Inspecting a magical biographical stage musical, composer Cole Porter reviews his life and career with his wife, Linda.Inspecting a magical biographical stage musical, composer Cole Porter reviews his life and career with his wife, Linda.Inspecting a magical biographical stage musical, composer Cole Porter reviews his life and career with his wife, Linda.
- Awards
- 2 wins & 13 nominations
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- Writer
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaMany scenes in the film are actually one continuous shot. The scene where Cole is visiting the gentleman's club during the song "Love For Sale" is a good example. The scene is supposed to be representing three different times where Cole was in the club. Most of the dancers are costume personnel who would perform costume changes on other actors and themselves and then walk back into the shot. Even the singer changes hair pieces and earrings in this shot.
- GoofsThe scene depicting the song "So In Love" on the opening night of "Kiss Me, Kate" depicts the song as a duet between the two leads during the show's Shakespearean play-within-a-play. In "Kiss Me, Kate," "So In Love" is not a duet. Both of the leads do sing solo versions of the song at a different point in the show, however neither takes place in the play-within-a-play.
- Quotes
Monty Woolley: Cole, he's only an actor but he still may be right. He's tried it 7 times already, the song's a problem.
Cole Porter: The song is not a problem, it's a challenge. Jack! Jack my boy, how can I help you? Ask me anything.
Jack: Write another song.
Cole Porter: Oh God, that cuts me right to the quick. I know it's God awful but it's the best I can do and we open in three days.
Jack: Where do you get your ideas?
Cole Porter: I get them all from a little Chinese man in Poughkeepsie.
Jack: Mr Porter, the song goes so high and so low it's impossible.
Cole Porter: It's not impossible. I wrote this with you in mind, I can sing it and I have a range of three notes.
- SoundtracksIn the Still of the Night
Performed by Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd
Written by Cole Porter
Published by Warner Bros., Inc. / Chappell & Co, Inc. (ASCAP)
Produced by Stephen Endelman and Peter Asher
From the opening scenes, the vehicle of "De-Lovely"'s presentation was both an annoyance and a distraction. Was this a bio trying to become a musical; or was it a musical trying to be a bio? While this last observation may be my own singular and subjective problem, I squirmed mentally as I tried to figure out whether the makeup artists wanted to make Kevin Kline look like an aging Jeff Daniels, or a real-time Carl Reiner?
It would be nearly impossible to destroy Porter's music; the quality is there regardless of the interpretation. However, the matching of score selection to fragments of Porter's life, professional development and composing venues is a tawdry hodge-podge, put together like a 1940s 7th grader who scores 37% on an American History matching-columns exam. Some of the costumes, stagings and vocals are ludicrous: the costuming and set design for the Venetian duet, two people who appear not to like each other or the fit of their costumes; and the feeble-voiced crooning of a "Mountie" [Nelson Eddy - sound alike]: NOT!
Then there is the presentation of Porter, the man [Kline] and his long-suffering wife [Ashley Judd, excellent with the role she's given]. We can accept the idiosyncratic behavior of genius; we can appreciate a reasonable degree of self-absorption; we can empathize with a free spirit, suddenly crippled and dependent on others. Mrs. Porter knew exactly what she was getting when she entered the marriage; and while we can empathize with her fraying patience, we might expect a bit more fire from a woman whose husband is presented as sexual and social gadabout concerned only with his own gratification, except when the deeper muse is upon him. Finally, there is the staged number with Louis B. Mayer, which itself, would make the MGM lion dyspeptic. Porter may have been an intellectual snob; and Mayer may have been a boorish bully, but Mayer wasn't stupid.
Even in its presentation of Cole's homosexuality, we are introduced to a trite parade of pretty boys; and, within this shallow presentation, we are expected to see deep, caring relationships. It's been years since I've read a Porter biography, but the viewer might better have been served by suggestion: a lone Porter, for example, headed for the city tenderloin, or a seedy bar down by the waterfront, with the camera fading without further graphic explanation. Porter's encounters weren't all that "pretty."
Ahhh, the music. For me there were three show-stoppers, among them Elvis Costello's "Let's Misbehave." My wife and I, both 21+ X 3 + a bunch. thoroughly enjoyed Sheryl Crowe's minor key and roving "Begin the Beguine." It was a refreshing treatment of a Porter standard, which, although cleverly composed and worded, had become cliché in its title and too rigidly fixed in its arrangements. Crowe tosses out her usually fragile vocalizing; shows her musicianship in her rendering, and best of all, sings and phrases as a mature woman, not a whining little girl. Whether the precise Porter would have approved, I can't say; but Crowe gives the song a well-deserved rebirth.
Best of all is the top-notch performance of "Let's Do It," by Alanis Morissette: her vibratto; her full-of-fun, carefree delivery; her meticulously clear enunciation of the fast-flowing words are superb. The lady nails it!
The movie is a terrible disappointment; but it's not the music that brings it down. It is the trivializing of a privileged, yet tragic life. Its sole salvation is the wedding of gifted contemporary vocalists, with priceless old standards; and it may bring about performance revitalization and longevity enhancement for both.
- finemot
- Aug 22, 2004
Details
- Release date
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- Also known as
- Just One of Those Things
- Filming locations
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- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $15,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $13,456,633
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $292,963
- Jul 4, 2004
- Gross worldwide
- $18,611,951
- Runtime2 hours 5 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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