The Unsinkable Molly Brown

Love Debbie Reynolds, loved this movie during my childhood, and this film made a lot of money (it was far more successful than the Broadway show it's based on), but oy! to watch it now as an adult. Even on the big screen she donates enough acting for the entire cast, the location shooting makes the brightly, broadly lit studio interiors look even more fake, and there are long stretches without songs or music where numbers were cut when the budget was cut.

I'd watch it, but fucking Comcast just removed TCM from my channel lineup. I'd have to pay an extra $20 a month to get it again. Screw them.

The really Molly wasn't exactly a Debbie will o' the wisp type, was she? Kathy Bates in Titanic was a much better interpretation.

All I know is that the guy who plays John Brown, is a horrible singer!

So basically, Molly was a loud-mouthed, pretentious gold digger.

Oh, and she was a whore, too.

I have such a love-hate relationship with Debbie's performance. She gives it EVERYTHING she's got, from that first number where she hollers, "I'm gonna LEARN to READ and WRITE!" Even in scenes where she's just supposed to be showing mild appreciation, she's like "Oh....gasp.....oh......gasp......oh." And the mugging, jfc. The feistiness is almost too much to bear, as is the thought of Harve Presnell being sexually attracted to her. However, I like when she moves into the mansion and gets fancy.

I think I would have preferred Doris Day in the part. Or even Patty Duke, why not?

It's such a hammy performance.

There will be an Off Broadway revisal early next year starring Beth Malone ("Fun Home"). I saw Debbie's tour w/Harve Presnell at the Pantages in 1989. She looked her age in the bumpkin scenes, but looked great in Molly's gowns. It was nice to hear her sing the cut "My Own Brass Bed". A few years later, I saw it on the big screen at the Egyptian. Harve is handsome, but the big screen just exposed his extreme cross eye. Hard to believe it's the same grouchy old man from "Fargo"!

Tammy Grimes owns that role and always will. Why did they have to cut "Bonjour, the Language Song" and "Chick-A-Pen" from the movie?

The scenes where she's lording it over Denver society with all her Euro friends - ugh. I'm with Gladys MacGraw, Molly is trash.

R10 Then you'll have me to reckon with!

Shocking. It's a dance for a– a bawdy house!

I quite agree, Mrs. McGraw.

I wouldn't allow that trash anywhere near MY carousel!

To the person who mentioned Doris Day, watch CALAMITY JANE sometime. Day is as cringeworthy in that film as Reynolds is in MOLLY BROWN. Day carries on like a female Yosemite Sam.

And then Molly had the gall to humiliate Gladys in a European restaurant, whilst wearing a lampshade on her head. So vulgar.

A lampshade! How Elinor Glyn of her!

Calamity Jane is the GAYEST not-gay movie ever made. "Secret Love" ? LOL

UMB is simply unwatchable.

r6 Why not the subtleties of Betty Hutton?

Calamity Jane is fun

Alicia Malone on TCM mentioned the director wanted Shirley MacLaine - of course! I forgot about her. I guess she would have been good.

Oh, Mrs. McGraw! How could you! Drinking and passing out at parties! Playing a lady astronomer! How ghastly!

I saw it many years ago at a revival theater with my grandparents. I remember going and sitting through it but I can’t recall much about the actual movie. Does Debbie sing “Doin’ What Comes Naturally” or is that from something else?

Debbie toured in "Annie Get Your Gun" in the mid 1970's after "Irene". She hoped to bring that and "Molly Brown" to Broadway, but neither made it.

Well, one thing you can say about Debbie, she never, ever phoned it in.

R25 Unless she had to call up Grace to tell her, "Told you so! Told you so!"

r23's gay card is hereby suspended.

Basically, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” is a third rate musical. It’s not very good, whether it’s on the screen or on the stage.

The number they really shouldn’t have cut from the film is Molly’s bib revival number, “Are You Sure?”. “He’s My Friend” is a weak tea replacement for it.

LOL, not the first time I've heard that, r27.

I saw this movie when I was 8 years old at the Vista Theatre in Negaunee, Michigan (my mother's hometown in the UP). Half an hour into, a person in the row behind me projectile vomited (it missed me).

Exactly.

(Actually, I enjoyed it and Debbie--what 8-year-old nascent gay boy wouldn't. When I watched it on TCM a few years ago I was simultaneously bored and horrified. And I genuinely LIKE Debbie Reynolds and think she could be versatile, from "The Catered Affair" to "Mother," but here--what a shame this was her only Oscar nomination!)

[quote] There will be an Off Broadway revisal early next year starring Beth Malone ("Fun Home").

I remember, I was so surprised that there wasn't a Broadway revival of it with Reba, after her Annie Get Your Gun triumph. It would have been the perfect follow up, at the time. And, she could have won the Tony, that all the critics said they wished she could have won for AGYG.

It was one of my Dad's favorite musicals. He had the album, and he'd play it over and over again while my brother and Dad and I all played pool in the basement.So it's a nice memory for me.

*raising my eyebrow* at R32's dad.

R33 has me howling!

Grover Dale dancing in red socks and Martita Hunt make the movie for me.

Charles Walters was strongly against Debbie getting the part. And she wanted it so bad. The problem is his direction of her in the first half. He wanted her too much the savage tomboy and she manages to chew up an entire national park. She improves terrifically when the social climbing pays off.

Calamity Jane has a much better score than "Molly Brown" does, and a better cast. Plus the lesbianism.

[quote] She hoped to bring that and "Molly Brown" to Broadway, but neither made it.

Actually, Debbie is the one who put the brakes on taking AGYG to Broadway. That was the reason Champion did it, because it looked like it was a good bet for a transfer, but for some reason Debbie decided she just didn't want to go (and lived to regret it. By the end of the 80s, she was telling people it was a huge mistake not to take Annie to Broadway).

I saw Deb in AGYG. (in LA). The production was good, and Debbie was good, but it was really just a rehash of Molly Brown, including the "Irish" accent. It opened with Gower redoing his "Carnival" opening, but this time they we're building the Wild West Show instead of a carnival. "Sun in the Morning" was moved to the top of Act II on the cattle boat they're taking to Europe, which then made "Old Fashioned Wedding" the big production number for the ballroom scene, and Champion had the whole chorus participate with a big routine.

Well even if she had taken it to Broadway and made a lot of money from it one of her husbands would have stolen it from her. At least Eddie was cute and being a horny jewish young man must have been amazing in the sack so that even a lesbian would have been in a delirium.

Debbie's smarts was in collecting all those amazing costumes through the years. I'm still amazed that all those billionaires in Hollywood did not want to contribute money to her museum. Spielberg could have just taken a wad of cash out of his pocket and handed it to her not even costing him the sweat off his nose.

Well Todd and Carrie's daughter sure lucked out.