[Favourite of the Month] Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) is a joyfully entertaining American musical film directed by George Roy Hill and starring the great Julie Andrews.
It is now available in France in an indispensable combo Blu-Ray/DVD (All Zone) from Elephant Films.
Thoroughly Modern Millie was born from an idea of Ross Hunter, a Hollywood mogul associated with Universal. For the studio, he produced the Douglas Sirk melodramas Magnificent Obsession (1954) and Imitation of Life (1959) and the Rock Hudson-Doris Day comedies Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964). Hunter wanted to make a movie based on The Boy Friend, a 1953 West End musical set in the "Roaring Twenties". The Boy Friend opened on Broadway the following year and marked the American debut of English actress and singer Julie Andrews. Andrews starred in Broadway musicals My Fair Lady (1956) and Camelot (1960) before becoming a household name with the film Mary Poppins (1964). She confirmed her movie star status with The Sound of Music (1965) and Torn Curtain (1966).
Ross Hunter finally gave up buying the rights of The Boy Friend from MGM (which tried to adapt it in 1956) because too expensive and decided to do his own version, with Julie Andrews in the main role... Thoroughly Modern Millie, a musical comedy whose development was announced as of 1964. Richard Morris (The Unsikable Molly Brown, a 1960 musical) wrote the script and the casting of Julie Andrews was confirmed in 1966. George Roy Hill, who directed Peter Sellers in The World of Henry Orient (1964) and Julie Andrews in Hawaii (1966), was hired to helm the movie. Mary Tyler Moore (The Dick Van Dyke Show), Carol Channing (the musical Hello Dolly), James Fox (The Chase, The Servant), John Gavin (Spartacus, Psycho) and Beatrice Lillie joined the main cast. Elmer Bernstein (The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven) composed the music and André Previn scored the musical numbers. The original songs were composed by Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen (who worked for Frank Sinatra) and Jay Thompson. There are standards of the 1910s and 1920s too, such as Jazz Baby.
New York City, 1922. Millie Dillmount (Julie Andrews) is a young independent woman who wants to become a stenographer to a rich boss and then marry him. She befriends a naive aspiring actress named Miss Dorothy Brown (Mary Tyler Moore). Miss Dorothy checks into the hotel where Millie lives, the Priscilla Hotel for single ladies. She tells Mrs Meers, the hotel house mother (Beatrice Lillie), she's an orphan. Millie and Dorothy ignore that Mrs Meers runs a white slavery ring. At a dance, Millie meets Jimmy Smith (James Fox), a carefree paper clip salesman who borrowed his employer's roadster. After a crazy ride in the streets they kiss but Millie is determined to pursue her goal. She finds a job at Sincere Trust Insurance and decides that she'll marry her new boss, Trevor Graydon (John Gavin). Later, Jimmy introduces Millie and Miss Dorothy to the wealthy and eccentric Long Island widow Muzzy Van Hossmere (Carol Channing). Neville Phillips, co-author of a British stage musical called Chrysanthemum (1956), noted some similarities between the latter and the plot of Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Julie Andrews shines in this $6.000.000 pastiche of the 1920s. Her tap dance with the charming Mary Tyler Moore's is one of the highlights of the film. From 1970 to 1977, Moore starred in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a sitcom she produced through her company MTM Enterprises (founded in 1969 with her then husband at the time Grant Tinker). MTM was behind hits like The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978) or Hill Street Blues (1981-1987). The excellent James Fox doesn't sing in Thoroughly Modern Millie, because it's actually Jimmy Bryant who provided the singing voice of Jimmy Smith (1). Carol Channing is divine and John Gavin, a frequent leading man for Ross Hunter, does self-parody with perfection. Beatrice Lillie, dubbed "the funniest woman in the world", plays a live action Wile E. Coyote. Cavada Humphrey is hilarious as Miss Flannery, the office manager.
George Roy Hill creatively plays with silent movie intertitles, pays homage to Harold Lloyd and has fun with biplanes. Not only the director studied music at university but he had his pilot license. After the success of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Hill returned to the 1920s with both The Sting (1973) and the aviation film The Great Waldo Pepper (1975). The running gags of Thoroughly Modern Millie (the laundry basket, the elevator, the taxi...) are irresistible. Choreographer Joe Layton helmed the splendid musical sequences, assisted with Jay Thompson and Buddy Schwab. Though the movie was shot mostly in the Universal backlot, the sets by Alexander Golitzen and George C. Webb (with Howard Bristol) are absolutely superb. French costume designer Jean Louis designed the gowns. Cinematographer Russell Metty was briefly replaced by Russell Harlan (uncredited). Stuart Gilmore edited the film.
The depiction of the Chinese community in Thoroughly Modern Millie definitely didn't age well. Mrs Meers's henchmen (credited "Oriental 1" and "Oriental 2") are in fact played by two American actors of Japanese origin, Jack Soo and Noriyuki "Pat" Morita. Soo was a singer and actor later known for his role of Detective Nick Yemana in 101 episodes of Barney Miller (1975-1982). Pat Morita rose to fame as Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi in several seasons of Happy Days (1974-1984). He became a pop culture icon as Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid movies. Morita was also Ohara in the eponymous series (1987-1988). Korean-American Philip Ahn plays Tea, Muzzy's head butler. He's remembered for the character of Master Kan in Kung Fu (1972-1975). The gorgeous Technicolor of the enchanting Thoroughly Modern Millie is duly celebrated in the combo Blue Ray/DVD from Elephant Films. This is the "Roadshow" edition (141 minutes), with the overture, intermission and exit music.
The film is in English and in French (with French and English subtitles). Bonus material consists of an interview with movie critic and American cinema specialist Samuel Blumenfeld, an interview with cinema specialist Gilles Gressard, a trailer of Thoroughly Modern Millie and the trailers of some other titles of Elephant Films in the same collection: Isadora (1968) and the recently released Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) and Follow Me! (1972). The long time collaboration between Ross Hunter and Universal ended in 1970. The Boy Friend became a MGM film in 1971 and Thoroughly Modern Millie was turned into a musical in 2002.
(1) Jimmy Bryant was also the singing voice of Richard Beymer in West Side Story (1961).
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See also:
https://maxmcmanus.com/2018/09/13/the-maker-of-the-most-glamorous-films-of-the-fifties-and-sixties-a-ross-hunter-production/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/carol-channing-dead-hello-dolly-broadway-age-died-thoroughly-modern-millie-gentlemen-prefer-blondes-a8730691.html
