Of the quintessential Rodgers-Hammerstein musicals, this one comes in just behind Oklahoma, South Pacific, and the King and I. From a jazz musician's viewpoint, it offers fewer enticing songs than anything by Rodgers & Hart and most of the collaborations with Hammerstein as well. Yet in the context of the times, a song such as "You'll Never Walk Alone" helped heal, provide consolation and hope to the ones who were left behind after the war. "If I Loved You" is certainly a gorgeous melody and sensitive lyric, but the highlight, at least for any expectant father, has got to be "Soliloquy." (Listen to Sinatra's unsurpassed, timeless reading of this one as well as "You'll Never Walk Alone" on "The Concert Sinatra".)
Sinatra's instincts were right in backing out of this movie, which is the most wooden, flat, artificial and leaden of all the filmed adaptations of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals (it makes "Sound of Music" look like "Citizen Kane"). It's simply not good movie-making-- partly because the filmmakers got carried away with the technology, thinking that bright colors and a wider Cinemascope image, requiring two final takes of each scene (the reason Sinatra split), would be "realism" enough for the public.
That's one reason this film, contrary to another reviewer's evaluation, can't compare with Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life." But he also misses the point about George Bailey. True, he's not the bum that Billy Bigelow is. But he's become so self-righteous about his "indispensability" to his community that he commits suicide all because of the loss of a mere thousand bucks. (In the movie version of "Carousel" Billy falls on his knife accidentally after the stick-up goes awry.) Billy comes back as an angel to provide comfort, hope, and encouragement, "earning his wings" by doing well by his daughter. But George Bailey has earned too many wings--in fact, his good deeds and his savior complex are his problem. The wingless angel Clarence is sent on a mission to Bedford Falls to restore to George Bailey his humanity, with all its flaws and failings. Compared to Carousel, it's a darker, more profound story about tragic pride (even archetypal, given its parallels with Sophocles' Oedipus Rex), and ultimately it's more cathartic and life affirming, since it conveys faith in a world not overrun by Mr. Potters: ordinary people do have the capacity to be unselfish and forgiving. This is not to cast aspersions on the deeply felt sentiments of the Rodgers and Hammerstein masterpiece. It's just unfortunate that Carousel was not filmed in the 1940s by a creative, inspired giant like Frank Capra.
Sinatra's instincts were right in backing out of this movie, which is the most wooden, flat, artificial and leaden of all the filmed adaptations of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals (it makes "Sound of Music" look like "Citizen Kane"). It's simply not good movie-making-- partly because the filmmakers got carried away with the technology, thinking that bright colors and a wider Cinemascope image, requiring two final takes of each scene (the reason Sinatra split), would be "realism" enough for the public.
That's one reason this film, contrary to another reviewer's evaluation, can't compare with Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life." But he also misses the point about George Bailey. True, he's not the bum that Billy Bigelow is. But he's become so self-righteous about his "indispensability" to his community that he commits suicide all because of the loss of a mere thousand bucks. (In the movie version of "Carousel" Billy falls on his knife accidentally after the stick-up goes awry.) Billy comes back as an angel to provide comfort, hope, and encouragement, "earning his wings" by doing well by his daughter. But George Bailey has earned too many wings--in fact, his good deeds and his savior complex are his problem. The wingless angel Clarence is sent on a mission to Bedford Falls to restore to George Bailey his humanity, with all its flaws and failings. Compared to Carousel, it's a darker, more profound story about tragic pride (even archetypal, given its parallels with Sophocles' Oedipus Rex), and ultimately it's more cathartic and life affirming, since it conveys faith in a world not overrun by Mr. Potters: ordinary people do have the capacity to be unselfish and forgiving. This is not to cast aspersions on the deeply felt sentiments of the Rodgers and Hammerstein masterpiece. It's just unfortunate that Carousel was not filmed in the 1940s by a creative, inspired giant like Frank Capra.