My daughter has recently set out a (long) list of films she wants to watch, and some are on my list, so that's encouraged me to make a start on the Film Critic badge! We couldn't find the DVD of Ghost the other day, so she finally gave in and watched Oklahoma! with me. It was interesting watching it with her - she comes at it from a very different perspective - and although I found her commentary a bit distracting at first, actually I enjoyed it overall and appreciated some of her insights.
For anyone who doesn't know, Oklahoma! is the film adaptation of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical, recorded in 1955 and stars Shirley Jones as Laurey and Gordon MacRae as Curly. While the story is fundamentally a very straightforward tale of young love, other, less simple, kinds of love, attraction, and relationships are also involved. Ado Annie and Will both struggle to be faithful to one another, while wanting the other to remain devoted to them; Jud Fry would nowadays be described as an incel - a loner, wanting a woman, and darkly posessive and threatening of Laurey after she foolishly agrees to go to the social with him; and the tensions between farmers and cowboys as the land was being settled are very clear.
Ado Annie's famous song I'm just a girl who can't say no was delivered in a peculiarly wooden style, especially given the usually animated nature of the character, which I found very strange. Other than this, she's generally very lively and flirtatious - and although she seems somewhat short of self-reflection for much of the film, at the end when Will tells her it has to be all or nothing she immediately places the same standard on him suggesting some level of self-confidence and dignity.
Throughout the film, Aunt Eller is my favourite character - pragmatic, protective of her family and those she loves, but with a great sense of fun. She is clearly a leader in the community, hosting the preparations for the box social, then acting as auctioneer for the hampers - not to mention leading The Farmer and the Cowman Should be Friends with Ado Annie's father and Mr Skidmore and bringing a swift end to the fight which breaks out during this number.
I generally enjoyed the dancing episodes, although my daughter felt that a couple of them went on rather too long. The long dance sequence when Laurey is trying to work out the right thing to do about Curly and Jud could perhaps have been edited down slightly without anything being lost - and it felt quite odd as it cut several times between the actors and the 'dream dancers' played by other people. Frustratingly, quite often the videography in the dance scenes cuts off the dancers' feet, which feels like a strange choice at the best of times, but particularly during the tap elements!
Some aspects of the film and story may be seen as problematic by modern audiences - particulary the 13-year age gap between the male and female lead actors, and Will's unwillingness to accept Ado Annie's 'No', but if they can be seen as very much 'of their time' this is an enjoyable story. The thing I found hardest this time was something which has never struck me before: set as it is while the territory of Oklahoma was being settled and was not yet a member of the federation, I was acutely aware that while the farmers and cowboys were arguing over land rights and usage, their colonisation was pushing out and harming Native Americans who had been living there long before their arrival. Unsurprisingly, this isn't reflected in the story at all, and is just a consequence of its context - but that did cast something of a shadow over the celebrations of the establishment of the schoolhouse, farms etc. for me.
Despite the couple of negatives, this has long been one of my favourite musicals, and definitely remains so. In the day or two since I watched it, I've found myself humming the tunes several times, and replaying some of the songs in my head. Rogers and Hammerstein knew how to write good, catchy tunes - but there is far more to this show than just the light frothy surface. For me this is a film which bears re-watching over and over; it's not perfect, but it brings a smile to my face every time.
I've been a musical fan for a long time. My mother and I would watch them on TV on sunday afternoons, and eat chocolate. The local am-dram also did their versions of most of them. My favourite Kerr and Hammerstein's musical is "Showboat". It doesn't shy away from the problem of racial prejudice. It's quite a dark-ish musical with most of the men being pretty faithless. Even the songs are sad!