Directed by:
Francis Ford CoppolaCinematography:
Philip H. LathropComposer:
Ray HeindorfCast:
Fred Astaire, Petula Clark, Tommy Steele, Don Francks, Keenan Wynn, Al Freeman Jr., Wright King, Jester Hairston, Roy Glenn, Ronald Colby, Phyllis Kennedy (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
Twenty years after its opening on Broadway, the musical FINIAN'S RAINBOW made its debut on film thanks to Francis Ford Coppola. The movie stars Fred Astaire as Irishman Finian McLonergan, who steals a pot of gold from the leprechaun Og (Tommy Steele) and, with his daughter Sharon (Petula Clark), brings it to Rainbow Valley in the fictional southern state of Missitucky. Sharecropper Woody Mahoney (Don Francks) and the rest of the community of Rainbow Valley are fighting to keep their land and tobacco crop away from the creedy, racist hands of Senator Billboard Rawkins (Keenan Wynn) and his assistant, Buzz Collins (Ronald Colby). Og's magical pot of gold causes more trouble than good when Sharon's wish that the senator would know what it's like to be black comes true. The rest of the pot's wishes are quickly used up trying to undo the trouble. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (2)
It's a nice, positive musical that is lucky to have Petula Clark, who has a beautiful voice, but also the legend Fred Astaire. Francis Ford Coppola proved that he can handle a musical, although this one is a bit too drawn-out and some of the supposedly funny scenes aren't as amusing as they're intended to be, feeling more like padding of the plot.
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Nowadays, it’s difficult to find in Finian's Rainbow the fascination of Voskovec and Werich for this very substance. However, it was essential to change the realities for its presentation in Czechoslovakia, because the problems of the American South and Broadway songs would hardly have attracted attention in 1948. However, thanks to this film version we have at least some idea of the original form of the work. The 20-year-rested treatment became an ideal farewell for Astaire, who was almost 70. The film musicals of the 1960s may be very similar to each other, yet the referential testimony of an era and a genre remains.
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