I love 'Moon River'. I may even prefer it to 'Over the Rainbow'. It may be all time favourite song from a film. It's just perfect.
And it's Audrey Hepbun, as Holly Golightly, singing it, that I love. Quiet, simple, thin, imperfect (her singing, I mean... jesus ...). There are loads of other versions going around, from Andy Williams and Frank Sinatra to Frank Ocean and Andrea Bocelli.
But, as so often, that's all a bit much.
Hepburn's singing was famously dubbed (almost entirely) by Marni Nixon in 'My Fair Lady' just as was Deborah Kerr in 'The King and I' and Natalie Wood in 'West Side Story'. Wood was apparently inconsolable, as she didn't know she was dubbed until she went to the screening.
And was it worth it? Nothing against Marni Nixon, but I think the singing of the leads is one of the worst things about the original 'West Side Story' and i'm really glad they're remaking it. Nixon's bizarre nose-block Hispanic on 'Somewhere' ruins one of the most perfect songs ever written.
Very glad they didn't dub 'Moon River' ... I bet they thought about it.
Of course, there are limits to this and practical decisions had to be made. But I'm very glad dubbing in film musicals seems mainly a thing of the past - turns out people love the imperfections of Brosnan and Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. Well, some people do.
It still surprises me a little, with rock'n'roll music having been a thing for over 60 years, that some people still think a good singer is a "good singer" - that it's all about the pipes and the range and the control and the tone. In some ways, the tyranny of the TV singing contests brought that notion back for a while, where people were lauded if they could just blast out a power ballad without too many bum notes.
Anyway, I don't have much of a point really - I love 'Moon River', I don't like dubbing, that's about it.
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