Words and Music (1948)

Picture: Words and Music (1948)

Stars: June Allyson, Perry Como, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Mickey Rooney, Ann Sothern, Tom Drake, Cyd Charisse, Betty Garrett, Janet Leigh, Marshall Thompson, Mel Torme, Vera-Ellen

Director: Norman Taurog

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Ann Sothern: click here to learn more about Ms. Sothern (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

By the late 1940's, about the time that Ann Sothern would be soon entering her forties (she was born in 1909), her career had hit a decided slump.  The Maisie pictures ended in 1947, and while she had consistently made movies throughout the decade, other than Maisie the movies hadn't really caught on in the same way-she wasn't an established star like Judy Garland or Gene Tierney, not the kind who could demand respect & acclaim & Oscar nominations, and as a result her contract was in peril with MGM.  In 1948, she tried to jump-start her career with two musicals, April Showers, which was a poorly-reviewed musical for Warner Brothers, and then Words and Music. Words and Music was a weird film for Sothern because by most standards, it was a hit, wildly popular both domestically & abroad...but due to exorbitant costs (including giving Judy Garland a fortune for what amounts to little more than a cameo), the film couldn't break even, and as a result, Sothern's star continued to diminish.  Today we'll look at Words and Music which, despite an all-star lineup of MGM talent, is listless & forgettable.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is a semi-autobiographical look at the creative partnership between Richard Rodgers (Drake) and Lorenz Hart (Rooney), two of the bigger names of the early 20th Century for musical theater.  Most modern audiences know Rodgers for his partnership with Oscar Hammerstein, which produced classics like Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific, but his time with Hart was very successful.  American songbook classics like "The Lady is a Tramp," "Manhattan," and "Blue Moon" came out of their partnership.  Throughout the film, we see how Rodgers wooed his eventual wife (played by Janet Leigh here) while Hart's stature causes him to suffer with women, and tumble into a deep depression.  This is interspersed with "cameos" from much of the biggest names in the cast doing musical number versions of classic Rodgers & Hart numbers.

The film's biggest problem is that, even for an MGM musical, the plot is pretty thin.  Rodgers' life seems idyllic & pretty much an overnight success (in a fourth-wall break in the opening scenes of the movie, he basically admits as such), which might make for fine domesticity in real life, but isn't great for a movie.  Hart's life was much more complicated, but it was his homosexuality (and the homophobic culture of the 1940's) that caused his alcoholism, self-hatred, and eventual friction with Rodgers that led the partnership to break up.  No one in the film can pull off him simply being upset about being short work (since him being gay in an MGM movie would've been unthinkable), particularly Mickey Rooney.  Forget for a fact that Rooney is about as good of an example as you can come up with for a short guy whose success led to romantic touchdowns (the man married Ava Gardner, for crying out loud); Rooney is simply not a good enough actor to play a part this subtle, and his histrionics totally derail the movie.

The film's best part are the musical cameos, though our star Sothern hardly stands out in this regard.  Admittedly, Sothern is a fine singer but her skill-set is best used in comedy & dialogue.  When you put her next to Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, & June Allyson, all four troupers whose biggest talent was as musical-comedy stars...you just can't compete.  Garland had $100,000 worth of medical bills at the time & used her cameo here to get them all paid off, but honestly the real highlight of the movie is Lena Horne, singing the hell out of "The Lady is a Tramp" in what is the most-remembered sequence in Words and Music.  Alas, Horne was too much of a financial risk in Southern theaters at the time, and so we don't get enough of her...and the rest of the movie can't compare.

Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)

Film: Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)
Stars: June Allyson, Lucille Bremer, Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Van Heflin, Lena Horne, Dorothy Patrick, Van Johnson, Tony Martin, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Robert Walker, Cyd Charisse, Angela Lansbury
Director: Richard Whorf (Vincente Minnelli, Busby Berkeley, Henry Koster, & George Sidney all also directed scenes in what sounds like a rough shoot, but none were credited)
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Lena Horne-click here to learn more about Ms. Horne (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

For the past two weeks we have focused on the two major highlights of Lena Horne's film career during Classical Hollywood.  Stormy Weather and Cabin in the Sky were big deals, major motion pictures that starred African-American casts and were distributed by major studios.  However, these were anomalies.  For much of Horne's career in the 1940's and 50's, her film career was that of mere cameos.  Frequently she'd appear in films like Thousands Cheer, Swing Fever, and Ziegfield Follies as nothing more than someone that could belt out a classic tune, and then move on with the plot, oftentimes playing herself or simply a "famous singer."  This was because, since Horne was not playing stereotypical roles like maids or servants, she couldn't be seen in movies of the era in the South, and the studio couldn't afford to put her in major productions for risk that the lack of a southern box office would mean they couldn't recoup some of their investment.  This becomes particularly bitter with a movie like Till the Clouds Roll By, a 1946 MGM extravaganza, but we'll get to why in a second.

(Spoilers Ahead) Till the Clouds Roll By is the first of a quartet of biopics produced by the studio during this era where it's loosely based on the life of a famed composer (in this case Jerome Kern, as played by Robert Walker), but mostly it's an excuse for the studio to put its biggest musical stars into the picture singing the greatest hits of those composers (worth noting that the second of these films, Words and Music, also starred Lena).  As a result, the plot here is a bit thin, even by the standards of a 1940's musical.  We have Kern, falling in love with his wife Eva (Patrick), being mentored by another composer James Hessler (Heflin), and eventually trying to find some sort of path for Hessler's daughter Sally (Bremer) when she turns out spoiled & eventually, a runaway.  All of this is told in flashback by Kern to his cab driver on the night of Show Boat's premiere, which would help him to reach a new echelon of success.

The film on its merits is, well, a mixed bag (charitably).  I actually knew very little about Kern's life, and it's worth noting that while there are countless standards here, you might not be as familiar with him as you'd think either.  With the exception of Show Boat, while his songs are still well-known from other shows, none of his musicals are really done anymore, and so he's not recalled in the same way that someone like Rodgers & Hammerstein or Lerner & Loewe might be today since their films/musicals are more frequently revived.  However, the acting in this portion is dreadful (even performers as gifted as Walker or Heflin can't sell this dreck), and you spend the entire movie wishing they'd get back to the singing.

That's because the musical numbers in Till the Clouds Roll By are sublime.  Angela Lansbury sings for the first time onscreen in the cheeky "How'd You Like to Spoon Me" and Judy Garland (very pregnant with Liza Minnelli during the shoot) is at her "awe shucks" best with "Look for the Silver Lining."  Some of the numbers are cut short (at 135 minutes, this is a particularly long film) to make way for the unnecessary plot, such as Dinah Shore's "The Last Time I Saw Paris" and, most regrettably, a ballet between Cyd Charisse & Gower Champion to "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," but you'll leave being enchanted by these numbers.

And no songs are more enchanting than Lena Horne's two numbers, for my money the best in the production (and look at that cast list-this is hardly an ensemble filled with backbenchers).  Her "Why Was I Born?" is regal & glorious.  Horne once opined in an interview (with Judy Garland, oddly enough) that she always struggled to "sing pretty," but I don't know that anyone has ever looked so glamorous while singing in Classical Hollywood-if they have, I can't recall it.  Watching this scene, you'll either cry because you're moved, or because you are so angry that MGM couldn't have given Horne some proper classic musicals during this era.

Because, as the other song showed, Horne never really got a chance after Stormy Weather & Cabin in the Sky.  Here she sings "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" from Show Boat, one of the biggest numbers for Julie Laverne.  Horne desperately wanted the part when MGM decided to make the actual film, and in fact her costar here Kathryn Grayson (who plays Magnolia Hawks in Clouds' production of Show Boat) ended up playing the part she plays in this 1946 film when the big-screen Show Boat was made in 1951.  However, thanks to the Hays Code banning interracial romance onscreen, Horne's part was given to her friend Ava Gardner, a white woman despite the part being written for a biracial woman.  As a result, a role that Horne was born to play (and does so beautifully here) went to a woman who didn't even end up singing onscreen.  Combined with her regret over not getting the title role in Pinky (which won Jeanne Crain, another white woman playing a biracial performer, an Oscar nomination), Horne essentially left Hollywood for Vegas and the nightclub circuit.  Next week we will conclude our look at Horne with one last film role, far removed from the oppression Classic Hollywood put on her acting career.

Saturdays with the Stars: Season 1 Recap

Ida Lupino & Ann Sheridan, two of our
stars kicking their heels!

With yesterday's sojourn into the South Pacific, we have finished our first season of "Saturday with the Stars!"  I'm not much for naval-gazing (mostly because I am aware this blog is not read by swaths of people), but I am really, really proud of this past season.  When I came up with this idea, I mostly wanted to see if I could do it for a year, and with one exception (you won't be able to tell this unless you were paying really close attention because I pre-dated the article, but when I was suffering from a 103-fever & pneumonia, I published one article on a Sunday), I did!

This year has taught me about the careers of twelve amazing artists, and I hope you learned some things about them too.  I had never really done something like this with actors, focusing instead on genre or something arbitrary like Oscar nominations, but getting to see the progressions in these women's careers was eye-opening, noting the similarities as well as the differences in their journeys.  I am struck by how expansive the universe of classic film is still to me some 25 years after I first started to delve into it. This year we watched movies that I'd never even heard of until I included them in the project, and made a bunch of "deep cut" discoveries.

We'll begin our second season in a few days (click here if you want to learn more about it), but before we go I am a lover of lists, and wanted to rank a few of the movies we watched this year.  I'm appreciative to all of these actresses for the education & cinematic pleasure they gave me during this journey, so I'm only focusing on the positives (no "worst of" lists).  If you have enjoyed this series, please feel free to comment or tweet this post-I'd love to have more people joining us in Season 2.  And if you have opinions on these actresses (or further research I should do), share in the comments as well!

Favorite Performances from Each Star
January: Ann Sheridan-Woman on the Run
February: Virginia Mayo-Along the Great Divide
March: Cyd Charisse-The Band Wagon
April: Alice Faye-Hello Frisco Hello
May: Linda Darnell-A Letter to Three Wives
June: Lizabeth Scott-Too Late for Tears
July: Rhonda Fleming-While the City Sleeps
August: Ruth Roman-Lightning Strikes Twice
September: Esther Williams-Bathing Beauty
October: Hedy Lamarr-Ecstasy
November: Ida Lupino-The Hard Way
December: Mitzi Gaynor-Les Girls

5 Favorite Actresses of the Year (Alphabetical)

Linda Darnell
Alice Faye
Rhonda Fleming
Ida Lupino
Lizabeth Scott

5 Favorite Performances of the Year (Alphabetical)

Linda Darnell, A Letter to Three Wives
Alice Faye, Hello Frisco Hello
Ida Lupino, The Bigamist
Ida Lupino, The Hard Way
Lizabeth Scott, Too Late for Tears

10 Favorite Films of the Year (Alphabetical)

The Band Wagon
The Bigamist
Brigadoon
It's Always Fair Weather
Les Girls
A Letter to Three Wives
The Man Who Came to Dinner
My Darling Clementine
Strangers on a Train
Too Late for Tears

10 Favorite Performances of the Year in these Films (Not By Our Leading Ladies)

Humphrey Bogart, High Sierra
Kirk Douglas, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Nanette Fabray, The Band Wagon
Patricia Hitchcock, Strangers on a Train
Van Johnson, Brigadoon
Kay Kendall, Les Girls
Janis Paige, Silk Stockings
Ann Sothern, A Letter to Three Wives
Robert Walker, Strangers on a Train
Monty Woolley, The Man Who Came to Dinner

Maroc 7 (1967)

Film: Maroc 7 (1967)
Stars: Gene Barry, Elsa Martinelli, Leslie Phillips, Cyd Charisse, Denholm Elliott, Alexandra Stewart
Director: Gerry O'Hara
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Cyd Charisse-click here to learn more about Ms. Charisse (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Throughout the month of March, we have looked at four of the seminal films from the career of Cyd Charisse.  While I have questioned her abilities as an actress on occasion, there's no denying that all four of the movies we've profiled for Charisse are considered classics, and correctly so-there's much to lend to all of them.  Charisse, however, is our first actress (of four this year) to recieve 5 Saturdays in the same month, and so we get to continue on in her career past the MGM years.  I considered doing one of her final straight dramas like Party Girl or Twilight of the Gods, but on the advice of my brother, I went further into her filmography, into the 1960's, and found one of the most bizarre spy knockoffs I've seen in a while.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Simon Grant (Barry, best known today for either his series of B-movies at Paramount in the early 50's or his stoic dramatic work in the 1960's in shows like Bat Masterson and Burke's Law depending on your genre preference), an undercover detective who seems to be a bit shaky on the law.  He's hired to infiltrate the jewel thief ring that is run by Louise (Charisse), a fashion editor by day and an impeccably-coiffed criminal by night.  In the process of his investigation into Louise, Simon begins to fall for Claudia (Martinelli), one of the fashion models working within Louise's ring, one whom he thinks could be persuadable to his own side.  Along the way, we see an increasingly ridiculous series of chase sequences interrupting ornate, gaudy modeling shoots with about a dozen women that somehow all look like Lois Chiles (even though none of them are in fact Lois Chiles).

The movie is clearly borrowing from the Sean-Connery style Bond films that were popular at the time, with pictures like the James Coburn Flint series being a huge coup for FOX.  Maroc 7, however, doesn't have the cheekiness of the Coburn films, and also doesn't have the budget, and is clearly more a way to make a quick buck off of a series of scantily clad women and a recognizable name (though she deserves above-the-title billing, this is very much a supporting role for Charisse) to make a buck for Paramount.  There's so much camp potential here (one of Charisse's henchman is an irritable, likely gay, photographer, for crying out loud), but only Denholm Elliott seems to realize that they aren't making an important film.  Instead, we have actors actually trying to land their parts without any irony, and none of them (save, again, Elliott) probably have the actorly heft to be able to pull off an A-picture to begin with.  As a result, it's kind of boring, and the characters are almost interchangeable.  You'd be forgiven for not even distinguishing key characters in the film, which is a problem because the film's final third, which involves two different actresses betraying our main character, plays flat because you honestly would struggle to even remember which characters they were playing.

The movie took place at the end of Charisse's filmography, and was the last movie in her career that she'd get star billing.  At this point, she'd been out of dancing for over a decade (MGM largely abandoning musicals to make action movies like Maroc 7, albeit higher-quality), and other than a part in the uncompleted Marilyn Monroe picture Something's Gotta Give, hadn't really done anything of note since the 60's began.  She's fine in this role, even though it's easy to see someone like Anne Bancroft having more fun with the part; Louise is meant to be effortlessly glamorous, and Charisse, now in her mid-40's, certainly still could do this in a series of elegant suits.  I leave Charisse's filmography weirdly conflicted about her as a performer-she's a great dancer, but not a particularly compelling actress.  However, either her studio or her agent or Charisse herself had impeccable taste in scripts, making her a star with iconic hit after hit (Maroc 7 notwithstanding) during the waning days of the Golden Age.  Monday we'll unveil our next star, someone who came before Charisse but has a rather cheeky connection to the actress that I'm hoping you enjoy, but in the meantime please sound off in the comments on your favorite Charisse films we've profiled, and if there's a really great one that might change my mind about her.

Silk Stockings (1957)

Film: Silk Stockings (1957)
Stars: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Janis Paige, Peter Lorre
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Oscar History: Despite the film's rather storied place in musical history, it received no Oscar nominations.  It did, however, get two Globe citations for Best Picture & Best Actress (Charisse).
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Cyd Charisse-click here to learn more about Ms. Charisse (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We enter Week 4 of our look at the career of Cyd Charisse with what will be our final musical from the actress.  As has been noted before, Charisse's career at MGM led to a series of much-lauded musicals, many of which are still beloved today (like Silk Stockings) but the films were not particularly financially-successful, and shortly after Silk Stockings came out, Charisse largely retired from musicals and from dancing in general.  As a result, she ended up with a quintet of truly beloved musicals during this time all but one of which we've chronicled here (In Singin in the Rain Charisse wasn't the lead, and weirdly I've never reviewed the picture on the blog, something I'll rectify the next time I see it, though it's pretty much a perfect film so its place at the top of this pantheon is appropriate).  Next week, for our final outing with the actress, we'll be looking at one of her rarer non-musical roles, but this week we conclude her run as the best hoofer on the MGM lot during the 1950's with Silk Stockings.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around Steve Canfield (Astaire), a film producer who wants a Russian composer to help him score his next picture.  The problem is that the Soviet government doesn't want Boroff to leave, and is worried that he'll defect to the West (they're accurate in assuming this-he has every intention of leaving), and so they send a trio of bungling government agents (including Peter Lorre) to Paris to monitor Boroff's involvement in the film.  The men become entranced with the city and the western indulgences (and western women), and as a result Ninotchka (Charisse), a stern government agent, is sent to the city to monitor them, but in the process also falls in love with Steve.

If that plot sounds very familiar, it should.  Ninotchka was a 1939 film where Greta Garbo filled the role played here by Charisse, and was a smash hit in 1939 for MGM; George Tobias, best known today for his role as Abner Kravitz in Bewitched, actually appears in both films.  Like our last outing with Astaire & Charisse, there's a lot to offer here.  The musical and dance numbers are sublime, with particular attention to be paid to Charisse's wordless poetry in the title sequence, where she dances with (and eventually puts on) silk stockings.  There's also a great moment late in the film where Astaire smashes his top hat, which wasn't just literal but also a metaphor in the film.  At this point in his career Astaire had basically given up on musicals and was ready to retire from dancing.  Though he'd appear in television specials in the next few years, this was basically it for the spats-and-top-hat look for Astaire, and his penultimate musical.  He'd play an Irish rogue eleven years later in Finian's Rainbow opposite Petula Clark, but otherwise would only do straight or comedic roles for the rest of his career.

I've bagged a bit this month on Charisse's abilities as an actress, which feels mean, and it's not like she doesn't have talents for film, it's just that they only come across in her dancing, not her acting.  This is arguably the best performance we've seen from the actress so far this month, and while I wouldn't have nominated her for anything, she shows a comedic ability that we haven't really noticed prior to this.  However, it's hard to focus on Charisse when Janis Paige is starring opposite her.  Paige is magnificent in this role, and should have gotten an Oscar nomination for her work as Peggy Dayton, a scandalous picture star who is trying to play a serious part (but can't seem to commit to it, constantly throwing in musical numbers for herself).  Paige was never really a leading lady like Charisse, otherwise I might throw her in later in this series as I was that enamored with her work here, but I'm definitely going to be seeking her out in the future, as this is one of the better performances we've seen so far in the Saturdays with the Stars series.

OVP: It's Always Fair Weather (1955)

Film: It's Always Fair Weather (1955)
Stars: Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey, Cyd Charisse, Dolores Gray, Michael Kidd
Directors: Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Story and Screenplay, Best Scoring)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Cyd Charisse-click here to learn more about Ms. Charisse (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

You may have guessed this from exploring my blog, but I have a really good memory for movie references, and for remembering what I read about particular films.  In 1999, Entertainment Weekly put out a list of the "100 Greatest Movies of All Time," a list I'm still working on (but am likely to finish sometime in 2019), and unlike a lot of other EW product in the years since, it's a genuinely strong list of pictures (there's no Breakfast Club or Dazed and Confused to appear hip-and-now).  In the Singin in the Rain piece in the magazine, there's a laundry list of other great Classic Hollywood musicals that they considered before going with the cliched choice for their Top 10.  The movies listed were Meet Me in St. Louis, On the Town, An American in Paris, The Band Wagon, and Silk Stockings, all of which I'd at least heard of when I bought the magazine at age 15, but they also name-checked It's Always Fair Weather, the most obscure film in the sentence and that mystery has stuck with me in the years since.  It's a very small, odd thing to remember almost twenty years after I purchased it, but I wanted to make sure that the last of the films on that list that I had ever seen was the least known It's Always Fair Weather, and thanks to Cyd Charisse Month (she's in two of the other films, one of which we'll get to next week and one of which we've already hit), I got to do just that.  Twenty years after I first read the title of that film, I finally saw It's Always Fair Weather.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie's central premise surrounds three men: Ted (Kelly), Doug (Dailey), and Angie (Kidd) who were infantrymen serving together during World War II.  At the end of the war, they realize that they must move on and start the lives they dreamed of in the bunker, but are afraid of life without these two buddies to have their backs.  They make a pact to meet together ten years later, at the same bar they always went to, and then go on with their merry lives.  They do, in fact, come back together ten years later at the bar, but things are not the same.  None of the men has achieved his personal dreams, and they feel like strangers to each other.

This is where the film takes some really interesting turns, because it leans into the pessimism of these men having lost their youthful vigor and also that they genuinely are an unlikely group of friends, and time should probably tear them apart.  This is in an era before movies like Fiddler on the Roof or Cabaret had inserted darker or more somber musicals into the lexicon, and as a result it is likely why the film was a box office dud when it first came out (MGM also royally screwed up the film's release schedule), and many cite the film as the prime example of how MGM couldn't make a profit any longer off of musicals and would instead have to move on to films like Ben-Hur, Goldfinger, and Doctor Zhivago to pay the bills.  While it's unfair to call it the last great "dance musical" as some do with Silk Stockings still to come (not to mention MGM's last significant musical Gigi three years and nine Oscars to come), It's Always Fair Weather was definitely the beginning of the end for the Classic Hollywood musical.

Which is a pity, because this is a great movie.  It takes a while to get its rhythm, and it's never entirely clear that the Kelly/Charisse romance is worth the squeeze (the film would easily function without her, and she was probably just included to stop the film from being a sausage fest), but there are some truly splendid moments in It's Always Fair Weather.  The wonderful number where the guys are complaining in their heads about their companions is funny but melancholy, and the dancing is sublime, though it's clear from number to number that Gene Kelly's style was competing with the more modern trappings of Michael Kidd, making his film debut.  Best of all is Kelly doing a musical number that has to be seen to be believed in "I Like Myself."  Kelly somehow manages to sail across the MGM lot in a pair of rudimentary roller skates, tapping and dancing without missing a beat in a scene that sure looks like it was shot in one take.  It's just jaw-dropping, even more so than the famed Donald O'Connor scene in I Love Melvin which Kelly is clearly stealing from here, and even if the rest of the movie wasn't as good as it was, this alone would be worth watching the flick.

Charisse is, well, unnecessary though she's fine here.  She gets one great dancing number in a boxing gym; her million-dollar legs (literally-they were insured by MGM for reportedly $5 million) have rarely been on such dynamic display, but the rest of the film she's fun, but ancillary to the plot.  The writers make her a busy businesswoman who has a photographic memory (used to intimidate Kelly but totally unnecessary as the movie progresses), and doesn't even really dance with Kelly in a major number.  As a result, this won't be changing my opinion on Charisse as a "great dancer, okay actress," but it made me fall even more for the MGM musical.  The film received a pair of Oscar nominations, for Best Scoring and Original Screenplay, and it's hard to begrudge either even though neither is a home run (the screenplay too sentimental, the score lacking one big, memorable number).  That said, I'm happy that EW made me aware of such a movie twenty years ago-it was worth the wait.

OVP: Brigadoon (1954)

Film: Brigadoon (1954)
Stars: Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, Cyd Charisse, Elaine Stewart, Barry Jones, Hugh Laing
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Art Direction, Costume, Sound)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Cyd Charisse-click here to learn more about Ms. Charisse (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

There are four quintessential Cyd Charisse films that I have never seen, and am excited to say that (provided Netflix delivers the final one), we'll get through all of them in the next few weeks for this project.  Brigadoon, however, was the one I was looking forward to the least of the bunch.  Easily maligned in pop culture, even in references I'd never known were paying tribute (the famed "Donny Most" sequence on Family Guy is a direct homage to the picture), I kind of figured this would be one of those musicals that's too silly for modern audiences to take seriously.  Well...I was wrong.  I loved Brigadoon.  The costuming, the dancing, the incredibly romantic lighting (where the hell was that Cinematography nomination for Joseph Ruttenberg?!?) all completely worked for me.  Silly or not (and it is indeed a little silly), this is one of the best films so far in the Saturdays with the Stars list, one that I will surely revisit in the future.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers around two men Tommy (Kelly) and Jeff (Johnson) who chance upon a small Scottish town while grouse-hunting.  The village is odd, but lovely, and very excited about a wedding that is taking place between two of the citizens.  While there, Tommy falls in love with the bride's sister Fiona (Charisse), but learns that Brigadoon only exists as a result of a miracle; the town, thanks to the sacrifice of a priest, appears in the mists only once every 100 years, unspoiled by the world around it.  As a result, Tommy must choose whether he will stay with Fiona and become a citizen of Brigadoon, forever giving up a traditional existence, or whether he will leave without her, potentially giving up the great love of his life.  Initially Tommy leaves, unhappy that he made the wrong decision and returning to his old life, but then a miracle happens where Brigadoon briefly returns again, just so that Tommy & Fiona can be reunited before the city slips into the mists, to return 100 years later.

That plot sounds silly, and it admittedly is, but it's also so sweet and wonderful, and thanks to this being the 1950's, it's played straight-we don't get the sorts of winks a modern audience would require that would make the picture less earnest.  As a result, you get a genuinely moving love story.  I adored the charming side characters int the film, particularly Barry Jones's Mr. Lundie, whose lilting Scottish accent was heaven, and he lands his Friar Laurence-like character with great fervency.  Best of the bunch, though, is weirdly Van Johnson's Jeff, a drunken louse who is pretty much miserable the whole film but also hilarious; Johnson was famously closeted and ill-tempered in real life-as a result this character may be the closest you'd find to the former leading man playing himself onscreen but I've never seen him be better.

Our leading lady of the month is fine, though never more than that when it comes to her acting.  Charisse is going to be an odd conundrum for me-Brigadoon is the third of her films that I've seen for the project this month (I had to catch one of out order because Netflix has been jumpy lately), and I've genuinely liked all of the movies so far, but she's not a particularly compelling actress.  A brilliant dancer, and she surely gets moments for that (I adored her scene collecting heather for the wedding), but between her not doing the singing and her rather stiff approach to the conversational scenes, it's hard to get into her performance.  Kelly, who was always reliant upon his costar's to spring his chemistry (unlike Fred Astaire, who seemed to have chemistry with literally anyone), suffers as a result, coming across as too ardent.  It feels weird to love a movie so much without really adoring the leads (except for when they're going full-tilt into the romance), but that's Brigadoon for me, I guess.

The movie received three Oscar nominations, and all are well-earned.  Though it would have been lovelier in Scotland, the MGM sound lot still makes the set design look expansive and lush.  The sound work is divine, with the great "voices from the mist" being a highlight, as well as all of the well-staged musical numbers.  Best of all are the costumes, ornate and with just a few touches of the modern to remind you that it's the 1950's-Cyd Charisse's simple dress adorned by a Scottish tartan is a big highlight.  I probably would have made room for at least three more nominations for Supporting Actor, Cinematography, and Scoring (I haven't seen all of the major films from the year, but these will be high on my list if someone wants to knock them off), as all-in-all Brigadoon was a delight.

OVP: The Band Wagon (1953)

Film: The Band Wagon (1953)
Stars: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray, Jack Buchanan
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Story & Screenplay, Costume, Scoring)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Cyd Charisse-click here to learn more about Ms. Charisse (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As I mentioned yesterday, we are now in Month #3 of our Saturday with the Stars series, and as a result, we are starting our dive into the career of Ms. Cyd Charisse, which I'm super excited about because of all of the stars we're going to profile this month, she is arguably in the most famous movies, and it's likely that some of you have seen these films (which I haven't-them's the rules).  At this point in Charisse's career, she'd appeared opposite Farley Granger in The Wild North (one of her bigger hits), and was about to break out as a headlining name in 1953, with Sombrero and our picture of today, The Band Wagon.  This Vincente Minnelli film, quite frankly, might be the most-famous English-language film that I've never seen (I've done pretty well to knock out all of the classics), so I was super excited to tuck in on a Saturday night-tis my life to spend Saturday nights alone, watching old movies), and watch this celebrated picture starring Charisse in the role that would make her a legend.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Tony Hunter (Astaire), a washed-up former song-and-dance movie star who has had a string of flops and is trying to make his big comeback on Broadway, only to find that Broadway has changed dramatically from what he grew up with on 42nd Street.  Aided by his married couple friends Lester (Levant) and Lily (Fabray), a well as a flamboyant actor-director called Jeffrey Cordova (Buchanan...this is supposed to be Jose Ferrer, right?...like, it's not subtle), they recruit a gorgeous ballerina called Gabrielle Gerard (Charisse) to join the show despite being hesitant to make the jump from the classical ballet to show business.  The quintet attempt to make a "modern" Broadway version of Faust, but it's poorly-received by the audience so Tony hocks his entire art collection in order to put on the show they originally dreamed of, a classic musical of yore, and of course this being a Hollywood movie with Astaire at its center, the show is now critically-acclaimed and a smash hit.

There's a lot of art imitating life here.  Written by Comden & Green (clearly the basis for Lester & Lily), the film shows Astaire as a failing movie star thinking of getting out of the game (Astaire was purportedly considering retirement at the time), and Charisse was a ballet dancer who was also struggling to figure out what her role would be in Hollywood.  Conversely, this sort of film had gone out of style in Hollywood despite the success of Gene Kelly's An American in Paris just two years prior, and was one of a number of critically-acclaimed flops that hallmarked Charisse's career (we'll get to a lot of them in the coming weeks, as she rarely made hits).  However, this life-imitating-art works wonderfully, as Astaire in particular is divine playing the lead, as few people played themselves quite as well as Fred Astaire.  I also loved Nanette Fabray in a supporting role (I hope I remember this when we get to the 1953 OVP, as I want to call her out as someone who should have been nominated for her splendid big-voiced work here).  Charisse, on the other hand, is both not-very-good and breathtaking all in the same film.

Charisse, if this is any indication, was not a particularly strong actress.  Some have accused Leslie Caron of a similar criticism, but Caron eventually got her dramatic acting chops once she wasn't under Gene Kelly's gaze, and at the very least was divine in Lili.  However, Charisse feels far too stiff onscreen here, an actress that, as Pauline Kael put it "sounds like she learned her lines phonetically."  There's zilch chemistry during her love scenes with Astaire & her big speech at the end has an odd timing to it.  But when she's dancing, it's as if she's suddenly gone from being Tara Reid to Meryl Streep.  Her work in "Girl Hunt Ballet" was marvelous, a sexy duet with Astaire putting music to an homage to Scarface or The Public Enemy.  Even better is "Dancing in the Dark," one of the best musical numbers I've ever seen onscreen.  For real.  The film probably should have ended here rather than a retread of "That's Entertainment," as Astaire & Charisse are so elegant, moving, and romantic that I just started randomly weeping, completely without notice.  Seriously-I can't really explain it, but it was like all of the things I love about the movies was playing out in one elegant loop.  The film is excellent despite a lack of chemistry between Astaire & Charisse in their spoken-word scenes, but it would be an all-timer for me if it had equalled that scene in Central Park, with Astaire and Charisse wordlessly expressing their love through a series of impossible sophistication.  I can't wait to see if there's another scene like this in store for me as we progress through Ms. Charisse's filmography, as honestly that one scene in itself would have made this entire series worth it.

Saturdays with the Stars: Cyd Charisse

Each month of 2019 we will be looking at the careers of the leading ladies of Classical Hollywood who were never nominated for an Academy Award as part of our "Saturdays with the Stars" series.  Last month, we focused on Virginia Mayo, a major player at Warner Brothers, best remembered for her work in classic parts in The Best Years of Our Lives and White Heat.  This month we go with one of the most treasured performers on the MGM lot during the latter stages of Mayo's career, Ms. Cyd Charisse.

Charisse, like Mayo, was a dancer, but unlike Mayo who was more noted as an actress, this feels like the first thing you recall when you discuss her filmography, which extended across multiple decades but most of her success as a leading woman came in the 1950's.  Charisse started off her career in ballet, eventually gaining success by dancing with a Russian company in Monte Carlo.  When the company broke up, she caught the eye of an MGM choreographer after appearing opposite Don Ameche in Something to Shout About, and became an important supporting dancer at MGM before finally breaking into work as a leading woman against Stewart Granger in The Wild North.

Charisse is a cool choice for this project for me personally because, while I've only seen 2 Charisse pictures (including her wordless ballet sequence in Singin' in the Rain), she is an actress I am well aware of because she's a favorite of my mom's, and because so many of her films are hailed as masterpieces today.  Charisse never got an Oscar nomination partially because she was (according to critics) more of a dancer than she was a proper actress, but she appeared in many of the major MGM musicals of the 1950's, dancing alongside Gene Kelly & Fred Astaire.

The other strange thing about Charisse's career is that it existed at all.  MGM is thought of as one of the truly great movie houses of this era, but Charisse is actually odd in that almost all of her major films were flops.  Pictures like The Band Wagon, Brigadoon, It's Always Fair Weather, and Silk Stockings, considered some of the finest musicals ever made, were not profitable in their era so it's staggering to me that Charisse continued to get to make bomb after bomb.  Weirdly it was the dramas like Party Girl and The Wild North that actually made any money for the studios, as they're almost completely lost in Charisse's filmography.  This month, as I learn more about Charisse, we'll be exploring both the profitable and disappointing aspects of her years as a leading woman, and I hope you'll join us.

The Six Women Who Danced with Astaire & Kelly

There's nothing I love more than a well-designed trivia question, particularly one for movies or politics.  Occasionally, I come across a particular trivia question I want to share with everyone, even people who aren't really into said genre, because it feels so well-structured and so simple.  A few weeks ago, I was randomly in a Wikipedia hole because I was looking up a film starring Mitzi Gaynor, and suddenly after googling if Gaynor had ever starred with Fred Astaire (she hadn't, though she'd made Les Girls with Gene Kelly), I thought: how many women have danced with both Astaire & Kelly on the big screen?

You can find the answer on IMDB if you look hard enough, but I figured since they keep it just to a sentence and don't list out the actual pictures, I'd do the work for you and include the list of the six women who have danced with both on the big screen:

(Note: I counted only narrative, studio films here.  Documentaries are excluded, as are television specials or awards shows, as then the lineup would surely get longer)

1. Rita Hayworth

Danced with Gene Kelly: Cover Girl (1944)
Danced with Fred Astaire: You'll Never Get Rich (1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (1942)
Trivia Within the Trivia: During the filming of Cover Girl, Hayworth would elope with Orson Welles, oddly enough on the same day they filmed the wedding scene for the picture.  Kelly would reprise his role from Cover Girl in 1980's Xanadu (his final onscreen role), which may mark the longest gap an actor playing the same character has ever had between first and second films (can anyone think of a longer one?).
Who Had the Better Musical Number?: I unfortunately do not have the time to watch all of these movies (I will, eventually, though, as I've added a lot of them to my Netflix queue), so for each I'm going to go with pitting in YouTube the first dance number of each pair and see which one is better.  For Hayworth, it's "Put Me to Test" from Cover Girl versus "The Shorty George" from You Were Never Lovelier.  The Kelly number is classic, with both movie stars looking gorgeous in light green, but I loved the tap synchronicity of Astaire & Hayworth, both sporting spats and mixing multiple different dancing styles.

2. Judy Garland

Danced with Gene Kelly: For Me and My Gal (1942), The Pirate (1948) and Summer Stock (1950)
Danced with Fred Astaire:  Easter Parade (1948)
Trivia Within the Trivia: Garland also starred with both men in Ziegfeld Follies (1945), but didn't appear in any scenes with Kelly or Astaire.  That particular MGM film is far better known today as the only film (other than the That's Entertainment series) that had both Astaire and Kelly dancing with each other, to the tunes of George & Ira Gershwin.  Garland & Kelly also starred in Words and Music and Thousands Cheer, but it doesn't appear they danced together in either so I'm not counting them in the lineup (I haven't seen the picture, though, so if I'm wrong correct me below).
Who Had the Better Musical Number?: YouTube randomly selected "We're a Couple of Swells" from Easter Parade to compete against the title number from For Me and My Gal.  While the costuming of Easter Parade is priceless (Garland & Astaire dressed as swanky hobos), it's not really a killer dance number (Judy was a singer more than a dancer).  As a result, I prefer the slowly romantic number between a derby-wearing Kelly and Garland, tapping around a soda shop.

3. Vera-Ellen

Danced with Gene Kelly: Words and Music (1948) and On the Town (1949)
Danced with Fred Astaire: Three Little Words (1950) and The Belle of New York (1952)
Trivia Within the Trivia: Arguably the least-remembered of these six women today, Vera-Ellen may have been the best dancer of the bunch, and Astaire in particular admired her terribly.  She went to dance school as a child with Doris Day, the rare musical-comedy actress of this era who never appeared onscreen with Kelly or Astaire.
Who Had the Better Musical Number?: Astaire caught a bit of a lucky break here when "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" was #2 for the YouTube searches for Kelly, as that's one of my favorite Kelly numbers, but the search algorithm preferred 'When You Walk Down Main Street" from On the Town.  As a result, I'm going with Astaire's number, "Mr. and Mrs. Hoofer at Home" from Three Little Words, with Vera-Ellen in a shimmering lime green skirt dancing her through domestic strife.

4. Cyd Charisse

Danced with Gene Kelly: Singin' in the Rain (1952) and Brigadoon (1954)
Danced with Fred Astaire: The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957)
Trivia Within the Trivia: Again, I haven't seen the film here (there's a lot being added to my Netflix queue this Tuesday), so while It's Always Fair Weather definitely stars Charisse & Kelly, but I'm seeing no indication that they actually dance together in the picture.
Who Had the Better Musical Number?: Kelly presumably gets the advantage of "Erotic Dance" from Singin in the Rain here, with Charisse's impossibly long legs extended to take out his hat (arguably the most iconic moment in the actress's career).  At least I figured it was an advantage until I saw "Girl Hunt Ballet" in The Band Wagon, where a gangster-bedecked Astaire romances Charisse in a flaming red cocktail gown.  I don't know that I've ever used the word "sexy" to describe Fred Astaire, but it fits like a glove here.  The closest pairing of the bunch, but I give the edge to Astaire's high-hoofing (how does someone jump on their knees like that in their fifties?!?)

5. Leslie Caron

Danced with Gene Kelly: An American in Paris (1951)
Danced with Fred Astaire: Daddy Long Legs (1955)
Trivia Within the Trivia: With the recent death of Debbie Reynolds, Caron is the only living person to have danced with both Astaire & Kelly onscreen (she is 87).  In 1988, she pulled off an unusual feat for a ballet dancer, doing a number with Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov (arguably the two most important male danzatores of the 20th Century) at the Paris Opera Ballet.
Who Had the Better Musical Number?: "Sluefoot" from Daddy Long Legs competes against the iconic ballet sequence in An American in Paris, and I can't take away two classic dance numbers from Kelly in the same article.  An easy win for the Best Picture winner, in the movie's best scene.

6. Debbie Reynolds

Danced with Gene Kelly: Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Danced with Fred Astaire: The Pleasure of His Company (1961)
Trivia Within the Trivia: By 1961, Astaire had largely retired from dancing onscreen (thinking he was too old), and wouldn't dance again on the big screen until 1968's Finian's Rainbow.  However, he gamely did a small dance with Reynolds during a party sequence in the film, and received a Golden Globe nomination for his troubles.
Who Had the Better Musical Number?: While it's a sweet scene, Reynolds & Astaire are simply dancing onscreen with each other, while "Good Morning" from Singin' in the Rain is one of the most impressive scenes in the history of the movies.  So, no contest for Kelly here.

OVP: Meet Me in Las Vegas

Film: Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)
Stars: Dan Dailey, Cyd Charisse, Agnes Moorehead, Lili Darvas, Jim Backus, Cara Williams, Paul Henreid, Lena Horne
Director: Roy Rowland
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Scoring of a Musical)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Celebrity is a funny thing, particularly when it's one that's rather fleeting.  That was one of the below-the-line aspects of this forgettable musical starring Dan Dailey and Cyd Charisse, but it's the one that kept sticking out to me.  The film has a running gag of having nearly a dozen major stars of the era randomly show up in cameo appearances, some of whom are still recognizable (Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds) and some of whom you'd have to have a very keen knowledge of Hollywood to recognize (Pier Angeli, Vic Damone, Elaine Stewart).  All-in-all, it's still a fun game of "guess the star" (which is a game I enjoy in general when channel-surfing over to Turner Classic Movies), which distracts from a pretty mediocre plotline.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Chuck (Dailey), a down-on-his-luck professional gambler and Maria (Charisse), a sheltered and prissy ballerina who by circumstance realize that when they hold hands, magical things start to happen.  Suddenly they find that they are insanely wealthy from gambling, and slowly they fall for each other after a night of carousing and gambling (which causes Maria's star to rise as a tabloid sensation).  As they fall in love, though, they start to realize that when you're lucky in love, you're unlucky at the card table, and in the end, after what appeared to be a fairly genuine breakup, they decide to give it a go, melding their two worlds into one.

I will say that there were portions of the film that I liked.  After an insane series of films from the 1950's and 60's where every single woman gives up a promising career for a man, it was refreshing to see that they weren't going to go that route here (half the year would be her career, half would be his), and I was desperately worried that she'd throw away her promising talent to please her man, so this was a most welcome development.  I also loved the dance numbers with Charisse-there's a reason this nabbed an Oscar nomination, as the ballet numbers are like something you can't imagine was caught onscreen; Charisse's impossibly long legs jet across the stage as if motorized.  Absolute precision, absolutely spell-binding, and the two guest numbers by Lena Horne and Frankie Laine (again, two of the many, many, many random celebrity cameos) were wonderful; Laine shows that gusto that would be his trademark and nobody can sing a torch song like Lena Horne.  It's kind of wonderful to see two major singing stars of the 50's unencumbered by screaming crowds or playing a part, just giving us a great musical performance.

The actual musical numbers integral to the plot in the film are much more miss than hit, though.  Dan Dailey's "Yellar Shoes" number is dreadful, and while his cute number with Mitsuko Sawamura is fun, it's more because Sawamura, who was enjoying an odd flash-in-the-pan fame at the time, is so enjoyable (if you'd like, you can see her sing during this same time period with Judy Garland right here).  Overall, though, I would say that it's more the dance direction that Oscar should have paid attention to rather than the scoring.  At least it wasn't a nomination other than the music, though, as the story and acting is just bad-Charisse plays Maria as too prim and Dailey's easy-going charm can't seem to find the cad he's supposed to be in the earlier scenes.

Those are my thoughts on this quiet little musical from the mid-50's-what are yours?  Has anyone seen it?  If not, what do you think of Dailey and Charisse, two major stars of this era?  And how do you think modern celebrity cameo bonanzas onscreen will fare in the future?  Share below!