Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 21 May 12 - 06:12 PM

Refresh. And for that matter, Tv Tropes summarised the plot as "The Sheik, with a two person love triangle,". IMO it's The Sheik meets The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 21 May 12 - 06:18 AM

Refresh. Anyone want to offer their opinions on the idea of a TDS reworking?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 21 May 12 - 03:27 AM

And something else; did Hammerstein make up Azuri's name?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 21 May 12 - 02:49 AM

Anyone?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 21 May 12 - 12:05 AM

*That should be a space.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 May 12 - 11:03 PM

Anyone think a Desert Songreworking is something they'd like to read?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 May 12 - 09:14 PM

And I hope I can do enough research to avoid Orientalist stereotypes of the Middle East/North Africa/ anywhere "in the Islamic world" etc to create a plausible fantasy-Morocco, not one based on stereotypes of the barbaric noble savage living in the desert, harem girls etc. I can't think of any fictional books in Middle Eastern/North African settings that don't involve those portrayed in a very stereotypical way.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 May 12 - 07:22 PM

ETA: And the guerrilla warfare/opposition to colonialism aspect is more important than the romantic aspect.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 May 12 - 07:17 PM

ETA 2: Actually, the story was inspired by the question, "What if the R.S. was an Arab?"
and it's fantasy with Spain as well as France being important.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 May 12 - 09:23 AM

ETA: I love Show Boat too.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 May 12 - 09:21 AM

JJ: Incidentally, you may be interested to know that The Desert Song is also the inspiration for the steampunk story I'm working on at the moment. (It's only in first draft, but is getting on OK). There's a Red Shadow, an actual Arab chieftain of a nomadic desert tribe, not a White guy pretending to be an Arab, and an Azuri, a street dancer of mixed heritage and a member of the Red Shadow's tribe and the anti-heroine, and the "desert magic" is literal magic. And oh yeah, there's a Pierre/Paul-type character too, who's a cousin to the Margot character. Yeah, I like this musical so much, I decided to twist the plot.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:57 AM

ETA: Talking about characters- watching the 1929 film I always thought that Azuri was at least slightly sympathetic. I mean, from the way she talks- "When pretty French girl smile at you, you forget Azuri", you (well I do,/i>)anyway, get the impression that Capt. Fontaine just left her when he went back to France and got engaged to Margot.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: JJ
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:50 AM

Your teacher was right. Orientalism on stage goes back as least as far as Mozart's "Abduction From the Seraglio" (libretto by Bretzner and Stephanie).

But I think the proximate cause of "The Desert Song" is Edith Maude Hull's 1919 novel "The Sheik," and the immensely popular 1921 Rudolph Valentino film based on it. And in the novel, the Arab sheik turns out to be not an Arab at all, but of Spanish and English descent. Hurrah!

Like many works, "The Desert Song" will not bear very much analysis. For one thing, how did Paul manage to get to be the big boss of the Riffs in the first place? But it can be an enjoyable romance, even in these ironic times. You might be able to find the script in a local library, as I did.

It's my belief that Hammerstein's creation of Azuri, the emotional Arab; Wanda, the murderous Indian (in "Rose-Marie"); and Adah, the loving quadroon (in "The New Moon") -- these three women who are "the other" -- led Jerome Kern to choose him to write the book and lyrics for "Show Boat," which features the "tragic mulatto" Julie, a character much more real than either of the first three.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:20 AM

BTW, when I described the plot to a teacher at my school she said it was "like a sheikh romance, kidnapped and taken into the desert" by a (supposed) Middle Eastern/North African guy.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:16 AM

Banjoman, was the production you saw any good? The only stage plays I've seen have been for school. I saw the Sydney Theatre Company's production of The Crucible. It was really good.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: banjoman
Date: 20 May 12 - 05:56 AM

I actually saw John Hanson in the Desert Song at the Empire in Liverpool -my elder sister took me because she was given tickets and was a JH fan - and although I dont remember much of the plot some of the songs still float to the surface occasionally.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 May 12 - 01:33 AM

Anyone still interested in analysing TDS for fun?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 May 12 - 12:54 AM

Another ETA: On those songs, I've read the threads on vocal production on here, and obviously, as a woman and a soprano, (my last teacher told me I was a soprano)
I sound very different singing "Soft as a Pigeon Lights" or "If One Flower Grows Alone In Your Garden" than a (male) tenor singing the same songs.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 May 12 - 12:00 AM

For that matter, can a secret identity plot ever be done well, without big plot holes?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 11:09 PM

Anyone have a clue why? Is everyone in the plot so clueless that no-one notices the Governor's son sneaking out at night? (I know the plot is implausible, but this one plot point bugs me!. Or is it a convention of secret identity plots that everyone acts really dumb when they could easily figure out the hero's secret for themselves?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 08:00 PM

Why doesn't anyone else guess the secret identity?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 09:39 AM

Thanks, FB. Just waiting for JJ to express his/her opinion. ETA: My teacher really likes Paul Robeson too. And so do I.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 19 May 12 - 09:23 AM

TDS is fine by me. My wife is more appreciative of 'straight' musicals than myself but we watched it, the Macrae-Grayson version about 22 years ago which was the last time I noticed it being on UK TV.
Now the Robeson version of Showboat.....there's a musical if ever I saw one.
Best regards to you ME1

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 07:58 AM

Alright, if I ever visit America, that's one of the things I'll do. JJ, do you share my opinions on the operetta's plot?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: JJ
Date: 19 May 12 - 07:55 AM

If you're ever in New York City, visit the Paley Center and see the TV version from the early 1950s starring a rather-too-old Nelson Eddy.

It isn't very good, but it's a fascinating historical document.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 07:32 AM

So, fb, what are your opinions on TDS?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 19 May 12 - 07:28 AM

Zapristi !!

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 06:57 AM

My dad knows The Goon Show, even though we're not from the UK. My family likes UK comedy.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 19 May 12 - 06:54 AM

How many UK 'catters of a certain age will be more familiar with Ray Ellington as 'Sheikh Rattleandroll' and 'The Red Bladder' as heard in the Goon Show?
I don't mean to belittle this thread, it'sa quite fascinating IMO.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 06:35 AM

ETA (Correction to second-last post): IMO there is a value in analysing TDS and what it says about Orientalism and exoticism- I've often heard people I know ie. young people about 18-19 talk about other cultures in a way that sounds like they're really saying "Oh look, they're so exotic."

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 06:05 AM

Anyone else want to continue discussing TDS? Tropes, music, anything?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 05:51 AM

ETA: No, there's no value in analysing it, but I like to do it because it's fun to me.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 05:49 AM

Well, Will, I think it's kind of interesting and fun analysing it myself, but then I'm the kind of person who goes to sites like TV Tropes, where they analyse everything for fun.TV Tropes

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: Will Fly
Date: 19 May 12 - 05:26 AM

"The Desert Song" is pure Hollywood schlock and, as such, is hardly worth dissecting. It's a misch-masch of improbable plotlines and scenes using ideas borrowed from "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and capitalising on the interest of the public in the persona of people like Lawrence of Arabia.

The thing is a reflection of the money-making mores of the period - the mid-1920s - and the social and racial attitudes of the day. Is there any value in analysing it?

And, yes, I've seen it, with a rather drunk Joseph Locke (a popular Irish tenor of the 1940s and 1950s) warbling "Goodbye, goodbye..." and wobbling scenery, in a theatre in the Lancashire seaside town of Blackpool. Perfection!

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 04:28 AM

Al, have you actually seen a stage version of The Desert Song?Or any of the movie versions? As I said a few posts above, my English teacher saw the 1929 John Boles movie version as a child in the 1960s.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 May 12 - 04:05 AM

There's a beautiful play by John Godber(he of the Hull Truck theatre Company) called September in the Rain. Its about a miner and his wife , who go to Blackpool to see John Hansom as The Red Shadow in The desert Song. They have seen JH many times, but they are are Mario Lanza fans.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 03:14 AM

Another thing: Why does no-one notice Pierre/Paul leaving the fort at night? Is his act just that convincing?

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 19 May 12 - 12:14 AM

ETA: Interesting note (ha!) I can pull off the following songs from The Desert Song:
If One Flower Grows Alone In Your Garden (lowest note is B-flat below middle C, according to the sheet music, and highest note is an E an octave above middle C)
The Riff Song (lowest note is A below middle C)
Soft as a Pigeon Lights (haven't seen the sheet music, could someone with the score and who can read music tell me what the lowest note of that song is? I may be singing it an octave higher).

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 12 - 11:12 PM

You display Absolute BRILLANCE.

Please continue posting your insights to THIS THREAD.

it would be a travesty to loose such diamonds of thought among the less literate tbreads of some Kat comments.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 11:08 PM

Jack Pratt and Roberto E.Guzman "If One Flower Grows Alone In Your Garden

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 10:15 PM

At least at the time of the 1950s version.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 09:13 PM

ETA: And another thing, why, in all the movie versions of The Desert Song, are the Arabs played by White actors? There were Arab actors in Hollywood at the time.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 08:26 PM

ETA: Both the 1943 and 1953 movie versions call the Shadow "El Khobar" and introduce a second enemy in the form of a local leader.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 08:02 PM

Joe: yep, with Irene Manning as Margot. 1943 according to IMDB. It's "lost".

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 18 May 12 - 04:30 PM

But the movie-goers of the time, although they might like the romantic idea of attraction between different races were VERY MUCH against 'mixed marriage'.
I can remember popular thought of the 50s "but think of the children".

A film must have a happy ending.
If she marries an Arab it would cause mixed feelings to say the least
So....

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: Joe Nicholson
Date: 18 May 12 - 10:48 AM

I seem to recall a film version of The Desert Song with Dennis Morgan as the Red Shadow or is my memory playing me tricks.

Joe Nicholson

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 09:21 AM

And don't forget the fact that Romberg and Hammerstein portrayed the Riffs as desert people when they're not.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 07:27 AM

ETA: And of course, they get married. (He was raised as a Catholic, because he's half-Spanish.) I don't see why they had to make him a white man. That summary above is the same story as the operetta, except the Shadow is Arab.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 18 May 12 - 07:21 AM

Yeah, but Mo, you could have practically the same story with him being an actual Arab. Like this:
A young French girl goes out to Morocco to marry a Legion officer. He is living at the fort, which is being attacked by a group of Arab insurgents. The new governor, a general, is trying to track down the mysterious leader of the rebellion. His son, who everyone thinks is a fool, is in love with the girl, who hates her fiance but also doesn't love the governor's son. The heroine's fiance tells her he is going to give her the rebel leader's head as a wedding present. One day the girl tells the governor's son that she is fascinated by the rebel leader and secretly wishes for him or another local chieftain to take her away. Her fiance's former lover, a local girl, tries to convince him to come back with her by promising to tell him the rebel leader's name.

A few days later, the rebel leader turns up at the fort secretly and tries to convince the girl to go away with him. she hits him with her riding crop, but soon he turns up again and kidnaps her and another girl from the fort and takes them into the desert. Eventually she discovers he's actually one of the Arab stable hands/cameleers at the fort after he loses the leadership of his rebel group.

Subject: RE: Anyone want to discuss The Desert Song?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 18 May 12 - 07:04 AM

Because that's what the movie goers of the time wanted to see???