Why does Mickey Rooney bug me so much? He’s weirdly gross. Sorry, Rooney fans. I just don’t get it. I will grin and bear it for a movie with Judy Garland and Lena Horne singing. Rooney plays Lorenz Hart (called Larry) based on the real life lyricist. Only in this film, his short lifespan does not include being an alcoholic or a closeted gay man. Tom Drake portrays Richard Rodgers before his time with Hammerstein (and also cutting down on his alcoholic tendencies for the sake of the Hays Code). Most of this movie is just famous people performing the songs with little interest in an actual plot. I’m going to be focusing more on the lyric writing for this blog.
Larry started off as a poet with a strange process that drives Richard nuts. Larry writes down words on old issues of Vanity Fair and takes measurements of people he likes. However, they still end up in a partnership because “a tune without a lyric is a lonely thing”. However, the “lonely thing” throughout the film is Larry, showing his depression and bouts of writer’s block as a result. Besides Larry’s mother, Dick and his wife Dorothy (played by Janet Leigh and based upon real-life self-help writer Dorothy Rodgers - a fact no mentioned in this film) are portrayed as the only people who understand both Larry as a person and an artist. They try to protect him, encourage him, and inspire him. Most importantly, they cover for him in a business full of depression and doubt, yet has no time for the anxieties of creatives.
