WALL-E robot romance inspired by Jerry Herman musical Hello, Dolly

Tag : Jerry Can
Erin Carlson, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK - Jerry Herman, eyes welling with tears, could hardlybelieve what he was hearing as he watched the new animatedblockbuster "WALL-E."
The composer of the Tony-winning musical "Hello, Dolly!"had licensed songs from the 1964 show to Pixar - The Walt DisneyCo.'s computer animation arm - but he had no idea that his musicand lyrics would factor so prominently in the story line of thesci-fi robot romance.
"I'm still blown away by the fact that two songs of mine thatare close to 50 years old have been used as the underpinning"of the movie, Herman said in an interview from Los Angeles.
Writer-director Andrew Stanton used the tunes "Put on YourSunday Clothes" and "It Only Takes a Moment" toexpress the psyche of the love-starved, trash-compacting robotWALL-E.
"My eyes were really wet at both the opening and the closingof the film, and just the wonderful way those songs were used tomake him more human," Herman said. "That's really whatthey did."
Laughing, Herman said it was "so weird" that the songswould be used in a robot movie. But he said the theme of"Hello, Dolly!" - about a 19th-century widowed matchmakerwho learns to live again - is relevant to the world of WALL-E,where chubby, unmotivated humans are pampered by robots in a giantspace ship before a wake-up call jolts them out of complacency.
"It's about a basic need for people to go on with life and notshut themselves away and to make the most out of the time we haveon this planet," Herman said.
For a film with little human dialogue, "WALL-E" was thebox-office champion in its opening weekend, nudging the AngelinaJolie thriller "Wanted" to second place.
"WALL-E" opens with panoramic views of galaxies far away,using "Sunday Clothes" as a sunny soundtrack. But thesong's exuberant lyrics - "Out there/There's a world outsideof Yonkers" - take on new meaning when the scene shifts to thebleak atmosphere of Wall-E's homeland: garbage-ridden planet Earth.
Stanton said he knew he wanted to juxtapose retro music with thisfuturistic setting but discovered "a perfect fit" to hisnarrative when he stumbled upon the "Hello, Dolly!"repertoire and the lyric "out there." (In the musical, itis the song that a Yonkers store clerk croons as he and hisapprentice plan their New York City adventure.)
"I thought it was a perfect counterpoint to have this sort ofalmost naive optimism in the song," Stanton said.
"But then it seemed even more appropriate the more I thoughtabout it, because the song is about two naive guys (who) have neverleft their small town and they just want to go to the big city forone night, live it up and kiss a girl. And I thought, 'That is mymain character.' "
And in those first images of planets and stars, "you'remeeting WALL-E's dreams before you ever get to meet WALL-E. And Ilove that. That was just so poetic to me," Stanton said.
The lonely WALL-E is the only 'bot of his kind left on Earth, anapocalyptic wasteland abandoned by the human race 700 years before.His daily routine is compressing garbage into neat cubes to stashatop towering piles. At the end of the day, aching for connection,he retreats to his evening hide-out, where he uses an iPod to watcha videotape of the 1969 movie version of "Dolly,"starring Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau.
WALL-E learns about love from the ballad "It Only Takes aMoment," in which Cornelius the clerk (Michael Crawford)expresses his feelings to Irene Molloy (Marianne McAndrew). Thenumber ends with the lovers holding hands and strolling through apark, and our hero clasps his robot fingers together to simulatehand-holding.
That scene was the result of an a-ha! moment Stanton had whilewatching Crawford and McAndrew's duet: "I saw them holdinghands and it was like a light bulb going off. Like, that is exactlythe best way I could express the phrase 'I love you' from acharacter that can't say it. And then I was hooked. Then I said,"Omigosh, this movie ('Hello, Dolly!') is practically helpingme tell my story."
By then, Stanton knew he had to "bookend" his movie withthe two songs. They play repeatedly throughout the film,supplementing Thomas Newman's score along with songs by LouisArmstrong ("La Vie En Rose") and Peter Gabriel("Down to Earth").
The 76-year-old Herman - who also composed the musical scores for"Mame" and "La Cage aux folles" - couldn't bemore pleased.
"Boy, what a thrill for me," he said. "Because I'vehad so much happiness from 'Hello Dolly' through the years, I neverexpected to have this new layer of excitement."

© The Canadian Press, 2008
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