Finian's Rainbow is a classic film that has sort of slipped through the cracks. It was made as a movie in 1968, decades past the original hit 1947 Broadway play. For starters, the play introduced the classic hit "Look to the Rainbow" and one of the all-time Broadway era standards, "Old Devil Moon."
The film version was directed by no less than Francis Ford Coppola, who was handed a ready-made all star cast starring Fred Astaire. However, careerwise neither man was at his peak. This was Coppola's first major budget feature. He was still several years from making the big name with The Godfather. It was Fred Astaire's last starring musical role. Nobody seemed to be satisfied with the finished product.
Quick rating on some basic component elements of this 1968 musical. SONGS are the most central element of a musical. They wrote some memorable songs for the original play, including the major standard "Old Devil Moon". Can't argue against that.
DANCING of course is a major element for musicals. The dancing here is fair to middling. It's competent and all, but the director threw out most of the fancy choreography designed for the movie. Apparently he was striving for a more naturalistic look, and didn't want a lot of stage-y steps. The simple Irish jigs and such that he ended up favoring are serviceable, perfectly watchable.
However, this was not really a Fred Astaire dancing movie. He performed marvelously, but was not even attempting anything to compete with his classic work in this most important aspect. The actual best stepping in the movie ended up being by Silent Susan, who didn't speak but rather expressed herself through ballet steps.
The general MOVIE MAKING rates quite good here. Young, hungry Francis Ford Coppola created a beautiful and subtle vision. As appropriate to the story and characters, the movie looks significantly naturalistic and pastoral, yet indefinably and subtly odd and fantastic.
Even most of the best musicals frankly have crap for a storyline. They're mostly just setups for the dance set pieces. Fred meets Ginger, impresses her with his superior dance prowess, dance bliss, forced fight, reconciliation dance.
The real special strength of the Finian's Rainbow movie by contrast, however, is precisely the STORY AND SCRIPT. This has an interesting story, with dialogue and a fascinating odd philosophical speculation. The lyricist Yip Harburg was a damned pinko type who eventually tangled asses with McCarthy and the dreaded HUAC. He also wrote the lyrics to "Over the Rainbow" and "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?".
In the meantime, he expressed his political ideas not by destroying a mask of the president on stage a la Pearl Jam, but rather by writing a parable about money, including the classic songs "That Great Come and Get It Day" and "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." This took some actual serious creative effort.
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