Silver Bells: The Voice of Carol Richards

 Singing and dancing! The fabulous world of the silver screen musical. If you really pay attention, you will notice that a musical can have singing and no dancing, but I have never seen one that has dancing but no singing. Dancing is practically inseparable from singing in the movie musical. Most dance numbers are performed to a popular tune that is vocalized at some point in the film. Ever wonder how so many talented dancers in Hollywood were great singers as well? To tell the truth . . . not all of them were. Some did there own singing: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Ann Miller. Others did not. They would simply lip-sync to a song that had been previously recorded by a singer. (At least this was not a painful process. Better than singers who couldn't dance. They never did find a way to dub dancing!) Some of the more famous dancer who did not posses a perfect singing voice were Cyd Charisse, Vera-Ellen, and Eleanor Powell. However, Miss Powell was only dubbed in the first half of her career. From 1940 on, she did her own vocals. Cyd Charisse and Vera-Ellen, however, were practically tone deaf and were always dubbed. If you are really tuned into the on-screen singing voices of these two dancers, you would notice a certain resemblance. . .

Carol Richards (sometimes spelled Carole) was born Carol Vosburgh in 1922 in Illinois. She performed from a young age and was a frequent radio and television show guest performer. Over the years she sang with a couple bands and appeared at nightclubs. She is best remembered for the hit Christmas record, "Silver Bells", which paired her with famed singer Bing Crosby. However, you can hear her voice in several very well-known and popular film musicals when she provided the singing voice for two very famous dancers - Vera-Ellen in Call Me Madam and Cyd Charisse in Brigadoon, Deep In My Heart, It's Always Fair Weather, and Silk Stockings. 

Once you know that it is the same vocalist, it is obvious when you sit and compare the different numbers and recordings. Happily, there is a chance to see the face behind the voice. Miss Richards appeared in the I Love Lucy episode, "The Indian Show" (1953). She is Desi Arnaz's band singer, Juanita, who sings the hauntingly beautiful "By the Waters of the Minnetonka". So, next time you sit down to watch a classic movie musical, be sure to notice the singing voices of the non-singer stars! It may lead you to a fun and interesting story behind-the-scenes.

Three Minutes of Melody

I found a very interesting article in one of my old Deanna Durbin scrapbooks. It appears to be from a music magazine, and describes everything that goes into making one three minute song in a film.

"In her newest starring vehicle, "IT'S A DATE" (Universal), Deanna Durbin sings Musetta's Song from "La Boheme"; Loch Lomand; Schubert's Ave Maria; and Love Is All, by P. Tomlin and H. Tobias. A scientifically minded film fan, holding a stop watch on the average Durbin song, would discover that he was getting three minutes of melody. What he could not discover is that he is also getting the benefit of several pieces of chalk, five hundred fifty feet of celluloid, and seven hundred seventy-six work hours of ninety-seven experts. The singing itself, which seems no more complicated than allowing Miss Durbin to send out her tones, is in reality a very involved piece of work.

Take, for instance, the rendition of Musetta's Song. The aria is first sung into a microphone in a sound room, to the accompaniment of a fifty piece orchestra, under the direction of Charles Previn. The chalk was used to write the words of the song in large letters on a blackboard high on the wall facing Miss Durbin, as is the custom in all screen singing. In the action of the picture, Miss Durbin sang the aria again, in a Hawaiian ballroom scene. This time it was photographed but not recorded, her silently filmed lip movements being later synchronized to the previously recorded song. For her gown in this scene, used once and then discarded, the services of one designer and six seamstresses were needed. Also, active in the "shooting" were one make-up man, one hairdresser, one script girl, two camera men, one assistant director, one dialogue director, and an orchestra of fifteen musicians, whose accompaniment, like the photographed song, were filmed but not recorded. An average eight hour work day was expended by each of these experts, either in filming or recording; and other specialists in the cutting room, the library, and various departments, complement the full count of ninety-seven experts needed to bring a single song to the public."

(Here are some photos of Deanna Durbin recording "I Love to Whistle" for her 1938 film, Mad About Music.)

"Lovely to look at, delightful to know" . . . Irene Dunne Remembers

"Lovely to look at, delightful to know . . . "

Composer Jerome Kern wrote this song especially for actress Irene Dunne, who starred in the 1935 film version of the hit musical play. Here she tells a funny story about filming the number.

'... the thing I'm proudest of was the song he wrote for me for Roberta, 'Lovely To Look At'. To show you how the mind can play tricks, I got so nervous over the song because I knew I'd have to be lovely to look at walking down that staircase, singing the song, that I got no sleep the night before and when I went in the next morning , the cameraman told the director, 'I'm not going to shoot her today. Tha's all there is too it. She'll have to go home and sleep'. We waited for a day or two, I rested up and then we shot it. . . . but the song I'm known for - if I walk into some place where they know me, they play 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes'."

"A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody . . ."

One of the most spectacular musical extravaganza numbers, "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" from "The Great Ziegfeld", won an Oscar for Best Dance Direction. Costing over $200,000 (almost the same amount the real Ziegfeld spent on an enitre show), featuring more than 175 performers, and using 4,300 yards of Rayon for the gigantic curtains, this can't help but be a spectacular musical number. A young Dennis Morgan is featured as the solo singer, although - for some unknown reason - the studio dubbed him, and it is actually Allan Jones' voice that you hear singing. The song was written by the legendary Irving Berlin for the real "Ziegfeld Follies of 1919".



"A pretty girl is like a melody
That haunts you night and day,
Just like the strain of a haunting refrain,
She'll start up-on a marathon
And run around your brain.
You can't escape she's in your memory.
By morning night and noon.
She will leave you and then come back again,
A pretty girl is just like a pretty tune."