Lorenz (Larry) Hart, a name that may no longer ring any bells, was one of the keystones of the American Songbook. Hart, as lyricist, and Richard Rodgers, as composer, were the equals of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and George Gershwin. They wrote musicals in the ‘20s and ‘30s, but mostly they are remembered for their songs. Rodgers and Hart wrote, to mention just a few, “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “I Could Write a Book,” “I Wish I Were in Love Again,” “Manhattan,” as in I’ll take Manhattan, “The Lady Is a Tramp,” “This Can’t Be Love” and “Blue Moon,” the song he absolutely hated, but one that is still paying and paying and paying.
Hart was a complicated man. He could fill a book with pages of self-loathing. Hart was a very short (5 feet tall on a good day), not very attractive (he considered himself ugly), closeted Jewish gay man (an open secret on Broadway) who lived with his mother until the day he died. None of this was a professional stumbling block; it was his rampant alcoholism and lack of reliability that broke up his 20-year collaboration with Richard Rodgers and drove him to Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom he had an even more successful collaboration. Rodgers, who wrote on a regular schedule, from morning until dinner, was hamstrung by his partner’s lack of self-discipline. His lyrics were pungent, romantic, acerbic and brilliant, but his lack of work ethic was intolerable. Clubbing from dinner till dawn, reluctantly waking after noon, Rodgers could no longer tolerate Hart’s hungover presence at the end of his working day. He tried repeatedly to get Hart the help he needed, but Hart always fell back into his old habits. I tell you all of this because you will get very little history of Hart’s importance or relationships in Richard Linklater’s very flawed film, “Blue Moon.”
Opening on a dark, dimly lit alley outside an anonymous bar, Hart has stumbled and cannot get up. He died of pneumonia shortly thereafter. Cut to a glamorous theater and the 1943 opening night of “Oklahoma,” full cast singing the rousing first number about corn as high as an elephant’s eye to rapturous applause. A sour Hart, seated next to a bejeweled and overdressed older woman, his mother, stands and exits. Unable to watch further, he walks across the street to Sardi’s, the famous Broadway restaurant known for celebrity caricatures on the walls and its opening night parties. A regular at that bar, he cajoles Eddie, the bartender, into pouring him a whiskey. It’s clear that Eddie has been previously instructed not to serve Hart any alcohol, but they’re friends and Larry can be very convincing. And so starts the long (very long) monologue that Larry carries on about the new love of his life, Elizabeth Weiland, a Yale undergraduate 27 years his junior. Eyebrows raised, Eddie indicates that he thought Larry’s interests lay elsewhere. Nevertheless, he’s smitten and drones on and on about this relationship. Sitting in a corner is E.B. White, the famous author of “The Elements of Style,” “New Yorker” essays and “Charlotte’s Web.” This is the first of unnecessary conceits as White was famously shy, drank little and avoided social interactions. The wise pundit to Hart’s melancholy, the interactions ring false.
Larry’s diatribe isn’t just on the vicissitudes of his proclaimed love for Elizabeth, who has just arrived to greet him, but also for how much he loathed “Oklahoma,” a musical destined to live forever and one whose sentimentality is making him sick, literally and figuratively. It panders to the unwashed masses who live in the hinterlands and proclaims false joy and hope to those who should know better. His disdain is limitless, all with an undercurrent of jealousy for Rodgers’ new partner, Oscar Hammerstein. Not alluded to in the film was that Rodgers had wanted Hart to contribute to his collaboration with Hammerstein on “Oklahoma,” but his personal habits torpedoed that possibility. Contrary to Hart’s insinuations, Hammerstein was not a sentimental hack. Hammerstein was one of the originators of the book musical, where songs and dancing followed the story and not the reverse. His previous musical collaborator was Jerome Kern. Together they wrote “Showboat,” a musical not renowned for sentimentality and gave the world “Old Man River.”
As the clock ticks past 11 p.m., the cast of “Oklahoma” arrives for their party as they await the critics’ reviews. The creators, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, enter to waves of applause. Not coincidentally, the room and its inhabitants are bathed in a bright light contrasting markedly with the somber lighting in the bar. Among other things Hart hates is that Rodgers chose a very tall, very big man as his new partner. Larry approaches Richard, Richard reacts with trepidation knowing that there are no good endings with Larry. Falsely proclaiming his love for the play, one that he had seen many times out of town, Larry still is able to decry what he considers its overt sentimentality and Roger’s desertion of him. A skeptical Rodgers tries valiantly to extricate himself, reviewing their past relationship and why it broke up. Still, he patiently listens to Hart’s latest uncooked idea, while throwing him a lifeline, proposing a revival of one of their past hits, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.”
The night drags on and so does Hart. On and on and on and on. One becomes grateful that the evening is ending and so, not very ironically, is Hart who will be dead within the year.
There are multiple reasons this film doesn’t work. First and foremost, it is all talk and no action, primarily because the talk isn’t very interesting. The Hart one comes to know, and loathe rather than pity, is an annoying, whiny man who complains incessantly about his height, lack of respect, isolation and abandonment issues without any recognition or insight into his own personal failings. The man known for his quick wit is humorless. Some of this might have worked if there had been a way to incorporate his backstory in a non-expositional manner. Richard Linklater, a very accomplished director and writer, saddled himself with the inexperienced Robert Kaplow, whose only previous writing credit was another film Linklater directed, “Me and Orson Welles,” in 2008. The story is, unfortunately, tedious and most of the acting does not rise to the level of insightful or exciting. Ethan Hawke, as Hart, seems to be miscast. Cinematographer Shane F. Kelly was successful in making the 5’10” Hawke look short, using a body double when shooting from behind. Still, it was impossible not to constantly make a mental note about how they were shooting him, a distraction from the tedious dialogue. Hawke successfully imparts needy but neglects the more complex vulnerability. One longs for him to stop talking.
Bobby Cannavale as Eddie the bartender is given little to do other than an occasional “tsk tsk” while he pours another drink. Simon Delaney was, no doubt, cast as Oscar Hammerstein II because of his size. He’s given little to say and is saddled with one of the “gotcha” moments when he introduces his 13-year-old guest and neighbor, Stephen Sondheim. Yes, Sondheim was his neighbor and mentee, but the likelihood that he brought him, instead of his own children, to the premiere is next to nil. Even less likely is that he would have unleashed Sondheim to critique Hart’s lyrics. Like inserting E.B. White into the action or having Weegee photograph the opening party, these are false plot pushers; wink-winks to a public who might recognize the names in 21st-century terms.
There is, however, a very bright moment in an otherwise tedious film. Andrew Scott, as Richard Rodgers, is captivating the moment he enters the scene. Not relying on dialogue to draw character, his eyes and tight smile reveal empathy, sympathy and the finality of his divorce from the partner who gave him his start. In the short space of a few minutes, you understand Rodgers, how he had to reluctantly move on and the fact that Hart will always be a part of him but no longer with him. Their interaction, graced with very little dialogue from Hart, is insightful in a way that the rest of the film isn’t. Without a spare movement or dialogue, you know who Rodgers is. Definitely not a saint, the window into his reputation as a serial philanderer is seen when he absorbs Hart’s lady love, Elizabeth, into his entourage, all with small gestures, eyes that see only her in that moment and a minor piece of dismissive dialogue about his wife having gone ahead to the party at their apartment without him.
“Words and Music,” the 1948 film about Rodgers and Hart directed by Norman Taurog, was little better, glossing over Hart’s alcoholism and eliminating any hint that he liked boys. It was a disaster as a biography starring Mickey Rooney (realistically short at 5’2”) but at least it offered a full panoply of his music sung by the greatest stars of the day, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Lena Horne, Mel Tormé and many others. Would that Linklater had incorporated more music rather than just the occasional song played on the restaurant piano by a character called Morty Rifkin.
Opening Oct. 17 at the AMC Century City 15.
Neely Swanson spent most of her professional career in the television industry, almost all of it working for David E. Kelley. In her last full-time position as Executive Vice President of Development, she reviewed writer submissions and targeted content for adaptation. As she has often said, she did book reports for a living. For several years she was a freelance writer for “Written By,” the magazine of the WGA West, and was adjunct faculty at USC in the writing division of the School of Cinematic Arts. Neely has been writing film and television reviews for the “Easy Reader” for more than 10 years. Her past reviews can be read on Rotten Tomatoes where she is a tomatometer-approved critic.
