MovieChat Forums > To Have and Have Not (1945) Discussion > Hoagy Carmichael has dated terribly, wis...

Hoagy Carmichael has dated terribly, wish he'd been cut

posted 14 years ago by gl-733-211404
49 replies | jump to latest

HC's singing persona has dated so terribly, it makes you even more amazed that Sinatra, Crosby and even Hope are so listenable today. His scenes were never needed. They could be cut now. He sings in a kind of whispery monotone whine, and could anything be more affected than that awful toothpick in his mouth, and his hunchy piano playing. I well remember than when I was a kid in the fifties, the answer to the trivia question, "most popular song ever recorded" was always Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael. Time has made him as unbearable as Phil Harris or Jolson. Not really a criticism of Carmichael, but a remark about time passing. And no, I don't think Lil Wayne is a great improvement. In seventy years Lil Wayne will be Hoagy Carmichael.

[–] myndchanger 8 years ago

This was kind of a stupid comment. If you actually were a kid in the 50's then you would have found out by now how much music changed between the 40's and 60's. It was a sea change. Hogie was excellent in his time.

[–] gbennett5 8 years ago

Hoagy Carmichael was brilliant, as was Sinatra. This troll probably listens
to dead rap stars and Janet Jackson albums.

[–] pt100 8 years ago

There's no accounting for taste. But most people who really know music say he was one of the most talented singer-songwriters of the 20th Century.

He is best known for composing the music for "Stardust," "Georgia on My Mind," "The Nearness of You" and "Heart and Soul"--four of the most-recorded American songs of all time.

American composer and author Alec Wilder wrote of Carmichael in American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950 that he was the "most talented, inventive, sophisticated and jazz-oriented" of the hundreds of writers composing pop songs in the first half of the 20th century.

The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.–J.B. Haldane

[–] Trax-3 8 years ago

A wonderful singer with very effective delivery. The musical parts are among the most atmospheric and memorable in the film. The whole would be greatly diminished by their removal.

[–] dalto 8 years ago

Idiot.

[–] fanaticita 8 years ago

Carmichael was famous at the time! He was perfect in the role. Loved the songs.