Retro Reviews: Cannes 1959

The Eurovision Song Contest 1959 was staged in France by host broadcaster RTF. After winning the contest the previous year, France was given right of first refusal to host the event, and elected to do so in Cannes, with the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès being chosen as the venue. The contest was held on Wednesday 11^th March. Eleven countries participated, with Monaco making its debut appearance at the contest, and the United Kingdom returning after its absence in 1958. For the first time, Luxembourg was not represented at Eurovision, after broadcaster CLT rejected the proposed entry without enough time to select a replacement.

The stage included three revolving platforms, which were all partitioned into segments like a revolving door, with various scenic backdrops to represent the participating countries. Our presenter for the evening is the iconic Jacqueline Joubert, who does a much better job of managing proceedings than Hannie last year, and presents the show entirely in French. I watched the show on YouTube with French commentary, and the version I watched is here. The show starts with Te Deum, followed by some shots of Cannes, which does look nice though the picture is very dark so it’s hard to see it in much detail.

We see the flags of the various participating countries flying above the venue, before we enter the hall and see the orchestra, which seems to be quite large this year.  There are some shots of the audience, who still seem to be finding their seats. We hear Te Deum for a second time, before the backdrop revolves and Jacqueline emerges to rapturous applause. She welcomes viewers to the programme without even a set of cue cards to help her (I am unable to confirm or deny whether she was using a teleprompter but I would like to think that she had her script committed to memory), before trotting off to one side to introduce the scoreboard with a big stick.

Then we have an interesting take on what we would now call the ‘flag parade’: the backdrops revolve to reveal each contestant in turn (along with their particular scenery), and Jacqueline welcomes each participating country in its native language, with the commentator providing additional information. The orchestra play fairytale-esque music whilst this is going on, which reminded me a little bit of Mary Poppins (and Jacqueline herself doesn’t look entirely dissimilar to Julie Andrews). Overall, I thought this was quite cool and a nice addition to the show. Jacqueline then introduces the first competing country with the name of the song, artist and conductor and we are off.

 

France: Jean Philippe – “Oui oui oui oui”

The song starts with a big orchestral flourish, and it’s the orchestra that largely carries this song. Jean Philippe is an enthusiastic performer, and very smiley (though at times bordering on creepy), but seems to take himself quite seriously, almost as if he is aware that he is both the successor to last year’s champion and the host entry. The song has far too much repetition of the title for my liking – I think this is another example of France trying to make use of some of the more recognisable elements of its language – but Jean Philippe does have a good voice and there were a couple of nice moments towards the end.

 

Denmark: Birthe Wilke – “Uh, jeg ville ønske jeg var dig”

After a slow start, this song turns into quite a bouncy number and Birthe, back for another bite of the Eurovision cherry, clearly enjoys performing it. I really enjoyed the orchestra on each “Uh!” and Birthe’s actions to go along with the lyrics. The orchestral section in the middle is perhaps slightly too long, but it gives Birthe the chance to go for a wander around the stage and show off her very long dress, which she does well to avoid tripping on. I thought this was great – it kept me engaged throughout and, in my opinion at least, is better than Birthe’s 1957 entry. She gives the audience a big wave at the end of her performance, who respond with a hearty round of applause.

 

Italy: Domenico Modugno – “Piove”

After his success with last year’s entry, returning to Eurovision was a bold choice for Domenico, and this song is another that takes a while to get started, but I quite liked this, and of course Domenico carries the package very well, with excellent vocals. The orchestra does a good job on this as well, though there is a slightly odd moment during an orchestral section when Domenico just stands still and looks at the floor. “Piove” as a song definitely has echoes of “Volare” (though of course is nowhere near as good), and is performed to a similarly high level, though I don’t think it would have done as well with a different singer at the helm.

 

Monaco: Jacques Pills – “Mon ami Pierrot”

Monaco is making its Eurovision debut this evening, and doing so with a very odd number in which the instrumentation doesn’t seem to match the song itself. It’s upbeat but something about it doesn’t allow me to fully relax into it – it almost sounds more like a theme tune than the main attraction. Jacques is clearly an experienced performer, though on several occasions during this performance he seems to be in competition with the orchestra – and I’m not sure he wins. That being said, however, he generally carries the song well, with a big vocal moment at the end which certainly required a lot of welly! Not the worst of the night but I can understand why it ended up at the bottom of the pile.

 

Netherlands: Teddy Scholten – “Een beetje”

The opening bars of this song felt very ‘50s in the best way possible, but the rest is quite a bit slower. Thankfully it isn’t long before we reach the chorus, which is much catchier than the slightly dull verses – I did find myself losing interest once or twice. I did, however, enjoy the orchestra’s interlude in the middle. Teddy (the first of two this evening) is a good performer, but for me the package lacks a particular ‘wow’ moment and I got the impression she was a little bit nervous – her mannerisms occasionally feel a bit forced and she leaves the stage very quickly after the song ends – though with all that being said, it is definitely one of the stronger offerings in this field.

 

Germany: Alice and Ellen Kessler – “Heut’ woll’n wir tanzen geh’n”

The first duo of the evening is the Kessler Twins, who were primarily known as dancers and actresses, and continue the legacy of Margot Hielscher by giving us slightly too much of everything apart from the song. They certainly perform it well, complementing each other nicely, and the song’s message (of women telling men what they want) was quite subversive for the time, with a naughty twist to contrast their ‘golden girls’ image. Unfortunately, I think the twins’ performance ends up being slightly constrained by the stage as they are forced to perform their dance routine within their section of the ‘revolving door’, but they certainly sell the number in their trademark ‘variety show’ style.

 

Sweden: Brita Borg – “Augustin”

This is quite an earnest performance from Sweden, but I noted whilst watching it that I wasn’t sure how much it would stick in my memory by the end of the show. Unfortunately, I was correct and there really isn’t much to write home about, or indeed say, here. Brita’s stage presence isn’t quite on a par with some of the other artists this evening, and the song seems to stay in its original state for the entirety of its duration and, consequently, never really gets going. It’s always a bit damning when I deem the orchestra to be the best part of the package, but unfortunately the song just doesn’t give me anything else to latch on to.

 

Switzerland: Christa Williams – “Irgendwoher”

Switzerland are, for the first time, sending somebody other than Lys Assia to Eurovision – it’s Christa Williams, who has quite whiny, shrill vocals which remind me of somebody but I can’t for the life of me think who it is! The song is, as I say so often about these older entries, nice but unremarkable, and there is too much “ooh”ing in the middle for my liking. Christa is wearing a massive dress, and frankly that is the most interesting thing about this performance – it really doesn’t stand out very much and Christa doesn’t even engage very much with the audience at the end, just standing there awkwardly for a few seconds.

 

Austria: Ferry Graf – “Der K. und K. Kalypso aus Wien”

This is a nice bouncy number, and the singer doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously in pronounced contrast to the French entry earlier on. It’s quite light-hearted, and as far as I’m concerned much better than the snoozefest Austria sent the previous year. There is even some yodelling, which was interesting though I’m not entirely sure what it gave to the performance. Ferry is the main strength of this package, and carries this slightly silly song with his charm and personality. Not one of my favourites of the night, but it definitely stood out a lot more than the previous two entries.

 

United Kingdom: Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson – “Sing Little Birdie”

Now I will admit to being a little biased here, because I do listen to this song regularly, but isn’t this just fantastic? Pearl and Teddy were two of the UK’s biggest stars at the time, and it’s clear to see that they were used to televised performances. I really enjoyed hearing the slightly different version of this song that was performed at Eurovision, and of course it went very well with the orchestra. The part of the performance with the small bird prop just about works but still feels a little bit empty – at least the focus remains on Pearl and Teddy throughout. The song ends very well, and gets a thoroughly deserved round of applause from the audience.

 

Belgium: Bob Benny – “Hou toch van mij”

Of course the running order was drawn randomly, but this does suffer from coming straight after the UK, and just ends up feeling a bit flat in comparison. At least Bob can sing, and the song, whilst not the most exciting, isn’t entirely dreadful. Belgium has a similar problem to Sweden this year in that the package is fine and perfectly serviceable, but nothing in particular stands out. Bob is also quite a serious performer, and seems to struggle to engage with the camera. The song does end well, with a competent though unspectacular vocal display, but I can see why relatively few jurors chose it as their favourite performance of the evening.

 

Now Jacqueline directly addresses the juries in each participating country and explains the rules of the voting – no substantial changes were made for this year’s contest, but people employed in the music industry were no longer allowed to serve as jurors. I was quite pleased as I could understand quite a bit of this monologue! After that, we are straight into the voting. Of course, we once again have a physical scoreboard, and this year it displays the song number, title, votes received (with capacity for triple-figure scores given that the theoretical maximum was now 100) and the name of the country in French. During the voting sequence, the camera tends to focus just on the score and country. Juries once again vote in reverse performance order.

Throughout the voting, Jacqueline uses her big stick to indicate who is currently voting, or in the lead etc., and an arrow is moved to point to the leading country after each jury has voted (though this doesn’t work ever so well when there is a tie). Despite her excellent presentation skills, Jacqueline does seem to struggle at a couple of points during the voting – she doesn’t seem to understand the UK jury’s 1 point for the Netherlands, and the French commentator rather unhelpfully tries to explain it to her. She tells both the Swiss and the Danish spokespersons to speak more slowly, and ends up shouting at the scoreboard operators at one point.

I enjoyed the Austrian spokesperson announcing their presence with “here is Austria”, and the big reaction from the audience when Germany votes for France, prompting Jacqueline to tell the spokesperson “France thanks you” (or words to that effect) which get a laugh and even a small chuckle from the commentator. The audience seem quite entertained by the voting, with applause for Sweden when it is the last country to get off the mark and noticeable reactions (both positive and negative) for various countries getting points.

The voting is actually quite tight, with the Netherlands taking an early lead, before being caught by Switzerland and then the United Kingdom. In the end, it’s the Italian jury that gives a very generous vote to the Netherlands, pushing them way out in front – much to the audience’s shock! The final jury to vote is the French jury, whose votes for the Netherlands are met with a bit of a groan from the audience, who are noticeably quiet when it is then announced that Teddy has won. There is, however, a hearty round of applause when Teddy takes to the stage again, where she is officially declared the winner by the director of RTF and given the prize medallion.

The United Kingdom finish second, with France completing the podium. Despite leading at the halfway point, Switzerland ends up in fourth, with Denmark in fifth. Italy and Belgium tie for sixth, Germany is, in my opinion, underrated for the second year running, finishing eighth, and Austria and Sweden are joint-ninth. Unfortunately, Monaco takes the ‘wooden spoon’ in its debut year, with its sole vote coming from the Austrian jury.

 

Final Results:

1. Netherlands – 21 points
2. United Kingdom – 16 points
3. France – 15 points
4. Switzerland – 14 points
5. Denmark – 12 points
6. Italy – 9 points
7. Belgium – 9 points
8. Germany – 5 points
9. Austria – 4 points
10. Sweden – 4 points
11. Monaco – 1 point

 

This year, for some reason, each of the top three are allowed to reprise their entries, albeit in an abridged form. France’s song still doesn’t do too much for me – “Merci, Jean Philippe”, says the commentator. Pearl, Teddy and their “petite oiseau” are excellent as ever, and Teddy S. performs the winning song well, getting a good reception from the audience before making her way awkwardly to the side of the stage. At this point, Jacqueline arrives on stage to say something but we unfortunately don’t hear it because Te Deum starts again and the show is over.

 

Once again, I was struck watching this by how different the productions were year on year in Eurovision’s early days. This was probably the best show of the three I’ve seen so far (though I do think Hilversum had a better orchestra) both in terms of the set and the presenter. The ‘revolving door’ was such a clever idea, and looked excellent, but I think it’s clear to see why it didn’t become a regular feature as it did end up restricting the singers’ movements a bit too much.

One observation I have made regarding the voting is that a lot more responsibility seems to be given to the presenters to keep things running, without the visible presence of a scrutineer. This, and also receiving votes live via unreliable connections, can cause even the best of presenters to lose their cool, as we saw with Jacqueline this year. After a couple of chaotic voting sequences (maybe the ‘assistant’ from 1957 was the way to go after all), it will be interesting to see the point at which the EBU decide somebody else needs to oversee the process.

This year’s line-up is probably the strongest of the three ‘50s contests I’ve reviewed so far, with more countries exploring up-tempo numbers and even changing the style of performance; Germany’s routine marking a significant ‘first’ for the contest in this regard. None of the songs were necessarily ‘bad’, though there were a couple that do feel very dated now and weren’t helped by their performers. Overall, however, this contest has a good feel about it and I enjoyed reviewing it.

Douze Points: In case you hadn’t already gathered, it’s going to the United Kingdom. What a return to the contest after an underwhelming debut in 1957. Pearl and Teddy sing excellently and engage very well with the camera, and in my opinion could well have won a televote had there been one.

Nul Points: Unfortunately it has to be Belgium. There wasn’t a single song this year that I genuinely disliked, so it ended up being a choice between this and Sweden as to which was the least memorable by the end of the show, and the Swedish song was just that little bit better for me.

 

My Votes:

Again, a strong line-up on the whole with several songs I would go back and listen to. I’m glad to be able to give points to all but one of the contestants because they do deserve it – none of these songs are bad, some just failed to leave as much of an impression as others.

1 point: Sweden

2 points: Monaco

3 points: Switzerland

4 points: France

5 points: Austria

6 points: Italy

7 points: Netherlands

8 points: Germany

10 points: Denmark

12 points: United Kingdom