Is there anyone in Hollywood history who was more genetically destined to be a star than Liza Minnelli? Her father was Vincente Minnelli, who was arguably the top director of movie musicals in the 1940s and 1950s, seeing two of his films, An American in Paris and Gigi, win Best Picture at the Oscars, the latter also winning him Best Director. Her mother, of course, was Judy Garland. So it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that Liza had won a Tony by age 19 and an Oscar by 27. Unfortunately, she ended up being plagued by the same demons that derailed her mother's career, namely an inability to stay away from drugs and alcohol. Unlike Garland, however, Minnelli seems to have overcome her addictions and is still going strong at 77.
In 1965, though, those struggles were still in the future. At 19, she had just won the aforementioned Tony for her Broadway debut, in a show called Flora, the Red Menace. Though Minnelli was hailed, the show itself was a quick flop. And even in 1965, flop musicals weren't going to get you much attention outside of New York. That maybe why she agreed to star in ABC's Thanksgiving weekend kickoff of the holiday season, The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood.
Though never identified as such onscreen, this was an American version of the traditional British holiday season panto, which would adapt a fairy tale or other well-known story into a slapstick musical comedy, typically including at least one scene of a male actor in drag. Those were fulfilled by this production, which told the Red Riding Hood story from the prospective of the wolf.
As the story begins, the wolf, played by Broadway vet Cyril Ritchard, best known for playing Captain Hook opposite Mary Martin in Peter Pan, both on the stage and in the TV broadcast, is locked up in a zoo on Christmas Eve, where he laments his bad reputation keeps him from being invited to any parties. He explains how everyone got the story wrong, and how he's going to set the record straight.
That brings us to the proper beginning, where Red, who at least in this version is a kind-hearted but fashion-obsessed girl named Lillian, who is about to set off to visit grandmother wearing her new bright-red coat and hood, after the show's first big musical number, where Minnelli sings about how much she loves her new red coat.
After a dance sequence with Minnelli and a bunch of dancers wearing forest creature outfits, she finally encounters Ritchard, who has, for reasons that aren't really explained, decided to turn his back on his wolf nature and become friends with her. Of course, that backfires the moment she realizes he's a wolf, and the storyline more or less goes on as normal from there.
We have what is essentially a duet between Ritchard and a pack of more feral wolves, played by British rock band The Animals, of "House of the Rising Sun" fame. Then Minnelli runs into the woodsman, played by pop singer Vic Damone, who, at 37, is nearly two decades older than her, which comes into play since the script requires them to fall for each other (and for Minnelli to sing a solo about it). It culminates, as it must, at Granny's house, with Ritchard in Granny drag and Minnelli none the wiser, leading to another song-and-dance number.
The music and lyrics for the special was written by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, who were represented on Broadway at the moment by Funny Girl. To say the music in this doesn't live up to the standards of that show is an understatement. It's mostly fine, but none of the songs are particularly memorable. That's a disappointment, given that, for another musical Christmas special just three years before, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, they had written an entire score of songs better than any of the ones here.
Among the cast, The Animals are fine in their limited role, and Ritchard is clearly having a ball hamming it up. The weak link is Damone, whose songs are probably the most boring of the show and is rather bland when he's not singing. This is who Minnelli ends up with?
As for Minnelli, she is quite good, especially in the song-and-dance numbers. However, the material is probably too slight for her to really break out from this. She would spend 1966 starring in the national tour of The Pajama Game before making her proper film debut in 1968 with Charlie Bubbles. Her first Oscar nomination, for The Sterile Cuckoo, would come in 1969.
The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood was broadcast in color, but unfortunately, the color version of the show appears to have been lost, so all we have is the black-and-white version, where Minnelli might as well be playing Little Grey Riding Hood. The show is fun, but its pretty easy to see why it never really became a classic. The material has been recycled into a stage show, so now every year, theater groups put on the show live, probably having no idea it originated as a TV special starring a future Oscar winner. In all honesty, that's probably the best place for it.
Next time: The weirdest Disney commercial you'll ever see.
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