Modern Adaptation of Faust: The Band Wagon (1953)

A transcription from an old scribble I did in 2020, with some small edits. Well, after writing it, it looks like it is more of a platform for some anecdotes. Anyway, my feelings towards this movie have changed in that time, parallel rather than perpendicular, but not enough that would warrant altering the original text in any big way. The sentiments are generally the same.

THE BAND WAGON, 1952, VINCENTE MINNELLI

My favorite Minnelli, and my favorite movie musical. As the late explosion before the Dream Factory declined and shuttered up its windows, anything I would say about what goes on in the movie is already well detailed in other accounts. So as a by-way-parley I'm going to offer a sort of memoir.

In many ways it feels like it was made especially for me; my first viewing I walked away with an elation, albeit framed in some somber sourness and reflection because there's a lot that I definitely relate to, in being a backstage show that successfully renders the personal anxieties of being an artist and a showperson. Additionally, the delicate balance of joy and melancholy that crochet what The Band Wagon has, with the hypnogogic Minnellian touch (exhausting most of his creative and studio faculties I'm sure) sends you into overdrive. This poor boy, at least.

It brought me back to what felt like a million rehearsals, tech-tests, pre-productions, post-productions, set builds, auditions, etc. It made me think of people I worked with who I know I will never see again, either because they moved on with their lives or they are dead. It made me think of all the hard work I and others put into shows we were very proud of that maybe only a hundred or so people saw. It made me think of matinees I did to an audience of less than 10 people. It reminded of the time a teenager who saw a play I was in bashfully asked for my autograph after I made a fool of myself for 3 hours in a show I hated.

Sidenote: I resented this at the time considering my cloud of smoke towards the show, let it be a regret that I hadn’t approached that show much more positively, and was more supportive from the start. At the time it made sense, as I was getting increasingly bad parts, also there were many attempts to “modernize” some of the language in the script. But by any slice was no excuse to be unprofessional.

I thought about that time during a production of Chicago where I brought a donut on stage as the cop in the beginning scene, and said my lines through a mouthful of that donut, and set it down on the corpse (who was played by the director) so I could write on my notepad. This was not director approved-- when the he found out later it made him furious. It made me love all that stuff all over again after giving it up. The Band Wagon is about all those things but much more succinctly.

Another story I’d remembered at the recent passing of Val Kilmer: I was in a small, 3-person show for Theatre Suburbia in Houston, the oldest one in the city. They’re still around. One of the cast members was a woman who had dated Val Kilmer for a time, I don’t know how brief. After the breakup they remained friends, and there was a photograph she loved to show off featuring herself, Val, and Cher at some wedding. It was used on the set of our show, which worked since the show was set in her high-rise apartment and she’s a rich socialite.

I played a security cop for her building. One night during a show with an audience, a prop was broken during one of the scripted scraps with it. After struggling with the woman (I was a collaborator with an intruder), I took notice in horror that the plastic pistol was in two pieces on the stage, and a moment was quickly approaching where the gun will be used; it was either fake the gun and open Pandora’s Box, or discreetly re-assemble the rod. Luckily there was no small amount of dialogue before then, so I took liberties with my blocking and quietly pulled a piece of cloth that was near the piece on top of the dislodged barrel and snatched it. For the record, Suburbia was a black box theater with “in the round” capabilities, an intimate space. I made a move I thought the temperamental (also gay) rent-a-cop would do, something emotional in synch with a line or lines. Of course it looked square-peg-round-hole, but it was necessary and I was able to get it, and slid it into my other pants pocket.

So, the two pieces of the gun were in each of my pockets, and I knew they were again in a bad way, as the handle was in the left while the barrel to the right. Not good for a right handed person. I again disobeyed my blocking and moved towards the rear of the stage, as far from any scrutiny as possible and reassembled the gun right before the moment of truth. The scene progressed without a hitch.

The saga concludes after the show, with asking several people who were in the audience if they noticed anything wrong with the show that night. Both the director and assistant director were wondering why I was “making weird moves” but said nothing about the gun. Nobody else I asked noticed anything. You only have to prove to yourself that you are awesome.

You could say the big payoff is the Girl Hunt Ballet, but if you ask me it's more one of those wake-up calls, the moment you realize that this, and the rest of the movie up to this point, was something special. The Girl Hunt Ballet is just the last word scribbled in a luxurious calligraphy.

The blu-ray release of this is fantastic, there's a supplement with some interviews with a lot of the principal cast. It's sort of telling that it sounded like nobody was very happy during the making of the film, which is like a lot of rehearsal processes I've experienced. Nonetheless, in this case one of the finest spectacles emerged; a piece of high-cinema. I still sing “That’s Entertainment” to myself in just about any situation.

Postscript: I remembered a story I heard about The Band Wagon’s insane “Triplets” number, where Minnelli wanted a certain move to be done with no wincing. Specifically, when the “babies” leap from their chairs, and with how the costumes are set-up this means the actors leapt from a height and landed on their knees, which was very painful. After dozens of takes with no success, the story goes that they injected their knees with numbing drugs to get the take.