By Steven Suskin
02 Oct 2011

	Cover art for "Irene Dunne Sings Kern and Other Rarities"

Irene Dunne Sings Kern and Other Rarities [Sepia 1171] Jerry Kern did not write all those golden classics for the voice of Irene Dunne — she was a toddler when he started writing, and only starting her career when the composer reached his peak — but she might have been his personal favorite in his final years.

Dunne (1898-1990) started her career in 1920 playing the title character in the Chicago company of Irene, and spent the decade as ingenue in a string of minor musicals (including Kern's own The City Chap in 1925 and Rodgers & Hart's 1928 Bea Lillie vehicle, She's My Baby). Show Boat had opened at the end of 1927; when it closed in May 1929, Dunne stepped in as Magnolia for the tour. Hollywood found her playing Magnolia in Chicago, and that was the end of her stage career. She made her film debut in 1930 in a long-forgotten item called "Leathernecking" — which, oddly enough, was R&H's other 1928 musical Present Arms! with all but two songs removed.

Dunne was in immediate demand in Hollywood; her second time out she starred in the 1931 "Cimarron," adapted from a novel by Edna ("Show Boat") Ferber. Dunne received an Oscar nomination, her first of five; she lost, but the film won three (including Best Picture). Then came the melodrama "Back Street" and a string of others. Which is where Kern comes in. Dunne's 17th film — in only five years! — was the 1934 adaptation of the 1929 Kern-Hammerstein musical Sweet Adeline, in which Irene got to sing "Why Was I Born" (among others). Her very next film was Roberta in 1935, in which Irene was top-billed over Astaire & Rogers and got to sing "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." Which led — after starring in the 1935 melodrama "Magnificent Obsession" — to the fabled 1936 remake of Show Boat. A new DVD release of this one has been promised for years, and is well worth the wait; as I remember it, it is by far the finest film version of the piece. Thanks, in good part, to performances from a half-dozen veterans of the stage productions, including Charles Winninger, Helen Morgan and Paul Robeson.

Is it any wonder that Kern and Dunne go together? There were two more film collaborations — the 1937 Kern-Hammerstein "High Wide and Handsome" and the 1938 Kern-Fields "Joy of Living" — with new songs written for Dunne (including the unjustly neglected "The Folks Who Live on the Hill"). After which Dunne's musical career was terminated due to success. The 1936 film "Theodora Goes Wild" demonstrated that she was an exquisite screwball comedienne, and she was suddenly too hot for musicals. She starred in the 1937 screwball classic "The Awful Truth," opposite Cary Grant, and went on to such films as "Love Affair" (opposite Charles Boyer), "Anna and the King of Siam" (opposite Rex Harrison, as Yul Brynner with hair), "Life with Father," and "I Remember Mama."

All this has been brought on by the appearance of a compilation CD from Sepia, "Irene Dunne Sings Kern and Other Rarities." Is this the voice Kern wanted to hear when he heard his songs? Hard to say, but the evidence shows that Dunne — from the post-Broadway cast of Show Boat — was cast in five Kern film musicals over a five-year period. Her singing style is old-fashioned by today's (or even yesterday's) standards, but I wonder if she was not the Barbara Cook of her time. In any event, "Irene Dunne Sings Kern and Other Rarities" offers 70 minutes of the best of Kern, sung the way the composer presumably wanted to hear them.

(Steven Suskin is author of the recently released updated and expanded Fourth Edition of "Show Tunes" as well as "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations," "Second Act Trouble" and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He also pens Playbill.com's Book Shelf and DVD Shelf columns. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com.)

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