Jerry Herman, who once threatened to sue me (for making a dirty joke about him in my play Making Porn) and then came to see the play in Palm Springs and graciously met with the cast afterwards, has spoken out about WALL E and the way his music is featured, pivotally, in the Pixar masterpiece! It's interesting to me to see a Broadway musical play such a huge part in a popular futuristic sci-fi epic. Maybe the theatre isn't dead, after all.
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Hello, WALL•E, Sings Jerry Herman, Who Loves Use of His 44-Year-Old Songs in the Movie
By FRANK RIZZO | Courant Staff Writer
July 1, 2008
Wall•e (Disney/PIXAR)
Can a musical comedy save the world? Well, it certainly helps, according to the new Pixar animated film "WALL•E," which opened nationwide this weekend and brought in $62.5 million at the box office, making it the No. 1 film in America.
Two songs from "Hello, Dolly!" — "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" and "It Only Takes a Moment" — are pivotal in the film's story about a little robot, the only sign of "life" (not counting a friendly cockroach) left on a devastated and abandoned Earth 700 years in the future.
What keeps the resourceful robot going is not just his recharging solar plates but a videotape from the 1969 film "Hello, Dolly." The songs feature Michael Crawford, Marianne MacAndrew and — if you look closely in the chorus — Tommy Tune. ( Barbra Streisand, who starred in the film, is not featured in the "WALL•E" clips.)
The feel-good song "Sunday Clothes" lifts the robot's spirits as he goes on his programmed daily drudgery. The romantic ballad "It Only Tales a Moment" reminds him of contact with another entity, which is missing from his lonely life.
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When Jerry Herman, composer of the Broadway musical, saw "WALL•E" Sunday night in Los Angeles, he was stunned.
"It really blew me away," Herman said in a telephone interview Monday. "You're talking to someone still in a haze. I couldn't believe how beautifully the songs expressed the entire intent of the film."
Herman, who turns 77 next week, said he was not aware of how the songs were going to be used and expected them to be featured briefly as background music.
Instead, the film opens with a shot of the universe and the voice of Crawford singing the opening lines, "Out there, there's a world outside of Yonkers ...," followed by most of the rest of the upbeat song as the robot goes on his daily routine
"I'll tell you that the seat I was in will never be the same," Herman says. "I clutched those two arm rests. I was so thrilled and moved. What a wonderful use — to show a desolate world contrasted with the joy of those lyrics.
"The amazing thing for me is that two songs from a show that certainly was iconic in its day — or still is — will now have a more permanent place in history because of this movie, which is probably going to be the film of the year."
Does he feel vindicated that his songs, sometimes dismissed as too sunny, will live on?
"It made me doubly pleased to have written songs of optimism and joy," Herman says. "They call me the eternal optimist. Well, that's what the world needed after the assassination of Kennedy [before the Broadway show opened in January 1964] and what the world needs now."
Herman predicts this will heighten interest in a Broadway revival of "Hello, Dolly!"
"I've been thinking about it, and there are several ladies — stars — I am already playing in my head to cast."
"To have 'Dolly!" blooming again now," he says, "is like having an orchid plant suddenly, unexpectedly coming back to life."
Herman says that after leaving the cineplex, filled with joy, he turned to his goddaughter and sang, "Well, well, hello, WALL•E!"
Contact Frank Rizzo at rizzo@courant.com.
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