Peerless: Rouben Mamoulian, Hollywood, and Broadway

by Kurt Jensen

Overview

A proud Armenian who claimed a distant link to nobility, born in what was then part of czarist Russia, Rouben Mamoulian (1897-1987) was one of the most astonishing and confounding figures in American film and theater, directing the original stage productions of Porgy and Bess, Carousel, and Oklahoma!, as well as films including Love Me Tonight, Queen Christina, City Streets, and Silk Stockings. He was famously fired from the film version of Porgy and Bess in a dispute over publicity and quit Cleopatra after arguments over a single scene. Mamoulian’s mercurial confidence and autocratic tendencies were among the reasons he had a reputation for being uncompromising. This frustrating mix of genius and stubbornness, of critical successes and financial flops, has proven challenging for biographers. 

Kurt Jensen’s magisterial volume, extensively researched and filled with trenchant observations, brings to life this charming, flawed, and fascinating man—and demonstrates how the wellspring of his art contained the seeds of his own destruction. Drawing upon Mamoulian’s unfinished memoir and voluminous diaries, as well as interviews with the director’s surviving collaborators, Jensen delivers fresh and informative insider stories from seminal productions. Meanwhile, he explores Mamoulian’s aesthetic principles and strategies as manifested in lighting, choreography, and sound design. A tour de force, Peerless offers readers a multifaceted, in-depth look at an idiosyncratic genius.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299348205
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	05/07/2024
Series:	Wisconsin Film Studies
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	376
Sales rank:	654,272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Kurt Jensen has been a film reviewer and news writer for several Catholic publications, and his contributions have been published in Studies in Musical Theatre and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Table of Contents

Contents
 
Introduction: Enjoy the Journey
1.     Tiflis to New York
2.     Catfish Row
3.     From Eugene O’Neill to Burlesque
4.   Finding Elissa
5.  Those Darn Cats
6.     Isn’t it Romantic?
7.     Dietrich and Garbo
8.     In Which Anna and Miriam Star
9.     My Colored Brainchild
10.  The Folks Who Live on the Hill
11.  Golden Holden
12.  Mon General Zanuck
13.  A Bright Golden Haze
14. Otto and Ethel
15. A Real Nice Clambake
16. Come Rain or Come Shine
17.  Found in the Stars
18.  Mamoulian Marches On 
19.  Breathtaking Cinemascope
20.  Perfidy and Bess
21.  Dulce et Decorum est Cleopatra Mori
22.  Leavin’ Time

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

02/26/2024

Jensen debuts with a scrupulously researched portrait of Armenian director Rouben Mamoulian (1897–1987), whose wide-ranging career boasted 16 films and 17 Broadway productions, including Oklahoma!. Born in Tiflis (now Tbilisi), Georgia, to a banker father and actor mother, Mamoulian and his family fled the Russian Revolution of 1905 for Paris. As an adult he immigrated to London, where a series of chance encounters landed him a job as director of the experimental play Porgy, which debuted in 1927 and paved the way for an eclectic career that included the films Applause (1929) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), which used such cutting-edge techniques as spinning cameras and colored filters. In 1932 he directed the romantic musical comedy Love Me Tonight in collaboration with Richard Rodgers, forging a partnership that would redefine his career when the two—along with Oscar Hammerstein—collaborated for the wildly successful Oklahoma!, which, Jensen argues, cast off “long-accepted tropes of musical comedy” to pioneer the “integrated” musical, in which “songs and choreography advance the plot.” Sifting through a wealth of production notes, diaries, and letters, Jensen weaves together a biography that gives equal due to Mamoulian’s stylistic innovations, wide-ranging artistic legacy, and uncompromising vision that was buttressed by egotistical self-confidence (Mamoulian sometimes claimed “to be the Zeus from whose brow all talkie innovations sprung,” according to film historian Scott Eyman). Musical theater buffs will be riveted. (May)

Publishers Weekly

To date the fullest account of Mamoulian's life and career. The author has assiduously scoured the sources at hand. He has scrutinized the self-serving reminiscences Mamoulian recorded and rerecorded in retirement. He has amassed a trove of anecdotes deftly told and judgments reasonably rendered.”—Wall Street Journal

“Jensen’s fresh, sparkling prose allows Mamoulian to emerge as the type of suave, charming, larger-than-life character so often portrayed in his films. Jensen’s thoughtful use of Mamoulian’s own words in journals and interviews allows this work to serve as the intimate, lively memoir the great director never completed.”—Cynthia Brideson, author of He’s Got Rhythm: The Life and Times of Gene Kelly

“A biographical feat: a multidimensional portrait of a trailblazing director and his turbulent times. Jensen fills his book with resonant details that spark surprising revelations about Mamoulian’s life and career. He conjures such an intimate perspective on Mamoulian’s groundbreaking work, including soundstage marvels like Love Me Tonight and stage milestones like Porgy and Bess, that we feel present at its creation.”—Michael Sragow, contributing writer, Air Mail and Film Comment, and author, Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master

“Jensen generously takes us to the heart of Mamoulian land: his genius, his arrogance—and his absolute refusal to budge on his opinions. Yes, warts and all live here. Where there was brilliance and controversy, there was Mamoulian. In this relentlessly detailed telling of Mamoulian’s life, there is no place for the peerless to hide!”—Marilyn Ann Moss, author of Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood’s Legendary Director

“A scrupulously researched portrait. . . . Musical theater buffs will be riveted.”—Publishers Weekly

“Fans of well-told film biographies will relish the film synopses, newspaper critics’ contemporary observations, and the striking photographs.”—Library Journal

From the Publisher

05/01/2024

Film reviewer Jensen offers an expansive view of American entertainment history as seen through the life and career of director Rouben Mamoulian (1897–1987). Born into a wealthy Armenian family in Tbilisi, Georgia, and exiled after the Russian Revolution to France, Britain, and ultimately the U.S., Mamoulian became a versatile producer and director for both stage and film. Known as a hypersensitive multitasker, he directed 20th-century personalities such as Marlene Dietrich (The Song of Songs), Greta Garbo (Queen Christina), George Gershwin (Porgy and Bess), Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell (Blood and Sand), and Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra.) He recast classic silent flicks into sound (Mark of Zorro) and brought forth heralded comedic and dramatic vehicles, including Applause, Oklahoma!, Carousel, and Golden Boy. Among his signature contributions was choreography that advanced story plots. This book also includes candid anecdotes about Mamoulian's lovers and his wife, who had a substance-use disorder. VERDICT Fans of well-told film biographies will relish the film synopses, newspaper critics' contemporary observations, and the striking photographs.—Frederick J. Augustyn Jr.

Library Journal