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Gypsy (1962)
In director Mervyn LeRoy's and Warners' musical biographical
drama set in the 1920s - a screen version of the 1959 Broadway musical
play (starring Ethel Merman), with a Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim
score, and based upon Gypsy Rose Lee's memoirs:
- the depiction of the bullying and domineering stage
mother 'Mama Rose' Hovick (Rosalind Russell, singing voice of Lisa
Kirk), to have her children become stars: young 'Baby' June Hovick
(Suzanne Cupito/Morgan Brittany), her older sister - ecdysiast-actress
Louise Hovick (Natalie Wood), and 'Dainty' June (Ann Jillian)
- the most memorable number: belted out by the Mama
Rose character to Louise at a train station -- "Everything's
Coming Up Roses" - "You'll be swell, you'll be great, Gonna
have the whole world on a plate"
- the funny "You Gotta Have A Gimmick" song
by Minsky's burlesque house strippers (Roxanne Arlen, Betty Bruce
and Faith Dane) to fresh-faced, naive Louise on how to be a successful
stripper and get applause: ("...If you wanna make it Twinkle
while you shake it If you wanna grind it Wait till you refined it
If you wanna bump it Bump it with a trumpet So get yourself a gimmick
And you too can be a star!")
- the scene on stage before an all-male audience
in a burlesque house in Wichita, KS, where Louise was introduced as "Gypsy
Rose Lee." She stepped into the spotlight from behind the stage
curtain, and center-stage, she nervously gave her debut performance while
wearing a fur wrap, long white gloves and an elegant blue evening gown
- standing stiffly and tentatively singing Let
Me Entertain You with a deeply sensual subtext,
as Mama stood and coached off-stage and yelled tips, such as "Sing
out!" and "Just dip!" Finally, Gypsy removed her fur wrap
while singing a final refrain of: "Let me entertain you, We'll have
a real good time, yes sir, We'll - have - a real good time." She
removed one long white glove, before teasingly dropping one strap on
her evening gown - and then quickly exiting the stage
- this was followed by
a montage of future performances, exhibiting Gypsy's significantly
improved stage show with more sensual moves, more stylish peekaboo
stripping and costuming, and her trademark line asked to the audience:
("Hello
everybody, my name is Gypsy! What's YOURS?"). The montage ended
with Gypsy's introduction at Minsky's at a New Year's show - headlined
by "The Queen of Striptease" who again performed: "Let
Me Entertain You" - "We'll have a real good time!" -
with a semi strip-tease behind a curtain
In Detroit
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Philadelphia
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At Minsky's
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Montage of Gypsy's Improved Performances
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- the confrontational scene in a dressing room of Louise
- who told off her brutal, tormenting and enslaving mother Rose,
who had called her less talented - and named her "a circus freak,
this year's novelty act"; Louise asserted herself and demanded
to be left alone: ("I said, turn it off! Nobody laughs at me!
Because I laugh first. At me! Me, from Seattle! Me, with no education.
Me, with no talent, as you kept reminding me my whole life! Well,
Mama, look at me now! I'm a STAR! Look! Look how I live! Look at
my friends! Look where I'm going! I'm not staying in burlesque! I'm
moving! Maybe up, maybe down! But wherever it is, I'm enjoying it!
I'm having the time of my life, because for the first time, it IS
my life! And I LOVE it! I love every second of it, and I'll be DAMNED
if you're gonna take it away from me! I am GYPSY ROSE LEE! And I
love her. And if you don't you can just clear out now!")
- the concluding scene after the violent quarrel backstage,
occurring on the stage of the deserted theater, when Mama Rose delivered
a bitter cursing soliloquy - expressing all her own heartbreak and
defiance; she described how she should take the credit for making
the no-talent Louise into a star:
(repeating Louise's words) 'I thought you did it for me, Mama. I
thought you did it for me, Mama'. I thought you made a no-talent ox
into a star because you like doin' things the hard way, Mama.'
(Mama Rose) "And you have no talents - not what I call talent,
Miss Gypsy Rose Lee. I made you, I made you and you want to know why?
You want to know what I did it for? Because I was born too soon and
started too late, that's why! What I got in me, I could have been better
than any of ya. What I got in me, what I've been holdin' down inside
of me - if I ever let it go, there wouldn't have been signs big enough!
There wouldn't been lights bright enough! Here she is, boys. Here she
is, world. Here's Rose! 'Curtain Up', 'Light the Lights', 'Play it,
boys.' You either got it, or you ain't, and boys, I got it. You like
it? Well, I got it"
- she broke into a reprised chorus of "Everything's
Coming Up Roses" about how she had lived out her own dreams
of stardom by promoting her daughters: ("This time, boys, I'm
taking the bows. And everything's coming up Rose. Everything's coming
up Roses, Everything's coming up Roses, this time for me...")
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Mama Rose on a Deserted Stage: "Everything's Coming Up Roses"
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Louise's Reconciliation With Her Mother
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- on stage, after her song, Mama Rose was interrupted
by Louise applauding from the side, who complimented her: ("You'd
really have been something, Mother...If you had had someone to
push you like I did"; Mama replied: "If I could've been,
I would've been. That's show business."); both admitted that
their lives were motivated by being "noticed" - Louise
held out her arms to hug her mother, to be reconciled: ("OK,
Mama, OK Rose"); Louise offered her mink so that her mother
could accompany her to a party, and Mama quipped: ("Say, this
looks better on me than it does on you. Funny how we can wear the
same size."
Louise: "Especially in mink")
- the film's ending, with Mama describing a dream -
as the two cheerily walking off together arm in arm: ("I had
a dream last night. It was a big poster of a mother and daughter.
You know, like the cover of that ladies' magazine... only it was
you and me, wearing exactly the same gown. It was an ad for Minsky,
and the headline said: 'Madame Rose - and Her Daughter Gypsy!'")
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'Mama Rose' - at Train Station ("Everything's Coming
Up Roses")
"You Gotta Have A Gimmick"
Louise Hovick's Nervous Debut Stage Performance as "Gypsy
Rose Lee": Let Me Entertain You
End of Montage of Gypsy's Stage Performances - at Minsky's
Backstage Confrontation Between Louise and Mama Rose
Ending: Walking Off Arm in Arm
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