Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
Love as a sad sensation
Pal Joey (1940) was one of the last Rodgers & Hart stage musicals. In mood and tone, it is a long way from the jolly rom-com fun of The Garrick Gaieties (1925). In physical distance, too — we have moved from the ‘Isle of Joy’ that is Manhattan to the tawdry nightclubs of 1930s Chicago.
The new mise-en-scène suits Lorenz Hart in one key respect. Only Porter and Coward can compete with him in voicing the cynical, sophisticated cocktail chatter of the theatrical smart set. His famous objection to musicals set in the sticks (‘where seldom is heard/an intelligent word’) would put him out of the running for the Oklahoma gig (1942).
In the original stage production, Vivienne Segal plays a wealthy older woman infatuated with a dancer/gigolo/all-round bad-un.
She sings about her plight with a jaunty insouciance, skipping through the sexual references. The cleverness of Hart’s triple-rhyme wordplay is a Trojan horse containing very risqué content.
“Vexed again, Perplexed again, Thank God I can be oversexed again!”
In the celebrated Ella version from 1957, the mood is more openly sensual. At a slower tempo, she sings ‘I’ve sinned a lot’ and has the chat to match
Those double entendres are now pretty much single ones.
Horizontally speaking, he’s at his very best…would not sleep where I shouldn’t sleep ….worship the pants that cling to him…Those ants that invaded my pants…
Pal Joey film (1957)
The Ella version was perfect for those Swinging Lovers for whom Sinatra sang. The man himself was Joey in the big-budget film of the same year, and is in fine voice on his five Rodgers and Hart standards.
He sings Bewitched on the soundtrack but not in the film itself, a severely sanitised version of the stage show. Now set in sunny San Francisco rather than cold, crooked Chicago, the action is centred around the very fancy Barbary Coast Club, where supper is served to the suave.
The sinning is softened, too. Married Vera becomes a widow (so no adultery involved, phew!). Joey Evans is now a lovable rogue rather than a seedy sleazeball.
There’s no place for ants-in-dress- pants in this refit. Luckily, Larry Hart, long gone alas, wrote alternative, more family-friendly versions of the lyric. Vera (Rita Hayworth) sings one of these. Or rather, she starts to, before being shoved off the mic by Rita-with-high-notes (aka Jo Ann Greer)
Larry H also wrote yet another, much shorter lyric that could easily be adapted for a male singer. Handy if you have the best in the business in the cast and your musical director is one Nelson Riddle.
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To shoehorn this onto the screen would have defied plot logic (I’m bewitched, too, Vera!). But a Sinatra interpretation was a major bonus track for the official soundtrack.
About the song structure of the Sinatra version (arr. Riddle)
Richard was simultaneously conservative and highly innovative in his compositional approach. While generally sticking to the songbook standard A-A-B-A structure, he often departed from the 32-bar form.
This is one way of looking at the structure of Bewitched
- Introductory verse/preamble: A musical interior monologue to establish the setup. Sinatra performs rubato (slowly, in a conversational style but underpinned by intense feeling).
In the Sinatra interpretation, there is added vulnerability from the opening bars. He knows this won’t end well, but is bewitched by her charms.
2. Verse/Chorus
In place of four eight-bar sections, we have two 16-bar A sections followed by a 6-bar bridge (the “B” section). All resolve to the cyclical refrain (‘Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I’).
First A Section
This introduces the melody, the famous triple rhyme scheme, and Hart’s ingenious alliterative refrain. Thematically, it expresses the singer’s confusion and contradictory feelings of love — note that this is approached from different perspectives depending on the version (Sinatra agonized, Hayworth coquettish, Segal sardonic, etc.).
Second A Section
Repeats the melody and harmonic progression before modulating to the bridge via E7.
B Section (Bridge)
Dramatic mood shift in the “Lost my heart, but what of it? / She is cold, I agree” section, especially in the Sinatra version. This is reflected in a more plaintive feel to both the melody and the chords
Coda/Big Finish
Here, the Sinatra version departs most radically from the film and stage versions. These present the singer's restlessness playfully (teenager in love vibes in Rita’s version). Sinatra unleashes his despair, building to an operatic coda in which the drama is echoed by the orchestration.
An amazing performance — but clearly one that had no place in the film where Joey/Frank — spoiler alert — gets the girl after all. Or rather, a different girl in a lame happyish ending
