Thoroughly Modern Millie

Thoroughly Modern Millie
Original poster
Directed by George Roy Hill
Produced by Ross Hunter
Written by Richard Morris
Starring Julie Andrews
Mary Tyler Moore
Carol Channing
James Fox
John Gavin
Beatrice Lillie
Music by Elmer Bernstein
Cinematography Russell Metty
Edited by Stuart Gilmore
Production
company
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date
  • March 21, 1967 (1967-03-21)
Running time
 138 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $6 million
Box office $34,335,025 (US)[1]
$40,000,000 (Worldwide)[2]

Thoroughly Modern Millie is a 1967 American musical-romantic comedy film directed by George Roy Hill and starring Julie Andrews. The screenplay by Richard Morris, based on the 1956 British musical Chrysanthemum,[3] focuses on a naive young woman who finds herself in the midst of a series of madcap adventures when she sets her sights on marrying her wealthy boss. The film also stars Mary Tyler Moore, James Fox, John Gavin, Carol Channing, and Beatrice Lillie.

The soundtrack interpolates new tunes by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn with standard songs from the 1910s and 1920s, including "Baby Face" (although this was not published until 1926) and "Jazz Baby." For use of the latter, the producers had to acquire the rights from General Mills, which had used the melody with various lyrics to promote Wheaties for more than forty years.

The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and five Golden Globes. It was also the ninth highest grossing film of 1967. In 2000 it was adapted for a successful stage musical of the same name. A DVD was issued in 2003.[4]

Plot

In 1922 New York City, flapper Millie Dillmount (Julie Andrews) is determined to find work as a stenographer to a wealthy businessman and then marry him – a "thoroughly modern" goal. Millie befriends the sweet yet naive Miss Dorothy Brown (Mary Tyler Moore) as the latter checks into the Priscilla Hotel. When house mother Mrs. Meers (Beatrice Lillie) learns that Miss Dorothy is an orphan, she remarks, "Sad to be all alone in the world." Unbeknownst to Millie, the woman is selling her tenants into white slavery, and those without family or close friends are her primary targets.

At a Friendship Dance in the Dining Hall, Millie meets the devil-may-care paper clip salesman Jimmy Smith (James Fox), to whom she takes an instant liking. However, she carries on with her plan to work for and then marry a rich man, and when she gets a job at Sincere Trust, she sets her sights on the attractive but self-absorbed Trevor Graydon (John Gavin). Jimmy later takes her and Miss Dorothy on an outing to Long Island, where they meet eccentric widow Muzzy Van Hossmere (Carol Channing). Jimmy tells the girls that his father was Muzzy's former gardener. Millie begins to fall for Jimmy, but she sees him summon Miss Dorothy from her room for a late night rendezvous, and assumes the worst.

Millie is even more determined to stick to her plan and marry Trevor. One morning, she goes to work dressed as a flapper and attempts to seduce him, but her effort fails. Eventually, Trevor sees Miss Dorothy and falls in love with her, and vice versa, leaving Millie heartbroken.

Meanwhile, Jimmy's attempts to talk to Millie are continually thwarted by no-nonsense head stenographer Miss Flannary (Cavada Humphrey). He eventually climbs up the side of the building and when he finally gets to talk to Millie, she tells him that she is quitting her job since Mr. Graydon is no longer available.

Mrs. Meers makes several attempts to kidnap Miss Dorothy and hand her over to her Chinese henchmen Bun Foo (Pat Morita) and Ching Ho (Jack Soo), but Millie manages to interrupt her every time. When Mrs. Meers finally succeeds, Millie finds Trevor drowning his sorrows, and he tells her that Miss Dorothy stood him up and checked out of the hotel. Jimmy climbs into Miss Dorothy's room, lets Millie in, and they find all of Miss Dorothy's possessions still there. Millie realizes that Miss Dorothy is just one of several girls who have vanished without a word to anyone, except to Mrs. Meers. Together with Trevor Graydon, they try to piece the puzzle together. When Jimmy asks what all the missing girls had in common, Millie mentions that they were all orphans.

Jimmy disguises himself as a woman named Mary James seeking accommodations at the Priscilla Hotel, and "casually" mentions to Mrs. Meers that she is an orphan. Mrs. Meers spots Trevor sitting in his car in front of the hotel, becomes suspicious, and shoots him with a tranquilizer dart. Mary James is subsequently captured by Mrs. Meers and her henchmen, and Millie follows them to Chinatown, where the unconscious Jimmy has been hidden in a room in a fireworks factory where Miss Dorothy is sleeping. Trying to look casual, Millie smokes a cigarette outside the building, and when she begins to choke on it, she tosses it into a window, setting off the fireworks. As a series of explosions tear through the building, Millie dashes into the factory and finds several white girls tied up, about to be sent off to Beijing. She unties a couple of them, who then free the other girls, and then bumps into Miss Dorothy. They carry Jimmy out of the building and head for Long Island and Muzzy.

Mrs. Meers, Bun Foo, and Ching Ho follow Millie and the gang, but under Muzzy's leadership, everyone manages to subdue the nefarious trio. Millie then discovers that Jimmy and Miss Dorothy are actually millionaire siblings and that Muzzy is their stepmother, who sent them out into the world to find partners who would love them for who they were and not for their money. Millie marries Jimmy, and Miss Dorothy marries Trevor.

Cast

Production notes

Setting

The film opens on "Thursday, June 2, 1922," although, in actuality, June 2, 1922 fell on a Friday.

Cast

Although Pat Morita and Jack Soo each play Chinese henchmen, both were of Japanese descent, Morita being born in California, and Soo being born on a ship in the Pacific Ocean headed to the U.S. While he received no screen credit, Jimmy Bryant provided the singing voice for James Fox in this film.[5]

Music

Elmer Bernstein composed the incidental score, for which he won his only Academy Award. The songs were arranged and conducted by André Previn.

The film's soundtrack was released by Decca Records. Songs include the title tune and "The Tapioca" by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn (1967); "Jimmy" by Jay Thompson (1967); "Jazz Baby" by M.K. Jerome and Blanche Merrill (1919); "Jewish Wedding Song (Trinkt le Chaim)" by Sylvia Neufeld; "Poor Butterfly" by John Raymond Hubbell and John Golden (1916); "Rose of Washington Square" by Ballard MacDonald and James F. Hanley (1920); "Baby Face" by Harry Akst and Benny Davis (1926); and "Do It Again" by George Gershwin and Buddy G. DeSylva (1922). Also heard in the film as an underscore are "Stumbling" by Zez Confrey (1922); "(Looking at the World Thru) Rose Colored Glasses" by Tommie Malie and Jimmy Steiger; "I Can't Believe That You're in Love with Me" by Jimmy McHugh and Clarence Gaskill (1926); "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life" from Naughty Marietta by Victor Herbert and Rida Johnson Young (1910); and "Hallelujah Chorus" from Messiah by Georg Friedrich Händel (1741).[6] William Ruhlmann, in his review, noted that "...he [Ross Hunter] used period songs such as "Baby Face," "Jazz Baby," and "Do It Again!" For the soundtrack album, Andrews does her usual sterling job with her lovely voice and careful British articulation (though she sounds odd performing "Jewish Wedding Song" in Yiddish)..."[7]

Reception

The film earned $8.5 million in rentals in North America during 1967.[8] At this time, Julie Andrews was the number one box office star in motion pictures. Thoroughly Modern Millie would be her last film of the 1960s to make money. Her next two films, Star! (1968) and Darling Lili (1970), would prove to be colossal financial disasters. Andrews would not star in another hit film until 1974 when she co-starred with Omar Sharif in The Tamarind Seed.

Critical reception

The film opened to good reviews and good box office. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called the film "a thoroughly delightful movie," "a kidding satire, in a rollicking song-and-dance vein," "a joyously syncopated frolic," and "a romantic-melodramatic fable that makes clichés sparkle like jewels." He added, "Miss Andrews is absolutely darling – deliciously spirited and dry ... Having had previous experience at this sort of Jazz-age hyperbole in the British musical, The Boy Friend ... she knows how to hit the right expressions of maidenly surprise and dismay, the right taps in a flow of nimble dances, and the right notes in a flood of icky songs." He concluded, "A few faults? Yes. There is an insertion of a Jewish wedding scene ... which is phony and gratuitous. There's a melodramatic mishmash towards the end, which has Mr. Fox dressing up like a girl and acting kittenish. That is tasteless and humorless. And the whole thing's too long. If they'll just cut out some of those needless things, all the faults will be corrected and it'll be a joy all the way."[9]

Variety observed, "The first half of Thoroughly Modern Mille (sic) is quite successful in striking and maintaining a gay spirit and pace. There are many recognizable and beguiling satirical recalls of the flapper age and some quite funny bits. Liberties taken with reality, not to mention period, in the first half are redeemed by wit and characterization. But the sudden thrusting of the hero ... into a skyscraper-climbing, flagpole-hanging acrobat, a la Harold Lloyd, has little of Lloyd but the myth. This sequence is forced all the way."[10]

TV Guide rated the film three out of four stars and commented, "Although it ultimately runs out of steam, this charming spoof of the 1920s is still one of the 1960s' better musicals ... Andrews is a comic delight, Moore is charming, and Channing steals scene after scene in this enjoyable feature."[11] The film was one of four nostalgia-based movies George Roy Hill made. After Thoroughly Modern Millie, he made Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Great Waldo Pepper, and the Oscar-winning hit The Sting.

The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 100% "Fresh" rating, based on 9 critical reviews, and an audience score of 81%, based on 9,157 user ratings.[12]

Awards and honors

The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards:[13]

Other awards:

Also, the film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Thoroughly Modern Millie, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved March 8, 2012.
  2. ↑ Harris, M. Pictures at a revolution: five movies and the birth of the new Hollywood (Chapter 21). The Penguin Press, New York City; 2008. ISBN 978-1-101-20285-2. Retrieved March 29, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Chrysanthemum", Guidetomusicaltheatre.com
  4. ↑ Suzi Roberts (March 21, 1967). "Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)". IMDb.
  5. ↑ "Jimmy Bryant". Alabama Music Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 2008-12-07. Retrieved 2008-04-11. Citing Carlton, Bob (2002-07-12). "State native was 'ghost singer' in 'West Side Story'". Birmingham News.
  6. ↑ "Soundtrack" amazon.com, retrieved March 9, 2017
  7. ↑ "Soundtrack" allmusic.com, retrieved March 9, 2017
  8. ↑ "Big Rental Films of 1967", Variety, January 3, 1968 p 25. Please note these figures refer to rentals accruing to the distributors.
  9. ↑ Crowther, Bosley. "Screen: 'Thoroughly Modern Millie':Pleasant Spoof of 20's Opens at Criterion" The New York Times, March 23, 1967
  10. ↑ Variety Staff. "Thoroughly Modern Millie". Variety.
  11. ↑ "Thoroughly Modern Millie". TVGuide.com.
  12. ↑ https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/thoroughly_modern_millie/
  13. ↑ "The 40th Academy Awards (1968) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-25.
  14. ↑ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-08-13.
  15. ↑ "AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-08-13.
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