Donald O'Connor had the misfortune to play second banana to Gene Kelly in the greatest musical of all. He had his moments but it's Kelly's rain-soaked street solo that everyone remembers. O'Connor does a bit of best mate stuff and some zany dancing in the Make 'em laugh number but it's Kelly and Debbie Reynolds to the forefront.
"What else has Donald O'Connor been in?" was the question and the immediate YouTube answer was Call Me Madam and There's No Business Like Show Business. Superb copies including full Cinemascope for No Business which you can find if you click on each film's title. And at least when we watched, totally uninterrupted by other than a single advertisement before each film started.
In each O'Connor gets to do a seriously good solo... and in each he has to deal with the greatest song belter of them all Ethel Merman. Cole Porter is reported to have said: "When you write lyrics for Ethel Merman they'd better be good because everyone's going to hear them.''
Both of the films originate from that period in the early 50s into the 60s when Fox made some big budget, somewhat bloated musicals. Merman had starred in Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam on Broadway. It was a huge success and Merman recreated her Broadway role. O'Connor was brought in to play the brash young press attache Kenneth Gibson. O'Connor has two brilliant numbers, the first a solo song and dance and the second a number with the gorgeous Vera-Ellen. (13 shots in 4'46" and 13 shots in 5'04" respectively, the economy in the filming is remarkable) and Vera-Ellen demonstrates once again what a phenomenal dancer she was. Her singing voice was however dubbed. More of the O'Connor/Vera-Ellen magic is on show in one of the various iterations of "It's A Lovely Day Today".
Fox had Merman and O'Connor back in harness within a year with There's No Business Like Show Business. The star ensemble was added to by Dan Dailey, Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Ray and Mitzi Gaynor, to make a backstage showbiz family story of ups and downs and happy endings. Sixteen numbers ranging by Irving Berlin, with the title song lifted from another Merman/Irving Berlin show Annie Get Your Gun. And that was basically it for Merman's starring screen career.
During this time O'Connor was saddled (pardon the pun) himself with a contract at Universal. Wikipedia comes to the rescue for a succinct summary. "In 1949, O'Connor played the lead role in Francis, the story of a soldier befriended by a talking mule. Directed by Arthur Lubin, the film was a huge success. As a consequence, his musical career was constantly interrupted by production of one Francis film per year until 1955. O'Connor later said the films "were fun to make. Actually, they were quite challenging. I had to play straight in order to convince the audience that the mule could talk.
"He did Francis Goes to the Races (1951), another big hit. In February 1951 he signed a new contract with Universal for one film a year for four years, enabling him to work outside the studio.
"He received excellent notices for Francis Joins the WACS (1954) and was scheduled to play Bing Crosby's partner in White Christmas (1954). O'Connor was forced to withdraw because he contracted an illness transmitted by the mule." That's showbiz.
...and for another sample of Vera-Ellen's magic here's her Miss Sadie Thompson number from Love Happy
...and dancing with Fred Astaire in Three Little Words
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