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Knickerbocker Holiday

1944, Movie, NR, 85 mins

Knickerbocker Holiday: Review

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The original play lasted about six months on Broadway and never captured the public's imagination, despite its smash hit "September Song" (sung by Walter Huston onstage and by Charles Coburn here). Set in the 1650s in Nieuw Amsterdam (New York), the story opens with the arrival of Pieter Stuyvesant (Coburn), the new governor, who immediately establishes his reputation for iron will by suggesting that the town celebrate his landing with a hanging. Nominated as the doomed man is Brom Broeck (Nelson Eddy), a newspaper publisher who campaigns against the corrupt men who run the city and who now intend to hang him, but can't come up with a good reason to do so. Brom romances Tina Tienhoven (Constance Dowling), whose sister, Ulda (a gorgeous Shelley Winters), pals around with Brom's buddy Ten Pin (Johnnie "Scat" Davis). Stuyvesant, meanwhile, is making everyone unhappy with his stern rule, and Brom writes fierce editorials that land him in jail. With Brom languishing, Stuyvesant makes a move on Tina, then sends Brom into the hinterlands to unite various factions of colonists. Eventually, though the new governor intends to line his pockets through graft, Brom makes him realize that he is missing an opportunity to be a much-beloved figure in history if he does so. Stuyvesant consequently straightens out, leaving Tina and Brom to clinch at the finale. There's a great deal of flag-waving, turning the film into a sort of musical history lesson. Coburn, a marvelous actor, proved wrong for his role here, too pompous to convince viewers of the tender streak in his character. Only three songs survived intact from the original Weill-Anderson musical: "There's Nowhere To Go But Up" (Kurt Weill, Maxwell Anderson--sung by Nelson Eddy, male chorus), "The One Indispensable Man" (Weill, Anderson, sung by Charles Coburn, Ernest Cossart), "September Song" (Weill, Anderson, sung by Coburn). "It Never Was You," from the stage play, was heard only as background music and the "Jail Song" had the Anderson lyrics replaced by words from Eddy and Furman Brown. The other tunes from the Oscar-nominated score were "Hear Ye" (Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn, sung by Chester Conklin, chorus), "Holiday" (Theodore Paxton, Nelson Eddy, sung by Johnnie "Scat" Davis, chorus), "Let's Make Tomorrow Today" (Heymann, Brown, sung by Eddy, chorus), "Sing Out" (Franz Steininger, Brown, sung by Eddy, chorus), "One More Smile" (Styne, Cahn, sung by Eddy, Constance Dowling), "Love Has Made This Such a Lovely Day" (Styne, Cahn, sung by Eddy, Dowling, Shelley Winters), "Zuyder Zee" (Styne, Cahn, sung by Male Quartet), "Dutch March" (Heymann), and a Spanish Dance (traditional, performed by Carmen Amaya and her troupe). leave a comment
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