Saturday, June 12, 2010

Flower Drum Song' s "I Enjoy Being A Girl" | GAP Commercial Video Clip

Flower Drum Song is a 1961 film adaptation of the 1958 Broadway musical play Flower Drum Song, written by the composer Richard Rodgers and the lyricist/librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The film and stage play were based on the 1957 novel of the same name by the Chinese American author C.Y. Lee. This movie was unusual (for its time) in featuring nearly all Asian American cast members (one of the few speaking Caucasian parts being that of a mugger), including dancers, though two of the singing voices were not by Asian ones. Starring in this movie were Nancy Kwan, James Shigeta, Benson Fong, James Hong, Reiko Sato and the original Broadway cast members Jack Soo, Miyoshi Umeki and Juanita Hall (an African American actress who previously played the Pacific Islander Bloody Mary in the Broadway and film productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific).
Among various changes for the film, the song "Like a God" was changed from a song into a beat poetry presentation. The singing voice of the character "Linda Low" was that of B. J. Baker, a non-Asian studio singer who had worked with Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, the Righteous Brothers, and Sam Cooke. The song "Love, Look Away" was also dubbed in by the American opera singer Marilyn Horne.
In 2008, Flower Drum Song was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Although the score of Flower Drum Song did not produce many hit tunes, its song "I Enjoy Being A Girl" has been widely used in other movies. The song has become familiar to many Americans, perhaps most recently with Sarah Jessica Parker in a nationally telecast Gap company commercial. It was covered by the lesbian folksinger Phranc. As of October 2006, there were 13 versions of the song on YouTube, including performances by Pat Suzuki and parodies based on Harry Potter and Battlestar Galactica.


Here's the Gap commercial as well as the original rendition from the film:

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Funny Girl

Fanny Brice (October 29, 1891 – May 29, 1951) was a popular and influential American illustrated song "model," comedienne, singer, theatre and film actress, who made many stage, radio and film appearances but is best remembered as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show. Thirteen years after her death, she was portrayed on the Broadway stage by Barbra Streisand in the musical Funny Girl and its 1968 film adaption.
Funny Girl is a 1968 American musical film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart was adapted from her book for the stage musical of the same title. It is based on the life and career of Broadway and film star and comedienne Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein.
The film was produced by Brice's son-in-law, Ray Stark. The score is by Bob Merrill (lyrics) and Jule Styne (music).

Barbra Streisand, reprising her Broadway role, won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, an honor she shared with Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter.
In 2006, the American Film Institute ranked the film #16 on its list commemorating 100 Years of Musicals. Previously it had ranked the film #41 in its 2002 list of 100 Years ... 100 Passions, the songs "People" and "Don't Rain on My Parade" at #13 and #46, respectively, in its 2004 list of 100 Years ... 100 Songs, and the line "Hello, gorgeous" at #81 in its 2005 list of 100 Years ... 100 Movie Quotes.

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