OVP: Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)

Film: Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)

Stars: Julie Andrews, James Fox, Mary Tyler Moore, John Gavin, Carol Channing, Beatrice Lillie, Jack Soo, Pat Morita

Director: George Roy Hill

Oscar History: 7 nominations/1 win (Best Supporting Actress-Carol Channing, Art Direction, Costume Design, Score*, Song Score, Original Song-"Thoroughly Modern Millie," Sound)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Julie Andrews-click here to learn more about Ms. Andrews (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week, we started out our conversation about Julie Andrews with not Mary Poppins nor The Sound of Music (both of which I'd seen many times), but instead with Torn Curtain for our Alfred Hitchcock month, a movie that she felt an ill-fit for.  Andrews is a unique actress for modern audiences because she is so well-known for two beloved children's classics (and later had a bit of a renaissance with The Princess Diaries and voiceover work in the Shrek and Despicable Me franchises for a new generation of kids), but those two films kind of hide the fact that she was a big star for a time, and her career had ebbs-and-flows.  You could argue that the final major wave of her first, most successful period in film happened in 1967 with today's Thoroughly Modern Millie, the last big hit before Andrews would endure two extremely high-profile flops that would totally stall her film career...but more on those two pictures next week.  Today we're going to raise our skirts & bob our hair with Millie.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in New York City in 1922, where Millie (Andrews) has decided to become a "modern," basically taking on the flapper aesthetic & getting a job as a stenographer which she hopes will result in her finding an "equal" as her husband (i.e. marry her boss).  In the beginning of the movie she meets Dorothy (Moore), a hapless aspiring actress who is always lost, and is the target of Mrs. Meers (Lillie) who is their landlord...who is also running a human trafficking ring by kidnapping girls staying with her who don't have families.  Millie is pursued by Jimmy (Fox), a poor paper clips salesman but is enamored by Mr. Graydon (Gavin), her gorgeous boss.  The film follows the love square between the four, and the occasional appearance of Muzzy (Channing), who is an eccentric wealthy widow who randomly shows up at opportune times throughout the movie.  In the end we find out that not only does Millie love Jimmy (and Dorothy loves Mr. Graydon), but that Jimmy is actually Dorothy's wealthy brother (and Muzzy's stepson).  Oh, and they end the prostitution ring.

Thoroughly Modern Millie is meant to skewer a lot of things, though it's rarely successful in this endeavor.  Mocking the rich, gender norms, and how we fantasize about both when we watch the movies, the film doesn't really have the edge to make that work, and we end up with a film that accidentally glamorizes what it's intending to mock.  This might be forgivable, as would the repetition & length (the story goes nowhere during the middle hour as Millie can't decide between the two men, even though one has no interest in her whatsoever), were it not for the racism that doesn't even feed the plot.  Lillie (in her final cinematic role as she was starting to suffer from Alzheimer's at the time), is a white woman bossing around a group of Asian men (Jack Soo & Pat Morita), and it's just...gross.  The way all of the Asian actors are used as props & stereotypes-even in 1967 they should've known better & it's so ancillary to the central plot it's ridiculous.  It also feels pretty eyebrow-raising to have something as serious as sex slavery be treated basically as an excuse for the main cast to do a series of acrobatic tricks in a mansion (we don't usually get people THIS evil in a musical, even the villains).

Andrews is fine here even if this isn't amongst her best work.  Unlike Torn Curtain she was perfect cast here-Millie is the kind of role that Andrews can nail, but the movie itself is dull, and Andrews doesn't get enough of a change-of-pace to help save the film from itself.  That task instead goes to Carol Channing, who in 1967 was best known for her "role of a lifetime" Broadway part in Hello Dolly!.  Channing is one of those singular talents on stage & screen that's hard to explain, an actress so specific it's difficult to ever see her playing anything other than her schtick.  I honestly don't have a lot of words here-her Muzzy shows up randomly, has little to do with the plot, & is absolutely insane.  One gets the sense that someone like Gwen Verdon or Shirley MacLaine might have been a better fit for this role, grounding it while also getting some of the humor, but Channing definitely comes in & upends the film. I want to like this performance because it's definitely something, but it's so unusual I don't really know what to do with it.

Otherwise, the rest of the Oscar nominations are a mixed bag.  The Art Direction is boring & overdone, the costumes are not much better (though I loved Andrews' iconic black-and-white flapper look), and the sound is okay (it feels like some of the scenes are a bit washed out, particularly the musical numbers that don't involve Channing).  The score is much better (somehow this movie is Elmer Bernstein's only Oscar), and the scoring is fun.  Best of the bunch is the title song, which is lyrically delicious ("they think is odd and Sodom and Gomorrah-ble" is among the sharpest lines in an original American musical), even though we don't really get a giant musical number around it like I would've hoped (most of the rest of the songs are standards, as this, "Jimmy," and "The Tapioca" are the only originals).  The song, played over the opening credits, promises a great movie that what follows cannot bother to deliver.