The World Is Waiting to Waltz Again

by Mack Gordon & Harry Warren

I see Vienna,

No violins playing,

The music is through,

The Blue Danube’s blue.

I can see Holland,

No windmills are turning,

The tulips know why,

And wither and die.

There’s Venice, but no gondoliers,

And the Seine is a river of tears.

 

The world is waiting to waltz again,

The way we all used to do.

The world is waiting for music and laughter

That always comes after the storm is through.

The feet that marched to the beat of drums

Will dance for joy when that great day comes.

When love returns to the hearts of all men

The world will be waltzing again.

 

Before leaving Sun Valley Serenade behind, I wanted to write a bit more about a song I described briefly in the last posting. THE WORLD IS WAITING TO WALTZ AGAIN is a ghostly phantom, a Mack Gordon-Harry Warren song written, recorded and filmed for the movie, but then cut and discarded.

There are few things more forlorn than a cut movie song. Unpublished and unheralded, it leaves no memories or good feelings behind. Sometimes a dialogue lead-in or musical underscore remains to show where the song might have appeared, but usually the surgery to remove it is done so well that it is not missed.

The augmented Miller band during the SUN VALLEY SERENADE finale.

A few stills and home movies firmly plant the song’s original placement as part of the “black ice” skating finale, during which the enlarged Miller band with strings is visible in a few cutaway shots.  The soundtrack heard in the released film is by a studio orchestra. Fortunately, the soundtrack performance of WALTZ was included on one of the Fox studio discs pressed at the time of release.  It’s mostly a vocal by John Payne, with swirling strings and lush Miller reeds in the introduction.  Bill Finegan arranged the song for an augmented personnel; it lasts barely two minutes before it ends rather abruptly after the vocal. It’s a lovely melody with a moody lyric that hints at the wartime devastation then overrunning Europe.  Familiar tropes like the blue Danube, Venetian gondoliers and tulips from Holland are evoked in the verse, but in stark terms (for a 1941 pop song that is).  The tulips have withered and died and the Seine “is a river of tears.” The refrain is more optimistic, alluding to the joy and laughter that will re-emerge “when that great day comes.”

John Payne has a feeling that his big song is going to be cut!

There was very little in the war news to be optimistic about in the Spring of 1941. America was doing its best to stay uninvolved, but that was beginning to seem like a pipe dream. Other songs of the era, like MY SISTER AND I, similarly reference the horrors unfolding in Europe, yet as the lyric flatly states, “But we don’t talk about that.” Here’s the Jimmy Dorsey-Bob Eberly version of MY SISTER AND I:

 

Though it was very muted, the war reference in THE WORLD IS WAITING TO WALTZ AGAIN was likely one factor in the song’s being dropped from Sun Valley Serenade. Though it would have fit very naturally with Sonja Henie’s character arc as a Norwegian war refugee, America’s strictly pacifist attitude in 1941 was keenly felt in Hollywood.  The Production Code Administration cautioned filmmakers to play down any references to current events, for fear of complaints that the movie studios were pushing a war agenda.  Oddly, the song was apparently considered for inclusion in John Payne’s next Fox musical, Week-End in Havana, where it’s presence would have been incongruous, to say the least!

In any event, the song hit the cutting room floor permanently, though some newspaper ads mentioned it as one of the film’s “hits.”

In the 1990s, 20th Century-Fox produced three hour-long cable TV specials that consisted entirely of cut musical numbers and comedy routines from Fox productions.  Titled HIDDEN HOLLYWOOD, they included no new music by Glenn Miller and the band, but who knows? If Fox saved all this other material in their vaults, the lost Miller performances may surface one day. This discussion of missing Miller will continue when we get to the band’s next film, Orchestra Wives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sun Valley Serenade – Part 2

Mickey McMickle, Johnny Best, Ray Anthony, Billy May (tp); Glenn Miller, Paul Tanner, Jimmy Priddy, Frank D’Annolfo (tb); Hal McIntyre, Wilbur Schwartz, Ernie Caceres, Tex Beneke, Al Klink (reeds); Chummy MacGregor (p); Jack Lathrop (g); Trigger Alpert (b); Maurice Purtill (d); Ray Eberle, Tex Beneke, Paula Kelly, The Modernaires, Pat Friday (voice dub for Lynn Bari), John Payne, Dorothy Dandridge, The Nicholas Brothers, Six Hits and a Miss (vcl); Bill Finegan, Jerry Gray, Billy May (arr).

Sun Valley Serenade soundtrack, 20^th Century-Fox Studios , Hollywood, CA – March-April, 1941

Moonlight Serenade             TCF-70

I Know Why (PF, JP & Mods vcl, JG & BF arr) TCF-70/71

In The Mood TCF-65

It Happened in Sun Valley (Mods & Six Hits vcl, BF arr) TCF-77

Chattanooga Choo Choo (TB, PK, Mods, DD & NB vcl, JG arr) TCF-74/75

At Last (PF & JP vcl, JG & BF arr)     TCF-72/73

Sun Valley Jump (JG arr)  RCA LPT-3064

The Spirit Is Willing (JG arr)  RCA LPT-3064

Measure for Measure (BM arr)  RCA LPT-3064

The World Is Waiting to Waltz Again (JP vcl, BF arr) TCF-76

The Kiss Polka (studio orchestra and chorus, no Miller) TCF-76

The TCF catalog numbers are for the contemporaneous 78 pressings made by Fox for publicity/souvenir purposes. First commercial issues are RCA LPT-3064 (10” LP issued 1954) and 20th Century-Fox 100-2 (2-LP set issued 1959). All further releases stem from these albums. RCA’s transfers are clean, but Fox adds a bit of reverberation to the tracks (and more echo on later issues).

The RCA LP is missing MOONLIGHT SERENADE, THE WORLD IS WAITING TO WALTZ AGAIN and THE KISS POLKA.  I KNOW WHY and CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO are complete, including the Dandridge-Nicholas Brothers segment of the latter song, without overdubbed tap sounds. The Fox album includes the same numbers, minus this version of AT LAST.  I KNOW WHY is missing the John Payne vocal portion and CHOO CHOO is cut short at the point where the commercial 78 recording ends.

————–

Sun Valley Serenade begins with the familiar 20^th Century-Fox logo and fanfare. The next image is the Glenn Miller Band in silhouette, playing a swinging version of “The Kiss Polka” as the credits roll. Never before or since has a big band musical began with such an exciting introduction, which must have lifted audiences out of their seats as they got their first glimpse of the Miller Men. Most fans of the time had heard the band on radio and records, but only a relative handful had seen them in person, especially if they lived west of the Mississippi.

It doesn’t take long before we get more Miller – the band appears two minutes into the film and are playing their first number two minutes later. Glenn looks handsome but quite uncomfortable, smiling as he counts off MOONLIGHT SERENADE, which segues directly into I KNOW WHY (AND SO DO YOU). This gorgeous ballad, arranged by Bill Finegan, features close-ups of all the sections, beautifully lit and photographed. Trigger Alpert and Moe Purtill try not to look too self-conscious during Tex Beneke’s tenor solo and Glenn gets a terrific close-up immediately following. “Vocalist” Lynn Bari (wearing an extremely peculiar hat) and “pianist” John Payne are already making goo-goo eyes at each other, setting the plot into motion and the Modernaires pop up out of nowhere to back Lynn soothingly.

Veteran director Bruce Humberstone works a comic bit of business with Milton Berle and a cigarette lighter into the number. Humberstone graduated to “A” pictures with this one, after a spending a decade directing low-budget Charlie Chan and Jane Withers films for Fox.   His smooth handling of Sun Valley Serenade led to his assignment to a batch of Technicolor Fox and Goldwyn musicals into the 1950s.

Sonja Henie makes her entrance as a rather overage Norwegian refugee, who is adopted by the band and John Payne as a publicity stunt. Henie is quite enthusiastic in her single-minded pursuit of Payne from the moment she lays eyes on him. With Lynn Bari also having the hots for Payne, this is the extent of the plot needed to keep an 82-minute film percolating.

At the 20-minute mark, Payne realizing he’s wanted on the bandstand and we’re into IN THE MOOD, the best-ever Miller performance of their signature number. Everybody gets their on-screen moment – Glenn, Tex, Al Klink, Billy May and Trigger Alpert & Moe Purtill, both mugging shamelessly. During the false fade-outs, the saxes and trombones do a choreographed routine, angling and tossing their instruments around, which was a crowd-pleasing stunt in live performance as well.

Henie and Bari bicker a bit over Payne, and then the performers are called back to the bandstand as we hear the introduction to AT LAST, which was unfortunately cut from the film, though home movies exist showing it being filmed. It’s a great arrangement by Jerry Gray and Bill Finegan, done here as a rhythm ballad, vocalized by Lynn Bari and John Payne. Payne sings for himself, rather reedily and Bari is doubled, as usual, by Pat Friday.  RCA Victor issued the soundtrack performance on their Sun Valley Serenade LP in 1954. This wonderful song would be shelved and saved for the next Miller movie, this time in lush ballad mode. Both versions are knockouts.

With the band booked at the Sun Valley resort in Idaho, the whole entourage entrains to that pre-war luxury vacation setting, to the tune of IT HAPPENED IN SUN VALLEY. Riding sleighs to the hotel, the whole band joins in singing the catchy number, with the Modernaires augmented by the popular vocal group, Six Hits and a Miss, who were heard in many filmusicals of the era. Meanwhile, a visual montage shows all the amenities of Sun Valley – skiing, of course, along with horseback riding, heated swimming pools, outdoor dining and cocktail lounges – reality, but in the realm of fantasy for most Depression-era viewers.

Payne and Henie decided to go skiing, not aware that a rehearsal has been called. With band manager Milton Berle doing his best to placate a steaming Lynn Bari, the ensemble gets down to business with a full-out performance of CHATTANOOGA CHOO-CHOO. With Payne out of the way, Chummy MacGregor makes his only appearance in a Miller film (he would be replaced at the piano bench by Cesar Romero in ORCHESTRA WIVES).

This is the definitive performance of CHATTANOOGA CHOO-CHOO, performed in a relaxed groove, including many bits of the Jerry Gray arrangement that would be trimmed for the three-minute Bluebird version. The basic chart runs four-and-a-half minutes here, with the band beautifully photographed and charmingly natural vocal (and whistling) appearances by Tex Beneke, Paula Kelly and the Modernaires.

As the song winds down, we get a surprise – the camera pans past the band to reveal lovely young Dorothy Dandridge, quickly joined by the Nicholas Brothers. They are all in full costume, in front of a little “Choo-Choo” backdrop, taking another “hep” vocal chorus and dance. Dorothy then makes a beeline for the exit and the Brothers continue with more athletic moves as the band picks up the tempo. The overdubbed tap sounds mask a series of hot band solos, by Beneke, Billy May and Ernie Caceres. RCA’s later release of the complete, nearly 8-minute routine, reveals the solos without the taps.

The Nicholas Brothers with the Miller band.

There is only one brief shot of the Brothers dancing in front of the band; otherwise they are seen in isolation, an obvious ploy to keep Southern audiences and theaters from having to see what was termed “race mixing” at the time. Often sequences like this one would be cut, pure and simple, before Southern bookings. Since Dandridge and the Brothers have no part in the plot and simply appear and disappear without dialogue or on-screen explanation of any kind, a cut could have been made without notice.

At the 54-minute mark, that is pretty much the end of the Miller band in the film, though Glenn acts in several later scenes, appearing a little stiff, but good enough.  The rest of the music – THE KISS POLKA, performed at the ski lodge, a lovey-dovey reprise by Henie and Payne of I KNOW WHY and Henie’s two skating routines are performed by the Fox studio orchestra and chorus, though the final ice ballet shows the Miller band (in tuxes) now and then to create the illusion that they are playing on the soundtrack. Interestingly, AT LAST is heard again during the ballet, suggesting that it’s earlier band performance was likely cut at the last minute.  Jumping the gun, Ina Ray Hutton’s band recorded AT LAST for Okeh in July, with the label credit, “from Sun Valley Serenade.”

Joan Davis in the cut number, I’M LENA THE BALLERINA.

Posed still from I’M LENA THE BALLERINA.

Several other performance numbers were filmed and cut – I’M LENA THE BALLERINA, a comic solo for Joan Davis that was slotted in before THE KISS POLKA at the ski lodge with no Miller involvement; and THE WORLD IS WAITING TO WALTZ AGAIN, a lovely, timely war-tinged ballad sung by John Payne during the ice finale sequence with the Miller band, augmented by strings. A tiny glimpse of LENA appears in the movie’s trailer; several stills and home movies exist showing WALTZ being filmed. Happily, the soundtrack of the latter number still exists and can be heard here.

Without her song, sixth-billed Joan Davis has less than two minutes of comic byplay with Milton Berle remaining in the picture. The film’s wrap-up is also remarkably hurried, with no final kiss or declaration of love between Payne and Henie. She skates, a quick shot of them skiing and “The End.” As the film runs only 82 minutes, there certainly was time for more music and action; reportedly, studio head Darryl Zanuck was tired of Henie’s demands and wouldn’t allow any more time or budget to be lavished on the film. It went on to be Henie’s biggest hit, anyway, with much of the success due to the presence of Glenn and the boys.

Several other instrumental numbers were recorded at Fox, likely planned for underscoring, but none were heard in the finished film. SUN VALLEY JUMP and THE SPIRIT IS WILLING are the same Jerry Gray arrangements recorded for Bluebird in January and February. The film rendition of JUMP is faster and swingier, but as usual, cuts the Al Klink solo heard on the record. THE SPIRIT IS WILLING is almost indistinguishable from the RCA 78. MEASURE FOR MEASURE is a Billy May riff flagwaver, which Glenn played often on the air but only recorded here. The rhythm section really jumps and solos by Caceres (on alto), Beneke and May add to the excitement. A slow dynamic buildup from a diminuendo passage spotlights Trigger Alpert’s powerful bass playing.

Sonja Henie and Lynn Bari flank John Payne in his ski sweater.

Sun Valley Serenade was also influential in unsuspected ways. It started a craze for embroidered ski sweaters, as worn by John Payne and several of the bandsmen. As one of the very few American films reportedly released in the Soviet Union during and after the war, the Miller music was appreciated and copied by Russian jazz musicians, starved for modern swing sounds. As late as the 1970s, Soviet dance bands were still performing and recording the film’s tunes, sometimes in lavish, string-laden symphonic arrangements!

Soviet recording of SUN VALLEY tunes by Oleg Lundstrem’s Orchestra.

Promotional flyer for the postwar German release of SUN VALLEY SERENADE.

At the conclusion of filming in early May 1941, the Miller Band could finally emerge from its enforced isolation in Hollywood. During the movie, they had maintained their schedule of Chesterfield broadcasts, but made hardly any personal appearances. Now they could  begin to perform on this first visit to the West Coast.  The hungry fans were ready for them!

Glenn looks dapper and movie-star handsome in the film. Catch that wild tie!

Sun Valley Serenade – Part 1

Mickey McMickle, Johnny Best, Ray Anthony, Billy May (tp); Glenn Miller, Paul Tanner, Jimmy Priddy, Frank D’Annolfo (tb); Hal McIntyre, Wilbur Schwartz, Ernie Caceres, Tex Beneke, Al Klink (reeds); Chummy MacGregor (p); Jack Lathrop (g); Trigger Alpert (b); Maurice Purtill (d); Ray Eberle, Tex Beneke, Paula Kelly, The Modernaires, Pat Friday (voice dub for Lynn Bari), John Payne, Dorothy Dandridge, The Nicholas Brothers, Six Hits and a Miss (vcl); Bill Finegan, Jerry Gray, Billy May (arr).

20th Century Fox Studios, Hollywood, March 24 – May 3, 1941

After the RCA studio sessions in February 1941, the Glenn Miller band took one more swing down the East Coast and then headed west for a series of dates, eventually arriving in Hollywood in mid-March.  Along the way, Glenn jettisoned vocalist Dorothy Claire, who, despite her fine vocal style, had not been a good fit with the band and leader.  She returned to Bobby Byrne’s band as if her two-month Miller stint had never happened. Though only heard on a handful of records, she left behind  a legacy of classy singing on a number of airchecks.

Dorothy Claire rehearses with Glenn

As her replacement, Miller signed Paula Kelly, who just happened to be the wife of Modernaire Hal Dickenson.  Paula had been singing with the Dick Stabile and Al Donahue bands since 1938 and was a natural for the Miller band. Though not the strongest solo vocalist, she slotted in perfectly with the Modernaires, with whom she would be most often heard.

Paula Kelly

Once at 20th Century Fox, the band began rehearsing and routining the new arrangements for the soundtrack of Sun Valley Serenade. The film starred dimpled Sonja Henie, the Norwegian Olympic Champion skating star.  After her amazing sports career ended, she signed with 20th Century Fox in 1936 for a series of very popular skating musicals. Though she came across on-screen as sweet and rather simple, Henie was a tough businesswoman who demanded and got top money from studio head Darryl Zanuck.  Wisely realizing that Henie’s dimples and several skating numbers were not enough to support a successful film, Zanuck surrounded the star from the beginning with an array of seasoned stars and supporting players.

In her movies, Sonja romanced Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, Cesar Romero, Ray Milland and Robert Cummings, while comedians Joan Davis, Ethel Merman, the Ritz Brothers, Buddy Ebsen, Gypsy Rose Lee, Arthur Treacher and the Condos Brothers sang and danced. The formula worked, as all of the Henie ice epics were big hits.

Sun Valley Serenade, Henie’s seventh Fox film, was designed to fit snugly into the pattern. John Payne was the love interest, Lynn Bari supplied romantic conflict and comedy would be provided by young up-and-comer Milton Berle, raucous Joan Davis (whose role was severely truncated in the editing process), the dancing Nicholas Brothers and singer Dorothy Dandridge. Since big band musicals were highly popular, the Miller band was added for extra punch.  Glenn had held off from appearing in films until he had enough clout to insist upon the best screen presentation of his organization in an “A” picture.

In the early 1940s. it was said that big bands got big parts in “B” pictures and small parts in “A” pictures.  Top bands like Artie Shaw and Tommy Dorsey, for example, got short shrift in films like Dancing Co-ed and Las Vegas Nights.  By integrating the band into the plot of Sun Valley Serenade, the scriptwriters gave Glenn what he wanted. The band is seen and heard throughout and is the driving force behind the plot, silly though it may be. Unfortunately, in doing so, several of Glenn’s top people were squeezed out of the film. With John Payne playing the band’s pianist/male vocalist, Chummy MacGregor and Ray Eberle were shunted off to the sidelines.  Chummy only appears during CHATTANOOGA CHOO-CHOO, while Payne is off skiing with Henie and Eberle is left totally in the snow, which must have upset him.

John Payne & Lynn Bari with Willie Schwartz & Tex Beneke in the background

Lynn Bari plays the band’s singer (utilizing the luscious voice of Pat Friday), but Paula Kelly and the Modernaires, along with Tex Beneke, do get their time in the screen spotlight. Songwriters Harry Warren and Mack Gordon must have been inspired by the chance to write for the Miller band, as some of their very best compositions would wind up in Glenn’s two films.

The band also received the best sound recording it would ever get, years ahead of the fidelity achieved by their RCA studio recordings. The film studios recorded music and voices using multiple microphones on multiple channels (termed “stems” or “angles” at that time).   They were not yet attempting to produce multichannel stereophonic recordings. The various “angles” were mixed down to produce a monaural single-channel soundtrack, but with the luxury of highlighting various instruments or sections. For example, when the camera panned across an orchestra, you might hear different instruments coming to the fore and then receding.

In cases where the studios preserved the multiple angles, a form of stereo could be newly mixed for later video and theater releases, as was done in the 1990s for The Wizard of Oz. Both Miller films were mixed for stereo when issued on VHS in the late 1980s, with pretty miraculous results. So far, only Orchestra Wives has had an official DVD release in the United States.

At the time the films were made, 20^th Century Fox produced albums of  78s featuring most of the final soundtrack performances for in-house distribution and also for cast & crew souvenirs. These are the first and only 78 issues of the movie tracks.

When The Glenn Miller Story was released in 1954 to popular acclaim (and $7 million at the box office), Decca’s soundtrack album hit #1 for 10 weeks on the Billboard charts. RCA cobbled together an album of the same songs in Glenn’s original performances and that stayed at #1 for 11 weeks!

Hoping to cash in on Miller Mania, 20^th Century-Fox re-released both of Glenn’s films theatrically as a double-feature package and struck gold there, too. RCA Victor licensed those soundtracks from Fox and created two 10-inch LPs, including most of the numbers from the films and several unused tracks as well.

In 1959, with 10-inch LPs out of favor, RCA would likely have combined the two albums onto a single 12-inch LP.  20th Fox Records apparently yanked the rights back and produced their own 2-LP set of Miller film music, which added several “new” numbers, left others off or truncated them.  In order to have the most complete original issue of Glenn’s Fox soundtracks, both RCA and Fox albums are required listening.

We’ll discuss the actual Miller music in the next installment!