Jewish Stereo Types

"Shakin' the Blues Away" by Irving Berlin: Videos posted by The Marriott Theatre And hey, do not skip the rope skipping! Video posted by Great Performances/PBS That interrupted number was from the 2018 revival of Holiday Inn , but it was originally written for The Ziegfeld Follies of 1927 , was used again in 1948 in Easter Parade as a number by Ann Miller, and was used yet again in 1955's Love Me or Leave Me , in which it was sung by Doris Day, playing the role of Ruth Etting, the original 1927 singer. I guess it's a really good tune for a dance number? But, hey, no complaints here, I always do love a good tap number! *** If it weren't for the fact that we've got a holiday (Shavuot) starting in a few hours, I'd try to come up with some new factoid about Irving Berlin, but since we do, I shall just put in some links to what I've already said about Irving Berlin: For those who are celebrating Easter... It's been a little minute....

I really should have thought of this one before: Video posted by Sophia BP I mean, it was good enough for Lin-Manuel Miranda, right? Video posted by usnavi (Is this what happens at every Tony winner's wedding? Because this has not happened at any wedding I've been at. I feel like this should happen at more weddings.) *** I cannot help but feel that it is a trifle unnecessary to say that Jerry Bock (the composer) and Sheldon Harnick (the lyricist) of Fiddler on the Roof were Jewish. (As were the book writer, Joseph Stein ; the producer of the original Broadway production, Hal Prince ; and the director/choreographer of that same production, Jerome Robbins . So much for Mel Brooks and his "phalanx of Jews" !). Both Bock and Harnick wrote with others, but together they wrote the songs for at least eight Broadway musicals, including Fiorello! , the under appreciated She Loves Me , and The Rothschilds , and along the way picked up three Tonys. L'Chaim! *...

I don't suppose you can really call it a dance, can you--more a routine. But who cares? Video posted by ozabbavo77 Talk about classic comedy! And if you want to brave a Russian site, you can see Joseph Gordon-Levitt interpret/recreate the number on SNL , which while considerably less frenetic is at least as impressive an accomplishment considering that he made it all the way through on live TV--and then did the rest of the show--while when Donald O'Connor performed that tour de force of physical comedy he was so bruised and battered he had to retreat to bed for several days after filming the number. Ouch! Of course, there is a teensy little problem with the song itself. Arthur Freed was a producer at MGM, responsible for many of the best musicals to come out of Hollywood, but before that he was a lyricist, and together with composer Nacio Herb Brown had written a nice catalog of songs that he thought could be put to good use in a movie. Being an excellent producer, his wh...

Guilt doesn't seem like a promising direction. Let's try something else entirely: Video posted by omarov No, no, NO, they can't stop there! You can't have Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers not dance! (Go ahead, go full screen for it, you know you want to.) Video posted by UberDurable That was "Pick Yourself Up," music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, and it was written for the 1936 movie these clips came from, Swing Time . It's been covered and recovered , and was (almost) quoted by Barack Obama in his first Inaugural Address . *** We've run across Dorothy Fields before , but I hadn't mentioned that her father, Lew Fields (born Moses Schoenfeld), started out in theater as half of Weber and Fields --one of the most popular comedy teams in vaudeville--and then became a successful theater producer . Despite this show business background, Dorothy did anything but coast--even though a female lyricist and librettist was a rarity in her...