Welcome to the (just about finished) Fossethon! For info on the blogathon as a whole, please visit our humble hub page.

In the weeks and days leading up to the Fossethon, I’ve posted a number of YouTube videos of Fosse-related material. Believe it or not, there’s still a lot more out there — some amazing but technically flawed, others oddly disappointing — but below are a few more that I felt were almost compulsory.Let’s start with the most recent.

A lot of cinephile types hate, hate, hate Rob Marshall’s movie of Chicago in the way that only multi-Oscar winning films can truly be hated, hated, hated. While I’m no fan of Marshall’s too frenetic cutting, I actually like it a lot. (Also, it’s the last movie my elderly father was able to stay awake through.) Still, it could have used some of the old fashioned, straight-up musical perfection of this amazing clip from the Ann Reinking’s mid-nineties recreation of Fosse’s stage production of Chicago. Here Bebe Neuwirth and Reinking more than give Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon a run for their money. If Marshall had had talent like this on hand, maybe he would have reduced the shot count some.

And now we move back in time twenty-four years to this increasingly well known moment from My Sister Eileen, my favorite of the films Fosse choreographed but did not direct.

This is a dance-off between 28-year-old Fosse and fellow MGM alum Tommy Rall and it’s something else. Notice the Fosse hats, hand gestures, and his reliance on his favorite percussion instrument — the human body. The combination of grace and athleticism certainly owes something to Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. However, the Fosse style was already well established.

After the flip is a great moment from a film I’m not particularly fond of.

“Steam Heat” is considered Bob Fosse’s breakthrough sequence from The Pajama Game, but I’m partial to “Hernando’s Hideaway.” It’s a great example of less-is-more, and using what’s available to the best effect. In this case by pairing a great dancer like Carol Haney with stiff as a board John Raitt, the song underlines the one-sided nature of the characters’ relationship, with Haney selling her tango like crazy, and Raitt mainly just standing there. Then, as we enter the Hideaway, it becomes close to the ultimate in minimalist screen dances, with matches providing the only motivated lighting. And, when the lights finally come on, it’s over.

Still, it’s not like “Steam Heat” is chopped liver or anything. Unfortunately, the film version with Ms. Haney has evaporated. On the other hand, this TV version sure ain’t bad (who’s the redhead?), and it gives a pretty good idea why the original dance created a sensation when The Pajama Game premiered on Broadway.

This next clip requires some patience, but it’s a must for Fosseheads. According to biographer Martin Gottfried, Fosse never completely gave up his dream of being as famous for performing as for his behind the scenes work, and actually said he wanted to have his privacy invaded by throngs of adoring fans.

His last shot at that came in Stanley Donen’s disastrous (and now almost impossible to see) (actually very much available) musical film of The Little Prince. When it came out, this very young movie fan of movie musicals remembers critics (Gene Shalit?) describing it as all but unwatchable, with the exception of Fosse’s performance. Certainly this clip, which is very poor quality, gives you an idea of why both statements may have been true. The less said about the child who played the title role, the better. But casting Fosse as the seductive embodiment of death is about as fitting a role as he ever had. He still had chops.

This is where I would have liked to put in some of Fosse’s earliest appearances, if I could find them. For example, the one version I could find of his key appearance with Carol Haney in Kiss Me Kate, which includes about forty seconds of Fosse’s first on-film choreography, was unacceptably screwed up. (But maybe it’s better than nothing, see for yourself).

However, we still have Fosse’s only movie moment with his greatest collaborator and the closest thing he had to one-true-love, Gwen Verdon. “Who’s Got the Pain?” is silly stuff, and she blows him off the screen with her wondrous red head and magnetic presence, but it’s still something to see them together.

And, while we’re on the subject of Damn Yankees and the greatness of Gwen Verdon, here’s it best musical scene. Some of the musical numbers in the film are oddly lame to my eyes, but not this jazzy production number. It not only shows off Verdon to magnificent effect, it’s the one point in the movie where Fosse’s work truly lives on-camera, and we suddenly remember that it’s co-directed by Stanley Donen.

While a lot of clips went missing on me, here’s one that mysteriuosly appeared just tonight that makes up for all it. It’s an amazing clip, apparently televised live, from a 1962 talk show that I’ve never seen before. The segment winds up revealing a bit more than about the tension of Fosse and Verdon’s creative process than was intended. There’s a brief moment, after Gwen Verdon absolutely kills singing “Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets,” her incandescent smile filling the screen, when Fosse contradicts her on live TV and Verdon laughs it off. If they were at dinner, she’d be kicking him under the table. [Update 2/11/08: Looking at the segment againg months later, I now have a completely different interpretation of that moment — it seems more like a bit of shtick that was probably pre-arranged — I suppose it’s possible there was an issue with “standards and practices” and the moment was crafted to avoid saying a word they didn’t think was appropriate for TV. Judge for yourself.]

But it doesn’t matter. Fosse can talk all he likes, but the moment belongs to Verdon and her amazing performance. Playing Joe Hardy, he can only gaze at her, in her thrall.