Finian’s Rainbow **** (1968, Fred Astaire, Petula Clark, Tommy Steele, Don Francks, Keenan Wynn) – Classic Movie Review 4728

Fred Astaire is still nimble and sprightly at the age of 69 as Finian McLonergan, and Petula Clark is pleasing as his daughter Sharon, in director Francis Ford Coppola’s highly appealing 1968 movie version of the great 1947 Broadway hit show.

The elegant score by Burton Lane (music) and E Y Harburg (lyrics) is mostly intact, the numbers are cheerfully performed, and the whimsy is happily toned down.

Tommy Steele also does well as Og, a leprechaun chasing after a pot of gold that has been found by Finian and taken to America. Poor old Og is going to lose his touch and become mortal if he cannot get the crock back.

The hit songs keep coming: If This Isn’t Love, When I’m Not Near the Girl I Love, Look to the Rainbow, This Time of the Year, That Great Come and Get It Day, Something Sort of Grandish, Old Devil Moon, and How Are Things in Glocca Morra? So, all in all, things are pretty good in Glocca Morra.

Despite all the good work, it was not a cinema hit though, maybe because musicals had suddenly swung out of fashion.

Also in the cast are Don Francks, Keenan Wynn, Barbara Hancock, Al Freeman Jnr, Ronald Colby, Dolph Sweet, Wright King and Lewis Silas.

It is beautifully shot in widescreen by Philip H Lathrop. The screenplay is E Y Harburg and Fred Saidy, it is produced by Joseph Landon, and the production designer is Hilyard M Brown.

Coppola’s next and only other musical is One from the Heart (1981).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4728

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