Finian's Rainbow

Francis Ford Coppola was just out of film school when he was handed his first studio project: a big-budget adaptation of a whimsical 1947 Broadway musical comedy about stolen leprechaun gold that is brought from Ireland to the sharecropper culture of the American South. Fred Astaire (in his final movie musical) stars as the titular charming Irish rogue who buries the stolen gold in the fictional Rainbow Valley, where poor black and white folks live in harmony, with recording star Petula Clark playing Finian's daughter, Sharon. While Sharon is being romanced by a would-be entrepreneur (Don Francks) who is banking on an experimental tobacco crop developed by his botanist partner (Al Freeman Jr.), Irish leprechaun Og (Tommy Steele) tries to retrieve his gold before the magic is gone and he turns human. Keenan Wynn has a role as a racist senator who tries to evict the residents from their land with a new segregation law and is transformed into a black man by leprechaun magic, which puts the white actor in blackface for much of the film. By 1968 the show was terribly out of date: sentimental, silly, and with a cartoonish satire of bigotry that includes a lampoon of shuck and jive black stereotypes, and it feels even more tone-deaf 50 years later. But it's also beautifully photographed and features some terrific songs by E.Y. Harburg and Burton Lane, including "Look to the Rainbow," "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?," and "Old Devil Moon." Presented in a newly restored edition that includes the overture, intermission, entr'acte, and exit music of the road show presentation, extras include an introduction and audio commentary by Coppola, and a vintage featurette on the film's premiere. A strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)