Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)
Suppose you were so boring that when Hollywood decided to make the movie of your life they had to add extra characters that never really existed just so you could be more interesting…?

Set to the music of Jerome Kern, Till the Clouds Roll By does exactly that. It opens with a very long rendition of Showboat, then jumps back to Kern’s days struggling to sell a tune in London. Almost immediately he does. After a brief and idyllic courtship starting with an unlikely breaking and entry to borrow the use of a piano, Kern marries his English rose and quickly ascends to Broadway. Then…, well…, we have another 60 minutes or so left in the film for a follies-esque presentation of his greatest hits strung together by a subplot of a young actress and family friend (played by Lucille Bremmer, a singing and dancing Bette Davis type) who learns the hard way she must make her own stardom to be successful…. Never mind this woman never existed, nor her father who is supposedly Kern’s manager and mentor.
…more about Till the Clouds Roll By

Ziegfeld Follies

March 24, 2007

filed under color, Cyd Charisse, Florenz Ziegfeld, Gene Kelly, Goldwyn Girls, heaven, Judy Garland, Lucille Ball, musicals, retrocinema, tableau Virginia OBrien.

Ziegfeld Follies (1946)

So…, MGM plans to make a huge sequel: a new Follies to feature the greatest stars and directors in Hollywood! Fred Astaire verses Gene Kelly! Judy Garland at her finest! Ravishing Ziegfeld Girl Lucille Ball! Fannie Bryce, Red Skelton, and Virginia O’Brien appear for comedy! An underwater Esther Williams number, and Cyd Charisse in a soap bubble ballet!

PRODUCER: We’ve signed William Powell to play Ziegfeld again!
MINION: But Sir, Florenz Ziegfeld died at the end of The Great Ziegfeld.
PRODUCER: Right! So…, we’ll open with William Powell in Heaven putting together the next Follies!
MINION: Do you think moviegoers will believe Ziegfeld went to Heaven, Sir?

Meet Me in Las Vegas

February 1, 2007

filed under Cyd Charisse, Lena Horne, musicals retrocinema.

Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)

Cyd Charisse headlines as an uptight ballerina in a Vegas show (??). Dan Dailey is an unlucky rancher who loves to gamble. A chance meeting in a casino leads them to discover they have an unbeatable winning streak as long as they hold hands. Having nothing else in common, can love grow when their luck eventually runs out?

The plot seems as unlikely as the pairing, until you learn that Cyd’s real-life husband was crooner Tony Martin, and perhaps the film was conceived as a vehicle for them both. Tony makes a brief cameo, along with a dozen other Vegas and Hollywood stars, but otherwise Meet Me in Las Vegas is a salami-thin slice from the waning days of MGM’s musicals. Rather than further the plot, most numbers appear as onstage acts, including a ravishing Lena Horne, and Cara Williams as a hot redheaded ringer sent by the casino manager to break up their winning streak.

Cyd is in beautiful form, but choreographer Hermes Pan prefers camp and costumes to actual stretching of talent. There is one ballet number that is a ridiculous Swan Lake meets volleyball in a neoclassical pavillion. The humor is pushed when jealous Cyd gets drunk and decides to out-perform a showgirl number. The wackiest number has four devil women gyrating behind a lounge singer who belts out “Hell hath no fury like a womaaaan scoooorned”. The finale puts Cyd back at the top of all MGM’s dancers in the classic Frankie and Johnny sung by Sammy Davis Jr.

Singing in the Rain

October 16, 2006

filed under Cyd Charisse, Gene Kelly, girl on top, gold diggers, musicals retrocinema.

Singing in the Rain (1952)

It’s been voted in the top ten of all films, and the best musical ever, so you’ll have to forgive if this Comden and Green slice of buttercake nostalgia seems oversweet today. Any movie about making a movie is going to be full of inside jokes, actor annecdotes, and trendspotting, but Singing in the Rain plundered MGM’s backlot to find the actual sets and props used in memorable silent films, every dance number is an homage of earlier musicals, meanwhile bigshot producer Arthur Freed bought back the library of songs he’d written during leaner days of the talkie-era.
…more about Singing in the Rain

The Silencers

July 10, 2006

filed under Cyd Charisse, Daliah Lavi, Dean Martin, girl on top, musicals, retrocinema thief assassin spy.

The Silencers (1966)

director Phil Karlson
loosely based on the Matt Helm novels by Donald Hamilton
music Elmer Bernstein, theme sung by Vikki Carr
costume Moss Mabry, Sy Devore
starring Dean Martin, Stella Stevens, Daliah Lavi, Victor Buono, Nancy Kovack, Cyd Charisse, Beverly Adams

What kind of secret agent drives a station wagon?! Everyone in the ’60s had a spy show, but Dean Martin as tough guy Matt Helm brings the genre to new lows. Dino plays Matt as Dino. He drinks and sweats and waits for another beautiful woman to further the plot. Meanwhile, adorable Stella Stevens and the delicious Dalia Lavi dodge bullets and karate chop their way through glamorous gowns and structured hair styles to save Arizona from a nuclear missle… um, yeah. At age 45, Cyd Charisse smolders as showgirl Sarita: victim of one of the strangest dance costumes ever!
…more about The Silencers