1945 they released Holiday in Mexico starring their newest singing sensation Jane Powell.  In this frothy musical, Jane Powell plays mother to her widowed father ( Walter Pidgeon ) and gets into a tither when she finds out he is about to remarry to an opera star ( Ilona Massey ). A puppy love romance with another MGM juvenile star, Roddy McDowall, drew in the younger crowds.  

Jane Powell was Louis B. Mayer's latest find and Holiday in Mexico was the perfect vehicle to showcase her beautiful voice and delightful personality. Alas, this role would also determine the character for all her future projects with the studio - that of a sprightly ingenue determined to take matters in her own hands with the help of a few benevolent friends - in this case, pianist Jose Iturbi and bandleader Xavier Cugat. 

Iturbi was a famed pianist who signed a contract with Metro in 1943 and, even though he was Spanish, often portrayed Latin Americans. "Turbolent Iturbi", as he had come to be nicknamed, had refused an earlier offer to perform on film but later excepted MGM's request since they allowed him more creative freedom. He also had an easy job of acting, since he portrayed himself! Some of his best films included Anchors Aweigh, Two Girls and a Sailor, That Midnight Kiss, and Three Daring Daughters. 

Xavier Cugat was another talented musician who reached his peak in popularity during the early and mid-1940s when he appeared in a number of MGM musicals with his orchestra and his pet chihuahua, whom he often smuggled under his dinner jacket. Prior to the South American film fever, Cugat appeared in several short films in the late 1920s and 30s : A Spanish Ensemble ( 1928 ), Mexicana ( 1929 ), and Let's Go Latin ( 1937 ). Like Carmen Miranda, he had a magnifico personality that lit up the screen when he appeared and his infectious rhythms always gave the films a boost.  

The studio kept Jane Powell busy in three pictures in 1948 - Three Daring Daughters, A Date with Judy ( also featuring Miranda and Cugat ) and Luxury Liner - before sending her south-of-the-border once again in Nancy Goes to Rio, a tepid - albeit colorful - remake of a Deanna Durbin classic ( It's a Date ). Aside from some cardboard backdrops, very little of Rio is seen while the cameras instead focus their close-up lens on its two leading ladies ( Powell and Ann Sothern ) and the tutti-frutti Carmen Miranda, this time appearing in a refreshing change of role - that of Barry Sullivan's secretary. 

By 1945 Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters were singing "South America Take it Away!" , pleading for them to "take back your samba - ay! - your rumba - ay! - and your conga - ay, yi, yi!" and complaining of aching spines and creaky sacroiliacs. Audiences still adored Latin American themed films in spite of the fun words, but by the late 1940s the movie studios had gone Continental and wanted to showcase the glamorous post-war Paris and London scene. 

One exception however, was Carnival in Costa Rica ( 1947 ), a now forgotten musical starring crooner Dick Haymes, Vera-Ellen, Cesar Romero and Celeste Holm. It told the story of two pairs of Costa Rican lovebirds both trying to thwart their arranged marriages with each other. Anne Revere, J. Carroll Naish, and Pedro de Cordorba rounded out a great cast. Many of the location shots used in Carnival in Costa Rica were filmed just prior to the civil war of 1948, and many Costa Ricans consider this film to be of historical value because of that. 

One of the last forays MGM would take south of the Tropic of Cancer would be Latin Lovers, released in 1953, a vibrantly colored musical featuring the beautiful Lana Turner and a true red-blooded Mexican, Ricardo Montalban. Fernando Lamas, the Beunos Aires born playboy, was originally slated to play Montalban's role, but recently he had broke off an affair with Lana Turner and she insisted he be replaced. They be Latin lovers no more. 

Latin Lovers told the story of the hazards of being a wealthy woman. Nora Taylor, a millionairess, is afraid that every man she meets is just after her money, until she falls in love with Roberto, a man she thinks is a poor farmer...but in fact has a crop of healthy cabbage of his own sitting in the bank. The film featured plenty of samba, romance, lush settings and even a polo playing sequence. 

The south-of-the-border musicals were a product of their time and it is unlikely that a Latin frenzy will ignite in Hollywood anytime again soon, at least not one resulting in such colorful and entertaining musicals. These were stress-free, light-hearted films that captured the essence of South America - the gaiety, the charm, the romance and the hip-shaking splendor of the continent. If you cannot afford a trip to South America yourself, sit back, grab some bananas and a bowl of fruit and enjoy one of these south-of-the-border musicals. Ay yi! they will surely not disappoint you!  

At Home with Phil Harris & Alice Faye

In 1947 Radio Mirror featured an article on Phil Harris and Alice Faye apart of their regular "Come and Visit with..." series. The subtitle to the article was "How a bachelor's life was changed by three lovely blondes - changed for the happier". While most of the article seems to be true, one little fact was altered...Phil Harris, the popular novelty singer and radio host, was not a bachelor when his life was changed by those lovely blondes. He was married to Marcia Ralston from 1932 up until he met and married Alice Faye in 1941. But oh well, so the fan magazines like to stretch the truth a little.....

Harris built a magnificent ranch out in the Encino foothills ( 4544 Encino Avenue ) and it was here that he met Alice Faye, who lived a short distance down the street in a ranch of her own. Their Dobermans got in a scuffle one day and after they argued about who started the dogfight Phil invited Alice out for dinner. They married in 1941. Alice was a big fan of antiques and old china and when she moved into the house she loved Phil Harris's place just the way it was. As she states in the article : 'I liked the feeling that you could put your feet on anything you liked. The house invited you to let your hair down and relax'.

They kept the house for many years but in 1951, Phil Harris, an avid golfer heard that a new housing development was being created directly on the Thunderbird golf course. He couldn't resist that. The Harris' were the second couple to purchase a home in the new development and, although they intended to use it only as a weekend retreat, ended up remaining in the house until Alice Faye's death in 1998. Their Encino home was later sold to George Gobel in 1957. Only recently did their children have to sell the Thunderbird property, due to its expensive upkeep. You can see a postcard view of this home at the bottom of this article. 

We'd like to give a special thanks to the folks at OTRRpedia for digitizing the following text. Enjoy! 

From the April 1947 issue of Radio Mirror : 

It's very easy to get lost driving out from Hollywood to the home of Alice and Phil Harris. The wandering, crooked road changes its name a dozen times as it climbs up into the Encino foothills from Ventura Boulevard. You have plenty of time to wonder what sort of setting Phil has conceived for the three beautiful, blue-eyed blondes who are the women in his life, his wife, Alice Faye, and their two daughters, Alice, who is five years old now, and Phyllis, who is three. Whatever your preconceptions are, you are certain to be surprised.

The women-folk may rule in numbers, as it turns out, but there is nothing delicate or Dresden-tinted about the sprawling ranch house where the Harrises live. Phil built the place fourteen years ago when he was a confirmed bachelor, and the feminine invasion has only slightly modified its mannish character. The siege of this particular one man's castle began seven years ago when Alice came there as a bride.

"I loved the place just the way it was," she recalls. "I liked the feeling that you could put your feet on anything you liked. The house invited you to let your hair down and relax." She liked the big, rather bare rooms, the massive fireplaces.

She was a little startled - as one is, visiting there today - to find silver-mounted riding saddles - rather than old Georgian coffee pots - in the dining room, and a professional size pool table and enormous gun cases (but no books) in what in most houses would be the library, but she got used to it. So would you. It takes about five minutes for the relaxation to set in.

"I wouldn't have changed a brick or a board of it," Alice confides, "but things happened."

"We didn't expect," she adds, with a broad grin, "to have all these children."

In its original design, Phil's house provided for one "family" bedroom - a good big one, with bathroom and dressing room built to scale. The only other sleeping rooms were the servants' quarters and they were far away on the other side of the house.

The low sprawling house Phil built fourteen years ago.

The low sprawling house Phil built fourteen years ago.

The first baby's impending arrival five years ago posed a problem. With eight acres to spread out on, there was plenty of room for the house to grow but Alice didn't want to change the compact feeling of it. Consequently, architects and builders were called in, a hole was knocked in the roof, and a second story -a bedroom, two baths and two dressing rooms for Phil and Alice - added. The former "master bedroom" became the baby's nursery.

Now, with Phyllis getting big enough to want a room of her own, the house has growing pains again.

"As soon as we can get materials," Phil says, "we're going to build a suite for the children on top of the garage. They' ll be far enough away from our room to make as much noise as they like." 

The present arrangement makes for one stringent "house rule." No yelling until 10:30 - for mama and daddy, who like to stay up late and chat or play cards with their friends, Mary and Peter Lind Hayes, the Tufty Gaffs, the Andy Devines - don't like to be awakened at six. The white cockatoo Phil brought home with him years ago from Australia had to be housed for this reason a good quarter of a mile away from the house. He wouldn't abide by the house rules.

"The kids are getting more like the cockatoo every day," Alice says. "They refuse to be shushed."

"Oh," she groans, "those good old days, those lovely old days, of sleeping until noon, the breakfast in bed. All gone now."

Breakfast by the big fireplace in the dining room is almost as good as breakfast in bed. The dining room, in fact, is the pleasantest room in the house - and the one most apt to get the play when guests arrive.

It is scarcely a dining room in the conventional sense - rather more a dining-sitting room of the hunting lodge, western ranch variety. It is simply enormous to begin with, and as inviting as a country inn on a rainy day with its bright red curtains, the circle of massive red and white sofas and easy chairs drawn up to the outsize fireplace, the generous sparkle of polished copper and brass.

Phil designed the room, and there was method in his madness. Phil is a hunting enthusiast - and professional enough about it to know that McAllen, Texas, on the Gulf Coast, is the best place in the country to go for white wing dove, Saskatchewan the haunt of Hungarian partridge and prairie chicken, and the wooded flatlands out of Dallas the best place to look for deer. His favorite form of entertaining is to invite his best friends to come and eat the shoot - and to cook the dinner himself.

Such dinner parties are much more fun for the cook if the convivialities go on not too far from the kitchen.

The living room, which in an ordinary house would be called informal, is almost company stuff at the Harrises'. The walls are turquoise (the blondes in the family have had a say in this!) . The same greenish blue is combined with beige in the upholstering fabrics, and the floor is carpeted from wall to wall with a luxurious deep·pile beige rug. This was a big concession on Phil's part. In the sitting.dining room, the floor is cement-painted dark green. The only rugs are hand·braided throw rugs in front of the fire and under the big sawbuck dining table. "I like floors sweepable," says Phil.

"People in California are crazy to spend so much time fussing with details indoors," Alice agrees. "We live outside - around the pool in the summer, down at the stables when it is cool."

The stables are occupied for the present only by Phil's horse, Sonny. But Alice has been riding with Phil in Palm Springs during their frequent desert vacations, and as soon as she is ready Phil wants to buy her a horse of her own. And in a year or two, the children will be old enough for ponies.

Riding, hunting, cooking game dinners for your friends - life is full of wonderful things to do, in Phil's opinion. And he is a little rueful that at present so much good playtime must be spent at work. With two radio shows a week, his own and Alice's on Sundays, and the Jack Benny show on which he is a regular performer, to prepare for, and rehearse, and broadcast, Phil is a busy man.

"I see much too little of my daughters," he says. "Much too little of my friends. Thank heaven my beautiful wife works with me, or I would never see her." It's a hard life, you gather from Phil, this getting rich and famous.

Despite their father's conviction that he is neglecting them shamefully, Alice and Phyllis tell everybody who will listen that their daddy is the greatest man in the world. He can ride. He can shoot straight. He can fix their broken tricycles. And he is the best tickler in the world.

"The girls will do anything," their mother says, "if Phil will promise to tickle them before they go to bed. Eat their spinach, wash their hands before supper, put the toys away - anything."
Tickling is a nightly routine.

"Cissy - Cissy is Miss Griffith, the children's nurse - gets the nursery all neat and tidy, the beds clean and white and crisp, the children scrubbed and beautiful. And then we wreck the place. I am the First Assistant Tickler. If Phil and I can't tickle them to sleep - then Cissy has to finish the job."

Alice shakes her head a little after she tells this story.

"How did two such sane parents get such crazy children?" she wants to know.

"Maybe," she adds on second thought, "it's just Alice. Phyllis thinks her big sister is so wonderful that she is content to parrot everything she says. 

"All day long it's 'Mama, may I have a graham cracker?' from Alice, followed by 'Mama, may I have a gwam cwacker?' from Phyllis. Or 'Daddy, please tickle me,' from Alice, then 'Daddy, pwease tittle me,' from Phyllis."

So far as her parents know, little Phyllis has never had a thought of her very own.
They are a wonderful pair to watch. They look alike - a little like their mother, a little like their father. Cissy dresses them in identical pinafores. They have dolls alike, push-peddle autos alike, cowboy suits alike for visits to Sonny's barn.

"And," says Phil, "if you're going to tickle one of them you'd better have strength enough to tickle two."

"They are tireless," Alice adds. "They have the run of the whole eight acres all day. Signs over all the drives warn guests to be 'Careful, Children.' They run and romp and shout until I'm tired just from watching them. If they have to sit down five minutes for lunch they feel abused."

"And," this from their father, "they are indestructible. One of them will fall down and bruise a knee. Alice will patch it up with stuff from the First Aid box in the kitchen. Before the bandages are put away, the other knee is black and blue. But do they stop running? Not those two."

Energy seems to be a family trait.

Alice finds time for two careers - in films and on the radio - without cutting corners on either of the jobs she considers really important, those as Phil's wife and the children's mother.
Phil, for his part, does five men's work in his profession and still has leisure for more useful "puttering" around the place than many a less harried husband.

Phil wanted a barbecue, complete with turning spit, for outdoor dinners. So he hauled the bricks himself, and built it. Somebody gave him a camellia bush - he transplanted it, cultivated it - now it's blooming wildly in the flower border at the edge of the flagstone patio. One night recently he came home from a rehearsal hankering for an old-fashioned Southern dinner, the fried chicken and cornbread kind of dinner he remembered from his Tennessee boyhood. It was the cook's night out, so Phil cooked it. Before dinner was half done, the smells emanating from the kitchen were so promising that Alice called up Mary and Peter Hayes and the Golts, who came right over to help consume the feast.

"What a household," the guests sighed with satisfaction, as they stretched out after dinner in the roomy chairs around the dining room fireplace.

"What a husband," said Alice.

And the house, her husband's house, she might have added, is not for sale.