Finian's Rainbow (1968)

 

There are so many narratives going on in Finian’s Rainbow that it reminded me of the annual untangling of Christmas lights. Eventually it all works out, but it can be very frustrating doing the hard work of sorting through everything that’s happening. Finian McLonergan (Fred Astaire) and his daughter Sharon (Petula Clark) have come to the United States from Ireland because Finian has stolen a crock of gold from a leprechaun. They arrive in Rainbow Valley because Finian thinks burying the gold near Fort Knox will help to make it grow or multiply or increase or something. The poor sharecroppers of Rainbow Valley are about to be evicted from their tobacco farm for not paying the rent. Their savior is Woody (Don Francks), who’s working with one of the other residents, Howard (the great Al Freeman Jr. in a terribly thankless role), to develop a mentholated tobacco. Sadly, their current version won’t burn, a problem for a tobacco crop. Og, the leprechaun who had his gold stolen by Finian, shows up to reclaim the crock because without it, he’s losing his fairy powers and slowly becoming mortal. As he becomes more mortal, he begins to fall in love, first with Sharon and then with Susan the Silent (Barbara Hancock), Woody’s sister who can only communicate with her dancing. And, if that weren’t enough, there’s a racist Southern senator (played by Keenan Wynn) who’s turned black by a wish Sharon makes while standing over the pot of gold. She wants him to experience what it’s like to be black in the South, but watching Wynn in blackface is horribly uncomfortable. His transformation is meant to demonstrate, perhaps, that even an unrepentant racist like Sen. Billboard Rawkins can be redeemed? Too much of the film depicts the horrible attitudes that he and his assistant Buzz (Ronald Colby) espouse, such as when Buzz tells Howard, who’s just taken on a job as the senator’s butler so that he can make some money to pay for his scientific equipment (don’t ask), that he needs to walk with a stereotypical shuffle when delivering a drink. Again, watching all of this is so uncomfortable. By the time the senator defends an offensive law he’s written that outlaws blacks and whites living together by saying, “I don’t have time to read [the Constitution], I’m too busy defending it,” you might wonder how much of the film is going to be devoted to this racist claptrap. Even Og the leprechaun (played by Tommy Steele in the most over-the-top manner) doesn’t understand why the color of one’s skin should limit what they’re able to do in life. Sadly, that isn’t the only failure of the film. Astaire is justifiably given a couple of showcases for his dancing, but unfortunately, the camera loses his feet multiple times, a disgraceful act on behalf of the director and cinematography. By the way, the director? Francis Ford Coppola, just four years before his first masterpiece, The Godfather, was released. Why he was given a musical is beyond comprehension. Some of the songs are great, of course, having transitioned from Broadway classics to musical standards, songs such as “Look to the Rainbow,” “Old Devil Moon,” and “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?” I could have done without the sexist attitudes of Og’s song about the fickle nature of men’s attraction, “When I’m Not Near the Girl I Love,” but given the filmmakers’ lack of willingness to eliminate the racist subplot in the interest of making Finian’s Rainbow more streamlined than its almost 2.5-hour running time, I’m not surprised they kept all of the songs, even the ones that make you cringe.

Oscar Nominations: Best Sound and Best Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation)