Sweet Charity’s Sisterly Sourcing and Songs

The Sourcing

The Broadway musical Sweet Charity opened in 1966 to rave reviews, sweeping up nine Tony nominations and winning one, lasting for a respectable 600+ performances and then being revived many times, both in the US and abroad. Bob Fosse won the Tony for choreography and then ended up directing the film version, his directorial debut in that genre. Everybody could be pretty happy about how this story about “a girl who wanted to be loved” turned out. But where did the idea for the whole thing come from in the first place?

All sources I’ve consulted agree that the precursor to the plot of Sweet Charity was the 1957 film by famous Italian director Federico Fellini called Nights of Cabiria, which concerns an ever-hopeful prostitute who never loses her optimism that someday she’ll find true love and happiness. And where did he get the idea for the plot, you ask? Well, often the source of ideas is completely unknown, even to the artist him/herself. (One of the most irritating questions you can ask an author is, “Where do you get the ideas for your books?” The only legitimate answer is usually a shrug, perhaps accompanied by an eye roll.) But for this story we do have at least somewhat of a source, probably gleaned from Fellini’s letters or other papers. It’s not terribly upbeat: “The film took its inspiration from news reports of a woman’s severed head retrieved in a lake and stories by Wanda, a shantytown prostitute Fellini met” on the set of a previous movie. (Wikipedia) The mystery of creativity, of course, is that lots of other people had read that head-in-the-lake story, and Wanda probably talked to lots of other people on the film set. But only Fellini got the idea of making those disparate elements into a movie. He started the film with his main character ending up in the river, not a lake, and still in possession of her head—but having been pushed in by her cad of a boyfriend who then stole all of her money. The story went on from there with Cabiria going from cad to cad; at the end she was left alone but still hopeful.

Ten years passed. Bob Fosse, a dancer, choreographer and director, was in the market for a vehicle starring his wife, dancer Gwen Verdon, and (I’m guessing here) was a Fellini fan. (All the cool kids were.) Something about the “prostitute with a heart of gold” treatment in Fellini’s film appealed to him and he developed the idea of turning it into a musical that he would direct and choreograph, with Verdon playing the lead role as the ever-hopeful Charity Valentine. Fosse realized at some point that centering the whole story around an actual prostitute just wasn’t going to fly with 1960’s American audiences, so Charity instead ended up being portrayed as a “taxi dancer” or “dancer for hire” or “dance hall hostess,” someone who’s paid a certain amount of money for each man who dances with her. (The idea was that men bought tickets and had to give their partners one ticket per dance; at the end of the evening the girls would turn in their tickets to get paid. In some places the girls would also get a commission on the drinks that they got their partners to buy.) In the 1969 movie version we’re told that Charity’s been at this uninspiring job for eight years, always looking for her true love to show up. In the meantime she fends off unwanted advances by the men who pay to dance with her; at one point she says to the dance hall’s manager that her job consists of “defending herself to music.” The question of whether or not Charity has always stayed completely businesslike with her clients is left a little hazy, though; she does say at one point that “I dance with strange men, and I drink with them, and sometimes, . . . sometimes . . .” She leaves it hanging what “sometimes” means.

Anyway, Fosse had this idea, but while he planned to do the choreography and to direct he needed others to do what he couldn’t, which was to write the music, lyrics, and “book.” These roles were filled by Cy Coleman, Dorothy Fields, and Neil Simon respectively. (The “book” consists of the spoken dialogue and the stage directions excluding choreography. Sometimes the poor beleaguered book writer is handed a basic storyline and a handful of songs and then has to fit all of that material together into a coherent whole. If you ever find yourself wondering during a big musical number what on earth it has to do with the actual plotline, well, now you know.) Follow the Wikipedia links given if you’d like to know more about these three tremendously-talented people in the theater world. Oh, and I must mention that while Verdon was huge hit with her portrayal of Charity on the Broadway stage, she was considered too “mature” at age 44 to play the same role in the movie, so the decade-younger Shirley MacLaine was cast. And Fosse asked if Verdon would help with directing the choreography, thus putting her in the position of coaching her replacement! Obviously the woman was a saint, because she apparently did the job well.

The Songs

Now, on to the two numbers from the musical that have become quite popular as choral arrangements. “Hey, Big Spender” is the first big song-and-dance number in the show, but if you’ve always pictured it as something cheerfully come-hitherish, well, you’re mistaken—as I was until I watched the movie. In reality the women singing are kind of tired and emotionally detached. Most choirs give it a lot of pizzaz, and rightly so. In its actual dramatic context, though, I’d challenge you to find one woman who even smiles. The moves are almost mechanical, the faces solemn, the gestures without enthusiasm. We’re told repeatedly throughout the story that the Fandango Dance Hall is a “dump.” Charity and her friends can’t wait to get out of there, and it shows.

As for “The Rhythm of Life,” that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish. To research it I began where I usually do: the original performance. But after I looked up the scene in the movie I was very puzzled. What on earth was going on? The words didn’t match our sheet music and the scene was clearly of some kind of scammy cult; as those lyrics said, “Daddy, there’s a million pigeons waitin’ to be hooked on new religions.” There are references to drug use in the dialogue and clouds of smoke that we can safely assume aren’t from tobacco—and the scene ends with the police raiding the “church” service, which is taking place in an underground parking garage. How does this even fit in with the story at all? Well, it doesn’t very well. We’re supposed to believe that Charity’s new boyfriend Oscar the shy accountant has gotten on the mailing list for a “church of the month” club, with this one being the current selection. In reality, I think someone (probably Fosse) realized that there was a need/scope for a big production number at about that point in the film. The original Fellini version had Cabiria visit a church and ask to be granted goodness; Fosse changed this wholesome idea into a very fun and elaborate star turn for Sammy Davis Jr., who plays the part of the cult preacher “Daddy” as a New Age-y hippie who has no relevance to the plot and never shows up again.

Somewhere along the way, though, those satiric and irreverent words were changed into something much more suitable for choirs, and no one seems to know how or why. Let me quote from a great website I ran across while trying to solve the mystery:

It’s a good, funny song about a phony religious movement…but here’s the thing: It no longer is. I don’t know who did it or when or how but “The Rhythm of Life” has morphed into a song that is sung by choirs — often choirs of children — sometimes in real churches and other places where it is taken seriously. . . . There are dozens and dozens of videos on YouTube of choirs singing this version and I’m curious, first of all, as to who wrote these alternate lyrics? Was it Dorothy Fields, who wrote the lyrics for Sweet Charity? They don’t sound a whole lot like her. She passed away in 1974 and I have no idea when the “revised” version turned up. If she didn’t do it, was it done with the consent of her estate? And how did these lyrics get such wide circulation? (“The Rhythm Method” from the blog “News From Me” to which you should totally subscribe. The author, someone named Mark Evanier, is a total hoot.)

In my ever-obsessive quest to find out details on lyrics I looked up and tried to contact some of the arrangers but have gotten nowhere. So at this point I’m pretty well stymied. If I ever find out anything I’ll come back and revise this post, but for now the trail is cold. Alas!

The Videos

But never fear—I have lots of videos for you to watch.

First, the movie version of “Hey, Big Spender”–be sure to note the facial expressions of the dancers and also their body language. Fosse has them standing in awkward, pigeon-toed and bow-legged postures at times; also note at least one woman draping herself over the railing as if she’s completely exhausted. Their dresses, jewelry and hairdos are quite glamorous; the women themselves not so much.

And here’s just a fun performance that I couldn’t resist including. Note that Marilyn Horne was a great mezzo-soprano opera singer, but she was also a very good sport who appeared in several TV shows as a guest and I’m sure gave the opera world a real boost. (She was on an episode of “The Odd Couple,” for instance.) Eileen Farrell was a tremendously versatile performer who sang opera, classical recitals, and pop music. Note that Carol Bennett is more than capable of holding her own vocally with these two:

Here’s the movie version of “The Rhythm of Life”:

And here’s the choral cleaned-up version, performed by an irresistible group, the Moscow Boys’ Choir–they are ADORABLE:

If you’re interested, and only if so, here are the two sets of lyrics side-by-side for you to compare:

The matching of the lines isn’t perfect because I’m cutting and pasting from two different sources, although I’ve done a little fine-tuning. Take note especially of the rather puzzling lines in the choral version “Go and spread the gospel in Milwaukee/Take a walkie talkie to Rocky Ridge/All the way to Canton then to Scranton/even tell it under the Manhattan bridge.” Huh? But (I think, anyway) that in the original lines “walkie-talkie” means “trumpet.” No, that isn’t common slang, but it’s the only meaning that makes sense to me since “Daddy” starts out “tootin’ on his trumpet.” (Although an alert reader messaged me to say that “walkie-talkie” could simply refer to Daddy’s ability to be a smooth operator out on the streets, walkin’ and talking’ as he scams people. Then in the revised version they left in that term without any real understanding of what was originally meant.)  “Canton” and “Scranton” are clearly used for their rhyme, and then Daddy lands “under the Manhattan Bridge.” I don’t know if this is a reference to a homeless camp under the bridge, or if it’s talking about the parking garage setting for the musical number itself. Who knows? Support for the homeless camp idea comes from the reference to “muscatel,” which was also known as “wino wine,” a type of cheap high-alcohol fortified wine. I so wish that Dorothy Fields, the lyricist, were still around for me to quiz. I’m betting that she wrote these lyrics originally for a very different setting and then the underground parking-lot one was substituted, but she was never asked to re-write the words.

Who can say? But it’s a great song.

Oh, and one last video, because I was reminded of the song “Ten Cents a Dance” as I wrote this post and which pretty well describes the life of a taxi dancer. Here’s Doris Day singing it–that fringed dress is really something!