Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

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A complex, unhappy man...and probably the greatest theater composer America has produced.......2007-07-22

Compare the difference between the gorgeous, witty, romantic songs from a man who probably was America's most outstanding popular songwriter with these quotes about the man himself: "For somebody who gave such incredible pleasure to so many millions of people, not to have had the same kind of joy and contentment and comfort in his own life is just awful," says one of his daughters. She continues, "He was worried about all kinds of things, but he didn't talk about them." Says his other daughter, "He was deeply neurotic, deeply, and very unhappy unless he was writing."

Richard Rodgers was born in 1902. He starting composing when he was 9. He had his first show on Broadway when he was 18. He and his partner Larry Hart became Broadway's song-writing darlings with The Garrick Gaieties in 1925. Between then and the death of his second partner, Oscar Hammerstein II, in 1960 (Hart died in 1943), he had hit after hit on Broadway and an unparalleled catalogue of marvelous songs. When Rodgers died in 1979 at the age of 77, a survivor of jaw cancer, a stroke, a heart attack, depression, a laryngectomy and alcoholism, his latest show had just opened. "He had one interest," said an observer, "and that was to write music to stories for the stage."

Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Songs is in my view the best of the documentaries on America's great theater composers. During the period from the early Twenties through the Forties, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter were outdoing themselves in creating what later came to be known as The Great American Songbook. With one or two exceptions, most of the shows these men wrote their songs for have been long forgotten. Their songs, however, are still with us. Rodgers, alone among them, steadily moved from songs simply placed into shows to shows with stories which were important and where the songs were integral to telling the story. Alone among them, Rodgers created shows, especially with Hammerstein, that still are produced, from high school drama club presentations to Broadway revivals. This documentary takes us through Rodgers' life, his partners, his shows and his development as one of the most important theater people America has ever produced. Unlike so many cozy, complimentary biographies of admired people, the program faces up to the often uncomfortable conflicts, in Rodgers' case between what he wrote and how he dealt with life, other people and his own needs. He seemed to be so self-isolated a person that he only came alive when he was working. It's startling to realize, for instance, that the man who could write such tender, emotional waltzes as "Out of My Dreams," "Do I Hear a Waltz," "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" and "Wait 'Til You See Her" was so frozen even his family couldn't get close.

One of the reasons this nearly two-hour documentary is so effective is because it uses shrewdly-chosen pieces of archival material, interviews with family members and theater professionals, excellent current singers such as Mary Clare Haran and a wide variety of contemporary clips from Rodgers' shows. The production is comprehensive but it keeps moving. For anyone who likes the great theater songs from the Twenties, Thirties and Forties and is interested in the men who wrote them, this documentary is essential viewing. To understand Richard Rodgers and just how good he was, I recommend getting a copy of Alec Wilder's incomparable American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950. And for a solid biography of Rodgers, look for Meryle Secrest's Somewhere for Me. The DVD includes as extras a comprehensive list of Rodgers' theater, movie and television productions.

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