Charles Coborn

[DerMann]

I found these two videos on YouTube the other day, and I absolutely love them.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=e_j22WD6Ahc

http://youtube.com/watch?v=auVJwEw7qN4

I've been a fan of Charles Coborn as long as I've been enthralled by the tunes of British Music Hall. Finding recordings of his songs is hard enough, finding these videos was like winning the lottery. Although I have both of these songs on LP (they sound very similar), it's simply amazing to see them performed live by the man who made them famous.

Charles Coborn was born in 1852, and was seen as well educated and well to do gentleman, which coincidentally estranged him from most of the patrons of music halls. The two most famous songs in his repertoire are "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" and "Two Lovely Black Eyes." The prior is loosely based off the story of a British mill worker who took advantage of the biased roulette tables at a casino in Monte Carlo. He did manage to "break the bank" at the casino, but lost most of it when the casino realised he was abusing the wheels and changed them out.

As a note, in the beginning of the second video, when the two men decide to head in, the man in the bow tie says "I'll have a basin of this!" I believe this an allusion to another rather famous music hall song "Let's Have a Basin of Soup" by Harry Champion (another exceedingly popular Music Hall Star).

What makes this man absolutely amazing is that he performed "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" nearly 250,000 times in his lifetime and in 14 languages, most notably French. What's most astounding is that he kept on performing until his death in 1945 at the age of 93. Those videos were shot in 1934, making him well over eighty years old. He also appeared in the movie Variety Jubilee in 1943 at the age of 91.

That song was so popular that it was parodied several times by various music hall performers. My favourite parody of it is The Tanks That Broke the Ranks Out in Picardy. A bit of a sample verse:

And the tanks went on, and they strolled along with an independent air
And a German colonel there nearly lost his ginger hair
From inside the tank there came a claw, and it pulled him through the early door
And they took him for a joy-ride round Picardy

Absolutely dashing song dating back to 1916. Marvelously patriotic and humourous.

Another parody of the song is Harry Champion's "My Old Iron Cross," which belittles the Kaiser and pokes fun at the worthlessness of the Iron Cross.

The song actually made it into Lawrence of Arabia. I'm saddened by the fact that he doesn't sing the chorus correctly, but it may just be a way of showing the effects of the desert on Lawrence early in the movie.

They just don't make musicians like they used to.


Any other music hall enthusiasts out there? Music hall's "golden era" actually spanned from the late 1870s to the late 1930s. It died a rather quick death before the start of the Second World War, kind of a different "golden era," I suppose.

 

[DerMann]

No one, eh?


Oh well, it was a bit of a stretch I suppose.

 

[dhermann1]

Julie Andrews started out in music halls. When Laurel and Hardy were has beens in Hollywood, they made a triumphant tour of English music halls, around 1951. All those scenes in the old movies make it seem like a wonderful atmosphere. Haven't had the chance to view the video yet, but it sounds great.

 

[Rittmeister]

The English music hall scene seems to be sadly overlooked. I am familiar with George Formby, from his songs making their way into some recent films. The entire European music hall world seems to have been eclipsed by American music after WWII. It seems to have been like the U.S. vaudeville, but classier. Many of the great English, French (Piaf, Chevalier, Charles Trenet) and German singers got their starts there. There is also a wonderful scene in Random Harvest where Greer Garson does a great English music hall number.

A related subject of much interest to me is the different development of musicals in the U.S. and Europe during the 20's - 40's. With the exception of Jerome Kern, U.S. musical styles seem more influenced by jazz and blues; whereas the continental styles reflect their roots in operetta, waltz and European folk music, but did also incorporate jazz and blues elements.

I would be interested in others' thoughts and information on both subjects.

 

[dhermann1]

I finally was able to watch this (no vidoes at work). How wonderful. This is the mastery that comes with doing something thousands and thousands of times in front of a LIVE audience. Yet, even at 80, there's still freshness to it. The Youtube screen has lots of other tempting clips. Funny how Coburn and Coborn are mingled. Charles Coburn was almost contemporary, and a very wonderful actor as well. But very different form Coborn. Thanks for turning me on to him.
There are lots of scenes on old British films with music halls. Looks like a good time was always had by all.

 

[DerMann]

The English music hall scene seems to be sadly overlooked. I am familiar with George Formby, from his songs making their way into some recent films. The entire European music hall world seems to have been eclipsed by American music after WWII. It seems to have been like the U.S. vaudeville, but classier. Many of the great English, French (Piaf, Chevalier, Charles Trenet) and German singers got their starts there. There is also a wonderful scene in Random Harvest where Greer Garson does a great English music hall number.

A related subject of much interest to me is the different development of musicals in the U.S. and Europe during the 20's - 40's. With the exception of Jerome Kern, U.S. musical styles seem more influenced by jazz and blues; whereas the continental styles reflect their roots in operetta, waltz and European folk music, but did also incorporate jazz and blues elements.

I would be interested in others' thoughts and information on both subjects.

From the limited information that I have gleaned from the internet, British style music hall was quite a different event than American Vaudeville. Vaudeville, at least to me, always seems more theatrical, with settings such as Broadway. British music hall, however, was a form of live entertainment more aimed at the lower and middle classes. Most music halls were part public house and part theatre. The content of music hall and vaudeville acts were much the same (variety show comes to mind). However, in Britain, music halls were for the most part looked down upon by the upper-middle and upper classes. I come to this conclusion only from my limited experience and have very little hard facts to back it up. In Wodehouse's novels, someone (might have been Bertie's father, not sure) was said to have been thrown out of a music hall in the late 1890s. The way Jeeves says it makes it sound as if 1) music halls are not places gentlemen should visit and 2) getting kicked out of a music hall is quite a feat due to the nature of the halls. The only other reference I have seen to music halls in British culture has been the episode Major Star in Blackadder Goes Forth. Blackadder, an officer of developed tastes and style openly despises this form of entertainment and even goes so far to sing a verse of a mock song. Lieutenant George (played by Hugh Laurie) acts like an even more eccentric, and even imbecilic, version of Bertie Wooster - George adores music hall.

Just my tuppence on the subject.

Speaking of music hall songs in modern music, the Harry Champion song Any Old Iron was remade by the Barron Knights. Also, the chorus from Mark Sheridan's I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside is sung rather quietly at the end of Queen's Seven Seas of Rhye. And of course Herman's Hermits remade I'm Henry VIII (only the chorus though).

On the subject of the development of different genres of music in Europe and America, I know exactly what you mean. Americans seemed to love the musicals created by such geniuses as Irving Berlin. Interestingly enough, musicals didn't catch on nearly as well in Britain and the Continent (as you had said).