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[0:00] Mark Peikert: Is one of the great star turns on Broadway enough reason to watch the movie adaptation? Perhaps more importantly, is it enough reason to adapt the musical in the first place? In the case of Bells Are Ringing and Judy Holliday, the answer is yes. But the movie itself. Can a plot involving bookies, classical music, a boozy playwright playboy, a spoof of method actors, and an answering service stand the test of time? Did it even stand the test of time when it was released? The same year as the premiere of Psycho? Has Bells Are Ringing always been a fuzzy nostalgia piece, even when the era for which it's nostalgic was still happening? And just how good could Judy Holliday really be? I'm Mark Peikert. I do a little modeling on the side, and this is Movie Musical Madness, for whom the bells ring.

[1:15] Mark Peikert: Guys, that was a joke lie. Judy Holliday herself is not here. I did the next best thing, which is Andréa Burns.

[1:22] Andréa Burns: Hello, Mark. How are you?

[1:24] Mark Peikert: Oh, I was just about to go out about newfangled what's a podcast. You know, you could just go on forever. So that's what I always wanted to know when we're already off track and I love it. But I have this needs to be addressed. This needs to be addressed as often as possible. Remember when Lincoln came out and Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field gave interview after interview where they were like, oh, we only spoke in character, we texted in character. What the hell was Abraham Lincoln texting in character to Mary Todd Lincoln? Oh my gosh. Uh yeah. Oh, I don't know. Mother Craft Services is delicious today. Did you have the Jabolka? Do I have to wear the hat again, Mom? I don't know. I don't know. Bizarre. I you know, I admire it, but um, yeah, that that kind of stuff always escapes me. I I I just couldn't get away with that.

[2:11] Andréa Burns: No, I couldn't let myself get away with that. I mean, I feel like you and I are very sympathetical in so many ways. And I constantly have I I'm watching myself constantly at some remove, and I'm like, oh my God, what are you doing? Who are you trying to fool? You are not that fancy. I know, but you know, I mean, uh, some people, I guess, really feel like they can't do it unless they're in character the whole time. But it's also like, okay, great. So what about everyone around you? What about making everyone else uncomfortable around you? I don't know. To each his own.

[2:44] Mark Peikert: Well, it's like, I mean, it's like Ella Peterson at the party thrown by Jeffrey's agent.

[2:52] Andréa Burns: Yes.

[2:53] Mark Peikert: Okay. Where she is trying to get away with some things. You say, I've been doing this for a while. That's a professional segment. Very nice, you know. Got it, got it. Uh, yes. Well, certainly everyone at that party is very fancy.

[3:07] Andréa Burns: And Ella's just trying to, you know, maybe because she's trying not to draw attention to herself, right? She's trying to just fit in. Um she she, you know, puts on this persona of uh of somebody who, you know, belongs in this name-drop-y, uh, you know, fancy group of celebrity people, and she's completely out of her league, but hilarious trying to do it.

[3:30] Andréa Burns: I so let's let's get out of the way first why why I selected you specifically for Bells Are Ringing, because uh we met when you were playing Judy Holliday in the bio play with music at 5959 a year ago?

[3:45] Andréa Burns: Was that only a year a year ago?

[3:47] Mark Peikert: It was a year ago, spring of 2019.

[3:49] Andréa Burns: Yeah. Wow. So much has happened.

[3:52] Andréa Burns: And I feel like for anyone who doesn't know Judy Holliday, your favorite funny people do know Judy Holliday.

[4:00] Mark Peikert: Oh, that's good.

[4:01] Andréa Burns: Judy Holliday is the connective tissue for much of the latter half of the 20th century funny people that we love.

[4:09] Mark Peikert: It's Judy Holliday and Madeline Kahn in my head, are the two.

[4:12] Andréa Burns: Oh, yes. That is really good.

[4:15] Mark Peikert: That is really good. Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, she's an icon, and actually, her birthday just passed. She would have been 99.

[4:21] Andréa Burns: I know. I know, which is unbelievable. It feels like she was around, you know, 99. It feels it feels like she was around in, you know, another age, and it's such a long time ago. And yet, still, you know, there's still people alive that were part of her lifetime. And I don't know, the connective tissue. She's she's actually just not that far away. That's something that I discovered working on the play. And I think especially because she's known mostly for I mean, Bells Are Ringing, of course, is iconic, but but uh her movies were black and white, you know. Um obviously Born Yesterday, and It Should Happen to You. And um, so you just think of her as the star from this very, very far away era, and yet um working on the show, it was incredible because such a New York story, she was such a hardcore New Yorker.

It was really cool to realize there was a lot of connective thread for me to her. I live very near her first Greenwich Village apartment, which was her favorite when she was first married with David Oppenheim, um, whose son Tom is somebody that I have worked with. Amanda Green is a friend of mine, of course, the daughter of Adolph Green, who was one of her best friends.

[5:42] Mark Peikert: Still, she's such a quintessential New York character.

[5:45] Andréa Burns: Well, and in so many ways, Bells Are Ringing is a quintessential New York story.

[5:50] Mark Peikert: Absolutely. Right. And it's so it's such a time capsule. This movie is such a time capsule in a way that to a degree that a lot of movies of that same time are not. And it's not just the answering service with Suzanne's her phone where people are taking their message, your messages for you. And it's not that Dean Martin's phone is the brand new princess model.

[6:14] Andréa Burns: That's right.

[6:15] Mark Peikert: Which had just been introduced the year before. It's really funny that the number one spokesperson for like that super feminine princess phone was Dean Martin. Like he was the person to introduce that to the world. Hilarious. But there's just something, there's this. And look, this is what Vincent Minnelli did so brilliantly in Meet Me in St. Louis. Bells Are Ringing feels like a memory of something that you don't even remember. It feels like this thing that you have experienced. And every all the colors are brighter, all the edges are a little bit sharper, everyone's funnier than they probably would have been. Everything seems more dire, but also you know, going into no matter what horrible situation that things are going to work out.

[7:03] Andréa Burns: And it was a flop. It lost a ton of money at the box office.

[7:10] Mark Peikert: I know, I know. And and why do we think that is? I think you'd think fans, at least the fans would have made a good showing in the movie theaters. She, I mean, that was a huge, huge hit for her. It's it's that weird uh 1960. It's a weird year to be the last movie from the Freed unit at MGM. Like this is, I mean, when you think about 1960, that was the year of Psycho. That was the year of, I think Doris Day made three comedies. And I don't think people were that excited for something this sweet and subdued.

[7:52] Andréa Burns: It's the only subdued slapstick I have ever seen.

[7:58] Mark Peikert: Okay, subdued slapstick. So yeah, I guess you're right. Because when we're thinking about her visiting Jeffrey Moss in the apartment and tumbling on top of him and crawling around her couch, there is sort of an easy low-stakes vibe about it in a way, right?

[8:13] Andréa Burns: No, and I'm I'm thinking I think the reason the first time that subdued slapstick popped into my head was when she's on the blind date with her real life lover, Gerry Mulligan.

[8:22] Mark Peikert: Of course, which we really just uh that just makes me so happy. And it turns out so he's obviously uh a famous saxophone player, and she you know gave him this little cameo part of the movie. They decided to put him in it in this blind date scene, and he's actually really good and really funny, isn't he?

[8:39] Andréa Burns: And so sexy.

[8:41] Mark Peikert: I know, so sexy. And it wasn't just because he said garrulous, although that did that helped. I'm gonna be honest. That did help. Uh, did I tell you the story when we spoke about Judy last year?

[8:55] Andréa Burns: Tell me.

[8:56] Mark Peikert: I went to I went to the Louis Armstrong House Museum.

[8:59] Andréa Burns: Oh, yes.

[8:59] Mark Peikert: In in like Corona, Queens. And there was a it was just me and my boyfriend at the time. And spoiler alert, I'm a homosexual. And the guide is walking us through the house.

[9:10] Andréa Burns: We wouldn't be talking about Judy Holliday if he weren't.

[9:12] Mark Peikert: Um I thank God for that. Okay. Go ahead. The guide is walking us around the house, and he points to some painting and he's like, Oh, um, that is Gerry Mulligan. Do you know? Do you are you familiar with Gerry Mulligan? And I said, Oh, yes. He was Judy Holliday's lover. Which isn't not the answer this jazz historian is looking for.

[9:37] Andréa Burns: Oh, of course.

[9:38] Mark Peikert: Oh boy. Oh my gosh. That's so funny. It was like, wait a minute, you don't have his albums? You know, oh god. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. But yeah, he was he was a well-respected musician, and and I don't know, I just love him in that in that scene in Bells Are Ringing. It just brings me a lot of joy. It's such a little moment. And I was I was watching it again, and I haven't seen the movie in a in a couple of years. It's a really special. It's the last movie that I watched before I moved to New York when I was 17.

[10:11] Andréa Burns: Oh my goodness, that's so special.

[10:13] Mark Peikert: It's like the the last glimpse I had of a fictional New York before I moved here.

[10:20] Andréa Burns: And so horrifying reality.

[10:24] Mark Peikert: Were you like I have to get to that brownstone that exists on the block where no where there's no other buildings? All of it. I'm still looking for a terrace apartment with that mid-century modern furniture.

[10:36] Andréa Burns: I know. I know. Oh, what a what a what an ideal to be dreaming about and be heading into. I love that.

[10:43] Mark Peikert: Very cool.

[10:44] Andréa Burns: Yes, it was unfortunately. I moved here September 1st, 2001.

[10:48] Mark Peikert: So you're kidding.

[10:50] Andréa Burns: No.

[10:51] Mark Peikert: No. Suzanne's your phone was not in operation or in any kind of glory then.

[10:57] Andréa Burns: Wow. Wow.

[10:59] Mark Peikert: Um, but some dude's slapstick in the scene with Gerry Mulligan. I was thinking what that would what that scene would look like today in a movie. And it would be so big and so loud and so telegraphed. And what is so really lovely about so much of this movie, and I think that this is a lot of Judy Holliday style and also Vincent Minnelli, I think at the peak of his powers with movie musicals. I think it's a shame that this one doesn't get more recognition. But what the two of them combined accomplished is it's a very tender introduction to Ella, this woman who only wants the best for everyone. And every horrible thing that happens on this state is because she's trying to light his cigarette. She's trying to share her drink with him. She's trying to keep the conversation going. And it's just she's her own worst enemy for this entire movie.

[11:57] Andréa Burns: What a great way to sum that up. I I that is perfect, right? It's her, it's her making the first move and trying to trying to fix everything for the very beginning. And you just know it's it's gonna be doomed.

[12:09] Mark Peikert: And then catching on fire.

[12:11] Andréa Burns: And then literally catching on fire, which is so fantastic. I just love the idea of that one of her just like walking away with the tail of her dress on fire and thinking like, I don't know, whatever, what was that like on set, the people nearby, the, you know, it just must have been such a hilarious, such an hilarious thing to watch. That's where that's where I always go off into some rabbit hole. Where I'm like, I want an entire short film from the point of view of the person who was sitting next to her when she realized that she was on fire.

[12:41] Andréa Burns: When he went home that night, how did he describe that scene to his family? Did he talk about it for the rest of his life? Exactly. And I want to also know what happened at the end of that. You know, she comes back and she was like, oh, he had to leave early. And uh she's she still hasn't seen the back of her dress until she gets back to Susan's phone and looks so how did that end that he said, you know, I'm gonna call it a night. You're on fire, and I just don't think we're this is gonna work. I don't know. It just seems like uh there's a lot of questions left unanswered. Also here's a question I have. Does she live in Suzanne's phone? That's exactly what I was wondering. She must have a place upstairs because yes, she has to.

She has to live there because she's always she sleeps there. She's got her, she does her little pink curls at night there. Um she has all her stuff there. So, you know, it's her cousin who owns it. It's a brownstone. They must all live upstairs. That's what I determined. I decided she has to live there. Her cousin played by Jean Stapleton.

[13:43] Mark Peikert: Yes. Who, when you watch this, and then you think about her in All in the Family, was she doing a Judy Holliday with her?

[13:51] Andréa Burns: Oh my god, Mark, I can't even believe you're saying this because this has been, this has really been like a deep dark question. I have been asking myself for years since I went down the Judy rabbit hole. I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Is it possible that our beloved Jean Stapleton, our beloved Edith, did actually say, Wow, you know, she looked at that script and was like, it is Queens. I could kind of Judy Holliday this out. And right? I I can't believe you're saying that because I feel like it's blasphemous to say it. And I remember telling my husband, I don't know, but I have this feeling that that's what it is, and more power to her. But yes, yes, I agree a hundred percent. Yes.

[14:40] Mark Peikert: Well, because she doesn't sound like Jean Stapleton we know at all in this movie.

[14:45] Andréa Burns: Right. You know who does? Judy Holliday.

[14:48] Mark Peikert: Correct. Judy Holliday sounds more right. And it's for you know, Judy Holliday is from Queens. She has that also that sing songy, you know. Anytime Edith is singing, that was a big, that's very much what Judy Holliday sounded like when she was uh not singing seriously like on her album with Gerry Mulligan, but obviously when she's singing in The Gin Game in Born Yesterday, or she's got right. There's this quality that is very Edith.

[15:16] Andréa Burns: So I I can't believe you started to say it. I was like, no, he's not gonna say it. Is he gonna say it? Yes. I have the same feeling about it's impossible to not hear once you notice it.

[15:29] Mark Peikert: Correct. Correct. Uh so there are a lot of things that we love about this movie. Judy Holliday is one of them. Um, the art direction is superb.

[15:40] Andréa Burns: Spectacular. I mean, uh, the color combinations, it's just it's like an interior designer designed the movie for a series of still photos.

[15:48] Mark Peikert: Yes, yes. It's truly one of the truly gorgeous movies of the late MGM era. Uh and I would say, oh, before we talk about the things that we don't love as much, and Bells Are Ringing, and there are a few. Gerry Mulligan is so sexy.

[16:08] Andréa Burns: I have always had such a crush on Frank Gorshin. He's so good in this.

[16:13] Mark Peikert: Oh my God.

[16:16] Andréa Burns: I don't know why. My friend says that it's my Neanderthal fetish, where he's got a real low brow and a pronounced draw. But I'm sorry. He's funny and really skilled at being funny. And that's one of the sexiest things that you can come across, period. And him in the sleeveless sweatshirt, doing Brando. It's so good.

[16:40] Mark Peikert: It's so good and uh so um yeah, just so well thought out. It's like actually really meta. You know, he like really, really thought out what this character was gonna do, how he's gonna sound, where he's gonna look to the left, to the right in a Brando kind of way, right? So he's um I I really he's he's such a joy in this movie. He just cracks me up. And yeah, and I think he looks sexy too. And he was one of Hollywood's most famous impressionists, which I kind of knew. And then after I watched the movie, I went down a Frank Gorshin rabbit hole. And it was like Frank Gorshin, one of Frank Gorshin's most famous impressions was Burt Lancaster. And I thought, well, how the hell do you do a Burt Lancaster impression? Uh well, I don't know how, but he does one. Wow. Oh, I'm gonna go down a rabbit hole now, too.

[17:28] Andréa Burns: Oh, he does Burt Lancaster at a Sammy at uh Dean Martin roast. I love it. I love it.

[17:39] Mark Peikert: Speaking of speaking of Dean Martin, here's here's where we're going to gingerly tiptoe into um is this movie musical madness or is this movie musical magic? Right. And what's tipping Bells Are Ringing into movie musical madness? Uh chief among them Mr. Dean Martin.

[18:02] Andréa Burns: Yes. Yes. Who when you think it was Sydney Chaplin on Broadway.

[18:07] Mark Peikert: Correct. Who is speaking of sexy gentleman, which is yes. That's gonna be the spin-off podcast of this of this. And they they also had a they had an affair. They had a thing, uh, Judy and Sydney. And so this would be, yeah, this would be much later. So I can't help but watching this. You know, it's like when you study so hard to be in somebody's shoes. I I sit here and I go, what is she thinking? Like I I picture her looking at him sometimes going, what is he even doing? I mean, but it's so the the contrast between these two is so educational because she's doing nothing but everything, and he's doing nothing and nothing. But loudly, like that, yeah, like he's doing nothing but loudly.

[18:55] Andréa Burns: Yeah, I know. I mean, you know, I guess it's the difference, and this happens in in you know, Hollywood things is you know, you there are actors and there are personalities, right? And so Dean Martin was definitely a personality, and he had his own charisma and his own thing, but he's not necessarily an actor, and so I think that's that's the difference there.

[19:18] Mark Peikert: Well, and I think his persona works against the movie in some ways because the Jeffrey Moss's entire character is he's a playwright who sleeps all day. Right. Well, Dean Martin's entire persona is he's a drunk who sleeps it off all day. Right. So then you can't extricate those two. So it seems like Jeffrey Moss is just an old booze hound, which nothing against being an old booze hound, believe me.

[19:49] Andréa Burns: He just seems like he's a drunk staggering out of the bar after last call.

[19:54] Mark Peikert: That's funny.

[19:55] Andréa Burns: That's funny.

[19:56] Mark Peikert: Yeah, I guess so. It's just the tough thing about him is it's really hard to buy any vulnerability from him, you know, or why she would want to save that guy, except that you know, it just speaks more to Ella in her heart, I guess.

[20:09] Andréa Burns: But um it is yeah, it is tricky. Although one of my favorite moments is when she sneaks in on him sleeping and she's never seen him and she lifts up the blanket and sees what he looks like, and she just is full of joy at this man, this boy she's fallen in love with is this really attractive man.

[20:29] Mark Peikert: Um, yeah.

[20:32] Andréa Burns: So it's it's it's odd. It's odd.

[20:35] Andréa Burns: Also, I don't even I don't even really want to get into it. And thank God they cut it mostly for the movie, but the whole bookie subplot. Oh my god. I mean, the first time I saw that, I was like, what is really happening? I think the whole idea was for them to have that wonderful um Compton and Green number where that number is, you know, the lyrics are so clever, it's so fun. Um, uh, where right they're saying, you know, if I ask for handle, it's Hayaliah and all that kind of uh wordplay. No, I don't got it out of my head, don't put it back in. Exactly. Sorry, but I think that number, I think that number is terrific. And uh that I think maybe even when they were creating the I don't know, it's just like how do we keep that number's the showstopper? That's the sit down, you're rocking the boat number of this musical.

[21:26] Mark Peikert: But here's my question is the and I have no doubt the number was a showstopper on stage. Does the number work in film?

[21:34] Andréa Burns: Well, I don't know. It does this thing that is so interesting, you know, Vincent Vanelli does this twice that I've noticed in that movie, which is uh they hit the button, their hand, they're shaking the you know, kind of jazz hands, right? And then the button ends, but they're still shaking their hands as if it's a really odd thing, as if, yeah, I can't even so it's that tricky movie thing where like we're not gonna actually stop um the number, we're gonna look like it keeps going, but all of the music has stopped. So that's a weird thing. And then also I'm kind of obsessed with her exit. Ella's exit out of Bonjour Tristes, where she hits the final note, she's like, and she's walking out the door with determination, and she you know, looks back and then goes to step out the door.

And instead of just leaving on the button and going out of frame on the button, the button happens and then she creeps to very awkward, creepy steps after the button, and then the numbers over in total silence. I don't, I really would love to ask Vincent Vanelli, like, well, what was really the intention? Like, what why? Why? Why?

[22:49] Mark Peikert: So it's like, and I've talked about this on other episodes, but it's like that thing in the 70s and 80s where numbers would just take place in black voids. Where it's like the um Dinah Ross singing home at the end of The Wiz.

[23:07] Andréa Burns: Oh, yes.

[23:08] Mark Peikert: She's just standing there, and you see photo, like still photos whirling by. Yes. Or it's the um or Mame when Lucille Ball is basically in a black void driving the car singing in her head. Singing. I'm using air quotes on singing.

[23:25] Andréa Burns: Right, right. Uh, or even in Anti-Mame when everything ends up.

[23:29] Mark Peikert: Oh yeah, but I love that.

[23:30] Andréa Burns: I do too. Come on, that's heaven. You can't knock Anti-Mame. That's a perfect film.

[23:35] Mark Peikert: It is a perfect film. That's how I like to leave every room. I have a follow spot, come with me everywhere I go. And every time I say goodbye, I hold it. Someone turns the lights, spot hits me, pink gel, and I leave.

[23:50] Andréa Burns: Exactly. Well, in fact, that was what we were actually the last moments of Smart Blonde. I remember when we were originally doing out of town. That was like the lighting designers. Like that was the whole idea was to can we just like Anti-Mame out in the last in the last scene.

[24:04] Mark Peikert: Um, yeah. So I would you think that, yeah, this is this is trying to be like a this is a traditional broad old school Broadway musical delivered in this in the last of the sort of you know, MGM kind of glory at a time where people were now shifting into something very edgy and experimental, and so you know I think that's part of the timing of it is tough too.

[24:32] Andréa Burns: Because right? The timing of it, and also it is in many ways. I think of Bells Are Ringing as the quintessential golden age musical.

[24:44] Mark Peikert: In the most negative connotations of that phrase.

[24:47] Andréa Burns: Okay, say more about that.

[24:49] Mark Peikert: It's a show built around a star performer.

[24:52] Andréa Burns: Yes.

[24:53] Mark Peikert: It's a show that is more interested in having fun than in forwarding the plot.

[25:02] Andréa Burns: So the original stage musical is very um. Oh, I have such a good word. Uh it's vignettes, basically. Interesting, because when you think about the team and the team writing for Judy, that's how they all started out writing these little vignettes in for the reviewers at the Village Vanguard.

[25:22] Andréa Burns: You know, you know Judy much better than I do, but I think I read somewhere that they wrote this for her because one of her party things was she would get up and sing like ragtime.

[25:34] Mark Peikert: Uh yes, I don't, I actually don't know so much about the ragtime.

[25:38] Andréa Burns: That's interesting to me, but they definitely wrote it for her. She was coming out of a divorce and you know, just in a rough space in her life, and they were very, you know, Adolf Green is like her best friend, you know. So she was very, very close to them, and they wrote it for her. And she was also, even though she had this tremendous set of pipes, she was always very self-conscious about her singing.

[26:03] Mark Peikert: Right.

[26:04] Andréa Burns: I always think of her and Carol Burnett similarly in that where they both are legit singers, but they both do some do a twist at the end to make it into a joke.

[26:15] Mark Peikert: Right, because they just don't want to be taken seriously.

[26:18] Andréa Burns: They don't want anyone to think they want to be taken seriously as singers. But she's a great instrument. And if you listen to some of those recordings on the original Bells Are Ringing album, she's just, I mean, she's fantastic. But yeah, so I think it is interesting the way they, and you know, they, Betty Comden, Adolf Green, and Judy all met, you know, were doing things as kids, these little sketches downtown, also with Leonard Bernstein, and I love that he's also mentioned in the movie, that's such a tip of the hat to him. And I was like, oh, of course he is. Like these are just a bunch of pals making a movie and putting all their inside jokes in it, which I just love.

[27:03] Mark Peikert: Yeah.

[27:04] Andréa Burns: Well, and that number, I mean, "Drop That Name," really has been in my head all week long. It's so catchy.

[27:11] Mark Peikert: Oh, yeah.

[27:14] Andréa Burns: It's also wild to me how many of those names are still part of the cultural conversation.

[27:21] Mark Peikert: Mm-hmm.

[27:23] Andréa Burns: All of them, obviously. When's the last time somebody read an Erwin Shaw novel?

[27:27] Mark Peikert: Right.

[27:29] Andréa Burns: Never. I don't know that they read them then, honestly. But it's such a perfectly constructed patter song, and her delivery of various pronunciations of "Renton Ten."

[27:42] Mark Peikert: Yes.

[27:44] Andréa Burns: That, and I don't want to spend too much time talking about the revival, the short-lived 2001 revival with Faith Prince. Another really, unfortunately, I love Faith, but I never saw that. But her cabaret album at Joe's Pub is the reason I discovered Judy Holliday and Bells Are Ringing because she sang "Is It a Crime," which was cut, which was filmed but cut from the movie.

[28:07] Mark Peikert: Correct, correct.

[28:08] Andréa Burns: Where she sings it in like the abandoned lot next to the Suzanne phone and then has a big exit through a gate. It's a very strange number.

[28:17] Mark Peikert: Yes, yes.

[28:21] Andréa Burns: But here's why Bells Are Ringing is such a museum piece in my head, a perfectly preserved museum piece. I never want to see it with anyone but a full production with anyone but Judy Holliday.

[28:27] Mark Peikert: I know Faith Prince is one of the funniest singing performers I can think of. Genius comedy. Her delivery of "I got them at Klein's. I do all my shopping there with Mary and Devil, Mary Schwartz and Ethel Hotchkiss."

[28:48] Andréa Burns: Right.

[28:48] Mark Peikert: Judy's delivery of that is so perfect that you have to go in the opposite direction. And so Faith went big on it. And it still works, but not as memorably.

[28:59] Andréa Burns: No, and the thing about Judy, I mean, her humor was so quintessentially, you know, Jewish girl from Queens, not unlike Barbara Streisand's, you know, Funny Girl, you know, which nobody would attach to Judy because she was known as being this blonde and this, you know, this cute, silly blonde. But that was very much her humor and her roots.

[29:21] Mark Peikert: Um, I would think, yeah, it's like if I had to say the package that was so special about Judy is she was this cute blonde who was a vaudevillian and a Jewish cantor and, you know, an old school Jewish comic, all in this like, you know, very cute little blonde package. And I think that's what made her unique. And I agree. Listen, when you write a musical for someone, it's gonna be very hard for anybody to step into those shoes because it was built around all of the particular strengths and humor of that person.

[29:56] Andréa Burns: And you're right, anybody else who would be coming in would have to say, okay, great. Now how do I interpret those lines to find my own funny there? Because, you know, the things were so, and not only written for Judy Holliday, written by her best friends, like the people who really know her at three in the morning after a few glasses of wine. That's who wrote it for her. It's ideal, right? But that's why it's really tough to recreate.

[30:25] Mark Peikert: We were talking about the end of "I'm Going Back," where she kind of creeps, creeps three steps out and then gets shoved back in. So if there is a flaw, if there is a flaw that prevents me from making people sit down and watch this movie over something like Meet Me in St. Louis or even Lady Be Good, which I just watched for the first time over the weekend. Oh my god, we'll talk about it later.

[30:49] Andréa Burns: Okay.

[30:51] Mark Peikert: But there were so many moments in the movie where Vincent Minnelli seemed to throw his hands up in the air and go, you know what? I'm just gonna leave the camera here. And Judy is just going to walk back and forth. She's gonna do a cakewalk, she's gonna grapevine, and she's gonna sing it as if she's center stage.

[31:09] Andréa Burns: Yeah, I mean, that was a one, you know, my son is actually like a film student and filmmaker, and he was like watching it with me recently, and he said, you know, my God, this is just like, this is one take. This is a wide shot. This is just, that's all it is, Bonjour Tristesse, you know.

[31:24] Mark Peikert: Yeah, and I wonder, now it's tricky, right? Because she comes from, you know, she comes from the theater, but she certainly was very well versed in movies. And yet I wonder how I would feel like my big 11 o'clock number, and then filming it in Hollywood, and then knowing how audiences clamored for it down a particular way, right?

[31:49] Andréa Burns: I mean, that's the moment where you just feel like she, you know, the movie's over and she's like, I'm just gonna do what I did in New York for this one.

[31:58] Mark Peikert: Yeah, that's it, it feels very much like that. And it also, I just part of me is thrilled that it was preserved in that way because that is as close as we are going to get to seeing Judy Holliday on stage.

[32:11] Andréa Burns: Right.

[32:11] Mark Peikert: And yet, because of the medium, it just doesn't translate, it's not as electrifying as you want it to be, even though you see her doing these things that you know would make a crowd go wild. It just doesn't necessarily translate all the time.

[32:28] Andréa Burns: I mean, I feel like "Bonjour Tristesse" still works because she's such a star and she's so, but something like "Just in Time" is the one that I struggle with when they're dancing in the park, and she's got all her little side to do do do do to do, you know, all that stuff. And I go, huh. I bet people ate this up when it was in front of a live audience, but I'm watching it and it feels so, I don't know, it feels flat to me, which makes me sad because I want everybody to adore everything she does.

[33:01] Mark Peikert: I mean, same.

[33:03] Andréa Burns: And I actually, I don't mind the "Just in Time" one. I've listened to the soundtrack much more than I have the original cast recording or have seen the movie, actually. And I did not know until the rewatch that she's doing, when she's, it's sorry, it's all right. She's doing an impression of Señor Wences, the ventriloquist.

[33:28] Mark Peikert: Right, right.

[33:30] Andréa Burns: That's right. I just read that too. Who became famous for not having a dummy, and just pretending that his dummy is a disembodied head in a box.

[33:41] Mark Peikert: Oh my god.

[33:42] Andréa Burns: Different times.

[33:44] Mark Peikert: Different times. There were not as many channels, friends.

[33:47] Andréa Burns: There were not as many.

[33:49] Mark Peikert: There were not as many places to stream content.

[33:52] Andréa Burns: So that's one of the reasons why I have always loved old movies or old shows, because the things that you can learn from that moment, like she's doing an impression that of something that everyone would have immediately recognized.

[34:09] Mark Peikert: Right, except us, right?

[34:11] Andréa Burns: But yes. And now no one will ever know that, but enough people do that they've written about it that you can then go down this whole rabbit hole of Señor Wences and his head in a box dummy.

[34:27] Mark Peikert: Right.

[34:28] Andréa Burns: The other thing was Judy throughout her life was always something that was in Hollywood held against her was her, you know, size. She wasn't skinny enough, right? She wasn't, she's a beautiful woman, but not skinny enough. You know, there's a whole scene in Smart Blonde about Harry Cohn, you know, it's a direct quote about, you know, she was pitched for Adam's Rib or, and no, not Adam's Rib for, yeah. No, they wrote a part for her into Adam's Rib. I'm trying to think there was, oh no, it was for Born Yesterday. She had done, she had won all the awards. She was the toast of the town. They were gonna make the movie, and when they did, George Cukor said, you know, I'd love to bring Judy Holliday back, and Harry Cohn said, you know, what? Oh, you mean that fat Jewish broad? No way, right? Not sexy enough.

[35:17] Mark Peikert: That's always been a was always a thing that she was up against, although she was teeny and gorgeous and in that movie. But I also know from reading up that as far as like costumes, you know, she wasn't really obviously she was a super super smart, you know, serious intellectual, but not a girly girl. And that she would go into these costume fittings. And I think it was with Jean-Louis, one of, I have to check my screen now. Hollywood costume designer. That she went in and they didn't, this costume designer did not like her because she would come in and instead of saying, oh, I love this, but maybe, you know, nip it here, or I don't like that, you know, green works much better on me. She would come in and just say, okay, fine, fine, whatever, it's fine.

[36:21] Mark Peikert: So, you know, they said that she was not a fun collaborator as far as costume design because she was like, put me in whatever.

[36:28] Andréa Burns: And I feel—

[36:31] Mark Peikert: No, no, no.

[36:32] Andréa Burns: I just, I'm so glad that you brought this up because this was going to be the last conversation I wanted to have in this movie, because I know that she had a very difficult relationship with her weight because of all the voices in her head. And I wanted to ask you, as someone who did all the research, it feels almost like they shot this in chronological order, and as she slimmed down, the costumes got more fitted.

[36:59] Mark Peikert: I don't know.

[37:00] Andréa Burns: I mean, I don't know, right? Because there is that big difference, you feel like when she changes that Traviata gown where she conveniently grabs a, I don't even know, it's not even a scissor, and cuts herself.

[37:14] Mark Peikert: She grabs a knife out of a pineapple.

[37:17] Andréa Burns: A knife out of the pineapple, correct. And suddenly her over-the-top Traviata ball gown turns into a sign of a 1970s, you know, I don't know, disco at the disaster movie fitted gown. But she, and she does look very slim there, but I don't know if also that's like what was more flattering to her.

[37:43] Mark Peikert: I just feel, yeah, go ahead.

[37:44] Andréa Burns: And the only reason I bring it up is because until that moment, she's wearing big, like Dior New Look skirts, and no one around her is right.

[37:56] Andréa Burns: And then after she grabs that knife and slashes her dress and gets rid of that taffeta for the rest of the movie, she's in very slim clothes, slim dresses.

[38:09] Mark Peikert: I guess that's true.

[38:11] Andréa Burns: Although we do see her at the dentist in that little brown suit, where also it's like kind of very slim earlier in the movie.

[38:19] Mark Peikert: But um dentist where there was an open flame to sterilize the instruments.

[38:27] Andréa Burns: And by the way, do all of us have one of those singing dentists in our lives? I mean, that is just that that that guy's right out of central casting. Just like a guy who always wanted to be in show business, you know, who is stuck at in a mundane job. I don't know. I just love that guy. He's so so good. Um so yeah, I I you're right. I think she probably was. I don't, I don't know her like weight loss story through Bells Are Ringing per se, but that makes sense about what you're saying, and certainly um, you know, it was it was con it was a constant thing in her life. But I felt I also have a problem with like the costumes. I'm just like, what's going on? Like, and who's protecting her? Again, I get very protective when I see her because having you know worked so closely, uh, you know, and knowing so much about her life.

I I just feel like there's a few times where her perfectly quoft hair gets really mused in the movie, and it just doesn't seem right to have left it like that. I'm like, who was looking out for her? Like, who was her who was her glam police? Like, who was her glam squad? Or did she have one, or did she say, Don't even bother with that? I'm working. But I really don't like how she yeah, I just feel like somebody there wasn't somebody taking care of her in that department.

[39:48] Mark Peikert: So I agree, I agree about the costumes, and that's why it struck me so forcefully that I brought it up in terms of all of a sudden near the end of her her costumes get much more attractive. Because at the beginning, it's very she just seems, and this could have been intentional, she seems very out of place and a different time because she's wearing costumes that what from Sabrina, like she's wearing the Dior stuff that yes, and these like Arganza dresses, correct? It just feels it feels bizarre. And why are you wearing that to work? When also, well, I mean, basically, she's all of us right now. She lives and works in the same room.

[40:26] Andréa Burns: Exactly. She's she works at Zoom and uh except with no except her camera's off the whole time and um yeah it is a bizarre I I do you you're absolutely right like you can't not notice that her costumes are different than everyone else's and not necessarily for the better because they don't seem to match at all what's going on no because this is I mean this is a meme movie and this is something where every every prop, every costume piece every accessory is so carefully curated in terms of color composition and then she comes in with these huge full skirts and you're like whoa what is this trying to say or was it just like the button the button happens and we're all still standing around waving our hands until it's black.

I don't know and she was also very she's very slim hipped but she was broad shouldered and so you see all those uh the full skirts and then with like so much going on top to quote unquote hide her shoulders you know what I mean um yeah I just get so oh I just it upsets me actually I'm just like where was the person who knew exactly what looked incredible on her and was going to make her look wonderful or my question is and and I could actually talk to Willie Holtzman about this the biographer who um actually uh turned and turned dramatist who turned a smart blonde into a play I mean, her story into a play. Like what, or was it that she this is the stuff, this is the kind of things she was in in the Broadway production and just loved it and was like, I I need to be, I need to look as great as I did in New York. I don't know.

[42:14] Mark Peikert: Yeah. It's I don't know. It's interesting that relationship that people have with their appearance when they're working. I mean, Dietrich was famous for making them reshoot something because the cuff was uneven. And the I think the assistant costume designer was like, I cannot believe that you just stopped the entire shoot so that we could adjust your cuff. And Dietrich said, I didn't do it for myself. I'm not gonna do the D-trick impression. Yeah, I guess. And Dietrich was like, I didn't do it for myself. I did it because in 30 years, my daughter's going to be watching this movie, and she's going to see that uneven cuff, and she's going to think, that's when mother started to slip.

[42:56] Andréa Burns: Oh God, that's so good.

[43:06] Mark Peikert: Well, wow, so good. Here is here's my final question, which is uh how we end how we end every episode. And we already know the answer to this, but do you think that Bells Are Ringing works on its own as a movie, as a movie musical without any knowledge of the Broadway version?

[43:31] Andréa Burns: I think it works. I think you, you know, I think you can go and you can have a lovely time, but I don't know that it is something you would watch maybe as a theater student, say, I want to do that musical at my school. Like, I I, you know, I think it just um I think it's fun and it's light, and you love her. And the idea, yeah, and the idea is strong enough. The Suzanne's are fun, the idea of this answering service is is just fun. But I I don't necessarily, and maybe it's why even as a kid, I never felt, you know, I I have almost like an encyclopedic uh knowledge of musicals because I was drawn to so many and couldn't wait to get in, you know, in and involved with every single one. And and this one was just sort of in the background on my radar, and not, you know, it wasn't until I actually started just studying Judy Holliday that I got to know it.

It was just not one that piqued my interest enough to um, but then once you you once you get in, there's clearly there's great songs, there's fantastic lyrics, there's um, you know, there's a lot of wit in it, but I just don't know that the movie I don't know about the chemistry. I don't think you really feel any chemistry between the two of them.

[44:47] Mark Peikert: So that's pretty huge. No, she seems like his paid companion to like get him through his bender.

[44:53] Andréa Burns: Oh God, yeah. Yeah, and he just doesn't like especially when you think about who Judy Holliday is, and if she were to come to you in the form of Melison Scott, you have to see that in the eyes of the man who sees that. Right. I mean, come on. And he's just he's out there on his own. He's he's just do it. He's just doing his own. Which we didn't even talk about during just do it, uh, which I actually really like that song on the album.

[45:24] Mark Peikert: Yeah.

[45:25] Andréa Burns: He's singing into the mirror, and there's a perfect white dot in the center of that mirror. He sends the entire song to that dot and then at the end wipes it off. What was that dot? I don't know what that dot. I do not know what that dot was. And I'm so glad you brought it up. And uh maybe Liza would say that's when my father was beginning to slip. But um but he does he does hit that dot. I don't know what that is. It is bizarre. There's a lot of weird little unexplained things in there in that movie, too. But really, if you get to the bottom of it, that it's a love story about this fantastically creative girl, you know, this whimsical, fantastical, this shy girl with a fantastical imagination and the man who sees her and loves her. That doesn't come through in the movie. I think it has a lot to do with with him and the chemistry between them.

[46:19] Mark Peikert: I agree. I think, but on the flip side, I think that the trade-off for the lack of that chemistry is that it becomes a movie about a girl that the entire city falls in love with.

[46:33] Andréa Burns: Yes.

[46:33] Mark Peikert: And it's less a romance between these two characters, and it's more of a new uh romance with New York and with being open and vulnerable and uh big hearted.

[46:45] Andréa Burns: Yes, yes. Well, I mean, you can't really you can't really get away from that when you're when you're when you got Judy on the screen. Open and vulnerable and big hearted. I mean, if nothing. Even in her, even at her silliest, it's just all over her. If nothing else, this is a really great introduction to Judy Holliday.

[47:06] Andréa Burns: Yes.

[47:07] Mark Peikert: And and I would encourage everyone to keep going because there's so many great movies and and resources and clips on YouTube uh about her, and she was an astonishing talent. And uh I feel like we all should just know more about her, especially those of us in the theater. I mean, she was like I said, she's this great combination of um joy and open heartedness, but like old school kind of skill, old school kind of vaudevillian showmanship and comedy that uh is rare, is rare.

[47:39] Andréa Burns: Yeah.

[47:40] Mark Peikert: Well, there you have it, folks. We have decided that this is movie musical magic with a giant asterisk at the end of magic.

[47:48] Andréa Burns: I guess I would agree with that.

[47:50] Mark Peikert: I would agree with that. It's mostly we love it, but then I like so many things in life. The more you think about it, the more you're like, oh, but wait, that horrible thing too.

[47:58] Andréa Burns: Right.

[47:59] Mark Peikert: But Judy Holiday trumps all of that.

[48:02] Andréa Burns: Exactly. And you know, if my son is like walking, you know, my 16-year-old is, you know, walking past when Bonjour Tristesse comes on. I say, stop what you're doing, come sit down next to mommy. You have to watch this. And then he's glad he did.

[48:15] Andréa Burns: Yeah, it's it's a great number. It's um the a lot of the score was what I used to do with the piano player at Marie's Crisis. Uh, we would do, we would do just in time, and I would do all of the Judy the bits in between.

[48:30] Mark Peikert: Yeah, yeah.

[48:31] Andréa Burns: And then uh we would do uh Bonjour Tristes, and every time she would get to a little maudlin on the side, he would very quickly launch into the opening notes of the man that got away.

[48:44] Mark Peikert: Oh, wow.

[48:45] Andréa Burns: Maudlin.

[48:48] Mark Peikert: Oh god. Now that's very clever wordplay.

[48:51] Andréa Burns: Very clever wordplay. I like that.

[48:55] Mark Peikert: Yeah, so this this movie and the soundtrack, and is this a movie? So it's a soundtrack. Right. Uh has really personal connotations for me and my life that I don't think I fully registered until I sat down to re-watch it to talk with you. And I'm so delighted that you were available and able to talk about this with me because I think you're the only person I would care to.

[49:16] Andréa Burns: Oh, well, thank you so much. And I agree wholeheartedly as we determined, yeah, in last year's interview. I think we need to spend a whole lot more time together doing deep dives on this kind of material.

[49:28] Mark Peikert: Uh, we really do. Thank you, Andréa Burns, for joining me.

[49:31] Andréa Burns: Thank you, Judy Holliday, for making an appearance.

[49:34] Mark Peikert: Oh, you're welcome. And thank you, all you wonderful people out there listening in the dark.

[49:40] Andréa Burns: That's Norma Desmond. She's not a movie musical, she's just a movie.

[49:43] Mark Peikert: Uh, I'm Mark Peikert. Please stay tuned for another episode of Movie Musical Madness.

[49:59] Mark Peikert: This episode of Movie Musical Madness was edited by Kyle Moore with Theme Music by Sunshine Music. And thank you for listening to Movie Musical Madness, part of the Broadway Podcast Network. You can find out more about the podcast and me at BPN.fm slash movie musical madness.