GAILY, GAILY

US, 1968, 117 minutes, Colour.
Beau Bridges, Melina Mercouri, Brian Keith, George Kennedy.
Directed by Norman Jewison.

Gaily, Gaily is an old-fashioned story of male innocence lost. A beautifully mounted story of naive young writers, Ben Hecht (Beau Bridges is excellent) who goes to the big city to find the devil he has discovered in himself. He encounters Queen Lil and her court, the hard-drinking, tough reporters and the political careerists of the early decades of the century. Pleasant, comical, but with a bawdy background of papers, politics and bordello, it will not be to everyone's taste.

1. An entertaining film, a piece of Americana, for American audiences, non-Americans?

2. The director Norman Jewison as a stylist? Period re-creation, the adventures of a young man, comic and farcical styles, serious undertones? How well did they blend? The importance of colour photography, the re-creation of the turn-of-the century period - the opening in the small town atmosphere of school, athletics, picnics etc.? The visualizing of Chicago - the elaborate sets, the city streets, the newspapers, brothels? Chicago society? Costumes?
Musical score?

3. The film as the story of an innocent and learning experience? The prologue concerning Ben - as a boy in a small country town, relationship with his parents? His dreams - and the humorous presentation of puberty problems?

4. The background of Roosevelt and his promises and the hope for progress in the 20th century? Religious values and the consciousness of sin? Life at home? The encounter with Johansen and the indication of sly and deceitful politics? The Pyramid and the atmosphere of the picnic? His collapse? The irony of his collapse and his wanting to leave? At the overtones of romance and sexuality?

5. A portrait of naive young innocence learning experience? The film's comment on the loss of innocence? The possibilities of corruption? The world of politics, the world of the brothel? where did the evil lie and what corruption?

6. The capacity for survival despite the loss of innocence? Ben's exuberance about his trip, his arrival in Chicago and his being overwhelmed, his naivety, the impact of the city, the jostling? The irony of his being robbed? His hunger and the way this was visualised? Comic tones to the pathos?

7. The irony of his being helped by Queen Lil? The visualising of the brothel and its baroque style? His naive not understanding what was going on? His being welcomed, fascinated with the girls, eating? His settling into the place? The fascination with Adeline and his romanticising of her and not realising the truth?

8. The search for work? Lil's hold over Sullivan and her persuading him to give him a job? Sullivan and the world of journalism and the production of papers at the turn of the century? Ben and his work in taking pictures? Hanging and the elaborate sets, atmosphere, effect on Ben? Illustrating the world in which he was learning to live?

9. Sullivan and his drinking, his forcing Ben to prove his manliness? The irony of his thinking that he had ruined Adeline and his attitudes towards this? Her response to him?

10. Chicago politics, the presentation of Grogan and his spending so much time at Lil's? The irony of Johansen seeming so upright and yet his having power, persuasion, and was corruptible as well? The irony of the book and the details of embezzlement? The political party at Lil's and the verve and vitality? The day-by-day running of the brothel and its effect on Ben? Adeline and his wanting to rescue her from all this, getting the book and running away?

11. The atmosphere of the pursuit of Ben with the book, the riot, the presentation of anarchy - the social implications of the background of the time? Johansen's niece and hypocrisy?

12. The build-up to the pursuit for the book, Grogan and Johansen and their participation, Johansen's double-dealing? Adeline and the book? The bridge and Ben's seeming to be dead? Johansen's anger etc.?

13. The sub-plot about the adrenalin experiments - humour, their importance for creating period, the quack and his theories, the hanged man and Sullivan's elaborate proceedings to get a scoop story? The irony of its working on Ben?

14. The build-up to the funeral? All those present and the ironies? The future for Ben and Adeline?

15. The film did not moralize explicitly - it just presented a world and a way of life. What attitude did it take? What response did it ask from the audience?

16. The film as a memory fantasy of a successful playwright, the autobiography of an innocent young man, the human comedy.