Friday Night Spotlight December 2014: Charles Walters

[Barton_Keyes]

December 5

GOOD NEWS (1947)...June Allyson and Peter Lawford

EASTER PARADE (1948)...Fred Astaire and Judy Garland

THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY (1949)...Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

THE BELLE OF NEW YORK (1952)...Fred Astaire and Vera-Ellen

THREE GUYS NAMED MIKE (1951)...Jane Wyman and Van Johnson

DU BARRY WAS A LADY (1943)...Red Skelton and Lucille Ball

 

December 12

SUMMER STOCK (1950)...Gene Kelly and Judy Garland

LILI (1953)...Leslie Caron and Mel Ferrer

DANGEROUS WHEN WET (1953)...Esther Williams and Fernando Lamas

TORCH SONG (1953)..Joan Crawford and Gig Young

TEXAS CARNIVAL (1951)...Esther Williams and Red Skelton

GIRL CRAZY (1943)...Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland

 

December 19

HIGH SOCIETY (1956)...Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly

THE GLASS SLIPPER (1955)...Leslie Caron and Michael Wilding

THE TENDER TRAP (1955)...Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds

EASY TO LOVE (1953)...Esther Williams and Van Johnson

DON'T GO NEAR THE WATER (1957)...Glenn Ford and Gia Scala

BEST FOOT FORWARD (1943)...Lucille Ball and Virginia Weidler

 

December 26

BILLY ROSE'S JUMBO (1962)...Doris Day and Jimmy Durante

THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN (1964)...Debbie Reynolds and Ed Begley

PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES (1960)...Doris Day and David Niven

TWO LOVES (1961)...Shirley MacLaine and Laurence Harvey

SUMMER HOLIDAY (1948)...Mickey Rooney and Gloria De Haven

 

[mr6666]

Friday Night Spotlight - Charles Walters

Director/Choreographer Charles "Chuck" Walters, one of the least heralded but most accomplished of the behind-the-scenes talents responsible for the great MGM musicals, is the focus of this month's installment of the popular TCM franchise Friday Night Spotlight. This Spotlight is programmed and hosted by Brent Phillips, author of the biography Charles Walters: The Director Who Made Hollywood Dance, published this month. Phillips currently serves as the media archivist at New York University.

 

ARTICLE: http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/1048210|0/Friday-Night-Spotlight-Charles-Walters.html

 

[mr6666]

the films aren't new to me,  but Charles Walters is.

[JamesJazGuitar]

the films aren't new to me,  but Charles Walters is.

 

So true.   When I saw the TCM post about Charles Walters I said to myself 'who is this guy? .   I saw the list of films and I have seen many of them and yea,  I really didn't pay attention to who the director of those films were.  

[AndrewSchone]

I have been aware of the many well made and highly enjoyable movies that Charles Walters directed.  One of the things he seemed to be great at was staging and directing small scale musical scenes between two or three people.  I first thought about this watching a cut song from "Dangerous When Wet" that's supplimental material on it's DVD.  Delightful interplay between the two actors.  Same with "Why Can't I?" from Jumbo, "I Remember It Well" and "The Night They Invented Champagne" which were directed by Walters on Gigi. 

[AndrewSchone]

Hey, I'm not really a "Newbee"; just had to re-register, due to kinks in TCM's message boards. 

 

Anyway, back to TCM's salute to Charles Walters.  The guest expert on Walters made a misleading answer when Robert Osborn asked him why "The Tender Trap" wasn't made into a musical.  He said "they" just weren't making original musicals at the time other than one's based on sucessful Broadway musicals.  This is a simplification at best.  It's true that musicals had started to lose the popularity they'd enjoyed previously by 1955.  But original musicals were still being made--for example in 1955 and 1956 "It's Always Fair Weather" "Meet Me In Las Vegas", "Funny Face" and "Two for the Show".

 

What I believe was true is that MGM was in financial trouble, musicals were comparitively expensive to make, and studio head Dory Sherry (spelling?) didn't care for musicals.  So MGM was cutting way back on their production of musicals; that is definitely true.