Eind november 2019 was er op BBC 2 in de namiddag een musicalweek. Nu heb ik doorgaans een hekel aan musicals, maar het betrof hier ouder werk en, als ik dat nog niet heb gezien, ben ik altijd wel nieuwsgierig, ook al omdat ik ervan uit ga dat het de laatste keer is dat ik de kans krijg om de film te zien. Zo heb ik naar “Half a sixpence” gekeken van George Sidney (foto YouTube) uit 1967. Sidney is vandaag precies twintig jaar dood.
Opvallend daarbij is dat deze film zo’n flop was, zowel aan de kassa als bij de critici, dat Sidney er meteen de brui heeft aan gegeven. Hij was nochtans pas 51 jaar. Een drastische beslissing en misschien wat overhaast, maar ik kan toch moeilijk tegen de algemene vaststelling ingaan. Al was het maar omwille van de tijdsomstandigheden. We zijn dus immers in 1967: the summer of love, het Monterey Pop Festival, Sgt.Pepper’s lonely heartsclub band… En dan komt hij met zoiets oubolligs af!
Sidney was born to a Hungarian Jewish family in Long Island City, New York. Both Sidney’s parents were actors and Sidney began acting as a child on stage and in silent films. He worked also as a musician.
Sidney got a job at MGM as a messenger and worked his way up to office boy. He moved into directing screen tests and second unit as well as taking stills. Sidney was assigned to direct the Our Gang comedies, which MGM had just acquired from Hal Roach, in 1938. Sidney, then age 21, was the youngest Our Gang senior director the series would have.
After a year of working on Our Gang shorts, Sidney moved on to the Crime Does Not Pay series and popular Pete Smith specialties. Sidney graduated to directing features with Free and Easy (1941). He followed it with Pacific Rendezvous (1942) and Pilot No. 5 (1942). He then worked his way into directing large scale musicals such as The Harvey Girls (1946), The Three Musketeers (1948), Annie Get Your Gun (1950), and Kiss Me Kate (1953).
Sidney left MGM to make The Eddy Duchin Story (1956) at Columbia Pictures where he made his base for the next decade for such films as Jeanne Eagels (1957), Pal Joey (1957), Who Was That Lady? (1960), Pepe (1960), and Bye Bye Birdie (1963). He would return to MGM to film A Ticklish Affair (1963) and Elvis Presley‘s Viva Las Vegas (1964) naar een scenario van Sally Benson, de schrijfster van het boek waarop “Meet me in St.Louis” is gebaseerd. Sidney’s laatste film was, zoals gezegd, Half a Sixpence (1967).
Hoe ingrijpend zijn beslissing was om te stoppen, mag blijken uit deze cijfers: in 1966, Variety listed Sidney as the director with the most films earning rentals of $4,000,000 or more in the United States and Canada with 12 films on the list with a total rental of $57.25 million. Based on the rentals listed for other directors, his ranking was fourth based on total rentals. His top performing films were Bye Bye Birdie, The Eddy Duchin Story, Show Boat, Pepe, Pal Joey, Viva Las Vegas, Annie Get Your Gun, Anchors Aweigh, The Harvey Girls, The Three Musketeers, Cass Timberlane, and Holiday in Mexico. He was ranked second 11 years later.
George Sidney was married three times: first to Lillian Burns, then to Jane Robinson (van 1973 tot 1991), and finally to Corinne Cole from 1991 until his death in 2002 from complications of lymphoma in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the age of 85. (Wikipedia)
dagelijks iets degelijks 