ROW ROW ROW - JOY HODGES

Lamartine Babo autor de todos os hinos dos clubes de futebol carioca, plagiou esta música e colocou a letra do hino do América Futebol Clube do Rio de Janeiro, seu time de coração. É uma das canções do show da Broadway: "Ziegfield Follies Of 1912" de James V. Monaco William Jerome. Song from the Broadway show "Ziegfield Follies Of 1912" .Words by James V. Monaco, music by William Jerome. Sour-faced Joy Hodges in a silvery evening gown sings Row, Row, Row (1940) with a ragtime flavor. Although the lyrics are abysmal ("He would row, row row. Way up the river. He would row, row, row. A hug he'd give her") the jauntiness of the piece almost sells it. Joy has gone down in history as the woman who told Ronald Reagan to "ditch the glasses" which some credit with getting his film career off the ground since he'd been showing up at auditions looking like a four-eyed geek. Her career lasted a long time with some impressive highlights, especially on Broadway, yet in her attempt to become a film star, she seemed always to be one of the also-rans just the short side of a real breakthrough. An appearance in Follow the Fleet (1936) is about the height of her film success, but who'd ever remember her when they came to see Fred Astair & Ginger Rogers. Row, Row, Row pretty much reveals why her successes stopped at a dull point. As the song progresses, Joy just gets worse & worse at it. Then she makes sex-noises while wiggling her shoulders as though rowing a boat -- or writhing in ecstacy. Soundies often tried to sneak in sexy bits & were widely criticized at the time for indecency, but this gal could shut down those jukebox-playing sailors with her flacidity-inducing act. Watching her from one of the tables, without smiles or lecherous interest (realism in this case), are three disinterested well-dressed gents. When the awful song is almost over, the gents whip off their jackets to reveal their college rowing team sweaters. They hastily put together a sort of a skate-board thingie pretending it's a boat, grab Joy to sit in front of them on the skateboard, & with miniature oars row off the stage. An amusingly stupid finale, the rowteam gents are the Three Rio Brothers, namely Frank, Jim, & Larry. They had a song, dance, & comedy act of their own, but don't get to do squat in this soundie & their roles might just as well have been played by any tim dick & harry. Rudolf Friml, Jr. & His Orchestra. It got recycled into Castle Films home movie "Hit Parades Hits" (1944) JOY HODGES - Birth Jan 29 1915 - Des Moines, Iowa - Death 2003 Jan 19 Audio/Visual: sound, b&w http://www.jose-nelson.com http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=12963769