Carousel!

I know I don't like much of this film, but! I love some of the songs and parts! So here is a little trivia! Judy Garland, who was fresh from A Star Is Born, was considered for the role of Julie Jordan, although that never materialized.

Frank Sinatra was cast as Billy, but backed out because each scene had to be shot twice (once in 35mm, once in 55mm). Three weeks after he left, they found a way to film the scene once on 55mm, then transfer it onto 35mm.

Two songs from the show, "You're A Queer One, Julie Jordan," as performed by Barbara Ruick and Shirley Jones, and "Blow High, Blow Low," as performed by Cameron Mitchell and a male chorus, were recorded, but do not appear in the final film. They are both included on the film soundtrack album.

At the time that this film was released, it was not successful at the box office, but the film's soundtrack album did become a national best seller.

Shirley Jones has said that of all of her musicals, "Carousel" is her favorite Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II score.

The original stage production of "Carousel" opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York on April 19, 1945 and ran for 890 performances (a little over two years). Of their five great musical classics - the others were "Oklahoma!", "South Pacific", "The King and I", and "The Sound of Music" - it was the one that had the shortest run, probably because of its very serious plot. But it is the one most highly regarded by many critics, and several of its songs are classics.

While appearing in a nightclub act with his wife at Lake Tahoe, Gordon MacRae received an emergency phone call to replace Frank Sinatra as Billy Bigelow in the film version of Richard Rodgers's and Oscar Hammerstein II's stage hit Carousel (1956), after Sinatra walked out on the filming when he discovered that every scene was to be filmed twice - once for regular CinemaScope and once for CinemaScope 55.Within three days MacRae, who was already familiar with the Broadway show and had wanted to play the role, reported to the set.