Hairspray & the Women of Tin Pan Alley

Saturday, July 28: A couple of friends invited me to spend this afternoon and evening with them in Ocean City, Maryland, and what a time it was. Traffic wasn’t bad, for a Saturday, and I made good time getting there.

Following a light lunch we headed off to the movies. We were supposed to see “Sicko” but the theater showing it had sound problems so it wasn’t playing today. The second choice was “Hairspray”. While I really want to see “Sicko” – which has vanished from local screens this week – “Hairspray” was just the right film for today. It’s uplifting, very funny, well acted (yes, even Travolta) and the dance/musical numbers were high energy and toe-tappingly delightful. The dance number featuring Walken and Travolta is not only hilarious, but quite lovely. Yes, campy, too.

All I can say is if you haven’t seen it yet, go and see it soon. You’ll have a great time.

After the movie we went back to their place and talked about the film while sipping glasses of wine. I found a few glaringly obvious continuity and editing mistakes, but they didn’t bother me in the least. I didn’t even bring them up in conversation.

My friends have just returned from a few days in Maine and as we sat down to dinner they told me about this small country store/gas station where they found the most unusual video/DVD rack, especially for rural Maine. On that rack they came across a DVD of a PBS American Masters documentary about the women songwriters of Tin Pan Alley going back to the 20s & 30s. They bought the disc and the rest, as they say, is herstory.

So, as we had dessert we watched this amazing documentary that, by the way, is partially hosted by Betty Buckley. It was a fascinating piece and all the songs, if not their writers, are standards still today. The only writer I knew was the wonderful Dorothy Fields whose career spanned five decades. Everything from “I can’t give you anything but love, baby” from Blackbirds of 1928 to “Big Spender” from Sweet Charity and so much more in between. Including writing the lyrics to Jerome Kern’s music for the Astaire/Rogers film Swing Time.

Driving home tonight I realized I was smiling to myself and remembered that this was the smile on the faces of all who left the theater after having seen Hairspray. Yes, it had that kind of influence.

More later.

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