South, In the Pacific with R & H - "Who can explain it, who can tell you why?"

Last week, in a thrift store, I found a DVD of South Pacific in a version I'd not had the pleasure of seeing - a film made for TV in 2001. In this version Glen Close plays Ensign Nellie Forbush, the part played in the original, 1958, film by Mitzi Gaynor. Another well-known name in the cast: Harry Connick Jnr playing Lt. Joe Cable (John Kerr's part in the 1958 film). The rest of the cast weren't well-known (to me, anyway).

I thoroughly enjoyed this version of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. It'd be hard to dislike anything by that well-matched pair of musical wonders! The themes of the film are based on parts of James Michener's book of linked short stories about South Pacific Island life during World War 2.

After reading reviews of this 2001 version at imdb HERE I suspect that I'm the only person with a good word to say about it - I'm easily pleased, I guess!

Glen Close, of course, was not quite right for Nellie, as originally written - but I found it easy to view the story from a slightly different perspective age-wise. It wasn't Glen Close's age that mattered to me, but I did find it hard to see her as an unsophisticated racist "hick" from Arkansas - we know her from so many other roles, just too well - and no amount of decent acting could erase our ingrained image of her. Harry Connick Jnr was a tad underwhelming, but perhaps that was how he interpreted Joe Cable. I'm waiting for the the book to arrive from e-bay find out how Mr Michener originally described him.

The singing and dancing in this newer version, while not up to the best stage musical level, were adequate. Rodgers and Hammerstein's words and music are of such high quality, and have magic enough to carry a less than top notch vocalist.

I liked the fact that more background detail of the war was included in this 2001 film - it kept things more real and properly oriented for me, rather than being completely swept away by the froth of the lighter side of the stories being told.

I read, on the net, that another re-make of the film version of South Pacific was in the works (but some five years ago). Names being thrown around, then, for starring roles were Michelle Williams, Hugh Jackman and Justin Timberlake. Hmm.

I was sure I'd done a post on Rodgers and Hammerstein in the past - they certainly had a magical bond - but on checking the archives - nope! That needs to be rectified. Below are their natal charts - I'm interested to see what astrological links there were. Richard Rodgers was the composer, and Oscar Hammerstein the lyricist, by the way. Their greatest successes include: Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music.

A snip from HERE

As businessmen, R&H revolutionized Broadway. Rodgers and Hammerstein fully understood that the show is just half of show business, wrote business historian John Steele Gordon in American Heritage (1990). They became the first men from the creative side of Broadway to establish a permanent organization to handle the business side of what they created. In doing so, they built a business empire that earned them the first great American fortune to be based on creative theatrical talent.

Like ASCAP [American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers ], which had been established a generation before, R&H wanted to protect the writer; that they were writers themselves made the duo especially sensitive to the issues. They both detested Hollywood because there the writer was well paid but stuck at the bottom of the evolutionary scale; but on Broadway, on stage, they knew the writer could and should have control over his or her work. Producers held too many of the cards, they felt, and the best way to wrest some of that control was to become producers themselves.

Richard Rodgers born in New York City on 28 June 1902 at 2.3-AM. (Astrodatabank)

Oscar Hammerstein born in New York City on 12 July 1895 at 4.30 AM. (Astrodatabank)

Both men had natal Sun in Cancer and natal Moon in Pisces. Hammerstein had Cancer rising, with Mercury on the ascendant angle (excellent placement for a lyricist!). Rodgers had Taurus rising, with Venus, planet of the arts in Taurus, a sign ruled by Venus, and in First House.

There are helpful links between Uranus (innovation) and Jupiter (expansion, publication) in both charts, trine for Hammerstein, sextile for Rodgers.

In relation to the link above describing this duo's building of a business empire - I look to Saturn in their charts and find it well placed in both. Rodgers had a trine from Saturn in Capricorn (it's sign of rulership) to Venus in Taurus - linking business (Saturn in Capricorn) to the arts (Venus in Taurus). Hammerstein had Saturn in Scorpio in trine to...yes Mercury on the Cancer ascendant - linking business (Saturn) to sensitive word-smithing (Mercury in Cancer).

It's not hard to see, astrologically, why these two were such a successful pair!