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.

OVP: Let's Make Love! (1960)

Film: Let's Make Love! (1960)
Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Yves Montand, Tony Randall, Frankie Vaughan (as well as some fun cameos I'll reference in the review)
Director: George Cukor
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Scoring)
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 Marilyn Monroe-click here to learn more about Ms. Monroe (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

For our final two weeks with Marilyn Monroe, we're going to focus on the very tail end of the actress's career.  Last week we talked about one of the biggest triumphs of Monroe's career, Bus Stop, which brought her critical hosannas (serious ones) for the first time in her career, and was a huge box office hit for Fox.  This was followed with two legendarily difficult shoots for Marilyn, the first being the now-maligned The Prince and the Showgirl (with Laurence Olivier) and then the smash-hit classic Some Like It Hot, where she feuded relentlessly with costar Tony Curtis & director Billy Wilder.  Despite Some Like It Hot's success (it won Monroe her only competitive Golden Globe), she took another year off before making her next movie, today's film Let's Make Love!.  The film was a big deal not only for Monroe, but her costar Yves Montand, who was making his English-language debut after a decade of starring roles in European cinema, and becoming the toast of the New York theater scene with his one-man show.

(Spoilers Ahead) In a weirdly similar opening to The Seven Year Itch, we go through the family tree of Jean-Marc Clement (Montand), a billionaire whose ancestors all had a knack for making money and were frequently distracted by "balloons" (the script's entendre, not mine).  He is considered a spoiled playboy, and a local theater production about famous figures of the early 1960's is skewering him.  He goes down to show he's "in on the joke" as a bit of publicity, but there is mistaken for an actor pretending to be Jean-Marc Clement, and goes along with the casting when he falls for Amanda (Monroe), a beautiful actress who leads the production.  Jean-Marc gets to see a woman actually fall for him, and not his money, as she just assumes he's an out-of-work actor.  However, Amanda is dating the show's leading man, Tony (Vaughan), so Jean-Marc, along with his assistants (including Tony Randall playing the same role Tony Randall always played in these types of films-the best friend), recruit the help of legendary entertainers in hopes of making the no-talent Jean-Marc a rival for Amanda's affections.

You can imagine how that turns out (happy ending!), but arguably the best part of Let's Make Love! is the scenes with the legendary performers.  Milton Berle, Bing Crosby, and Gene Kelly all play themselves, recruited to make the hapless Jean-Marc seem like a funny song-and-dance-man, with amusing results (Berle basically steals the movie during his segment).  And I will admit I actually liked the score for the film, even though it's not as memorable as it might have been.  The Oscar nomination may have been something of a gimme given the film's high profile (we were entering a period where musicals struggled to gain traction with audiences), but Vaughan can sing, and he-and-Monroe have a gay sort of chemistry that is fun-to-watch.

This is not true for Monroe & Montand.  While Montand generally was a popular figure in the era, his comedy bits don't age well and he's stiff in a lead role that would have been a better fit for someone like Cary Grant or Rock Hudson.  Montand isn't helped by a script that has no punch.  The joke bits aren't that funny (Berle & his segment are the only ones that really work), and while Monroe is enjoyable in her part (George Cukor would never totally fail his leading actress), the script is just sort of there for us to ogle her.  One of the striking things between the sex symbols of the 1930's/40's and the 1950's is that while Jean Harlow and Rita Hayworth were given different types of roles to excel in, Monroe always played some version of this Amanda.  When it was in Some Like It Hot, with great writing and costars like Jack Lemmon, it's glorious.  Let's Make Love!, though, is pretty disposable and wouldn't be thought of at all today except it was Marilyn's penultimate film.

The movie had no good memories for any involved.  Monroe hated the part, considering it her worst role, and not soon after watched her marriage to Arthur Miller dissolved (she had had a very public affair on-set with Montand, who was married to Monroe's friend Simone Signoret at the time).  The film was moderately successful, but considered a disappointment given Monroe's star power and how gossip columns had been swirling about her relationship with Montand.  After three rough productions, Monroe was still famous and bankable enough to demand headlines, but producers were worried about hiring her for anything.  She lost out at the time on the role of Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's, a part that was written specifically for her by Truman Capote, and which would win Audrey Hepburn an honor Monroe never received: an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Instead, Monroe would make a different film, one that would sadly be her last, and one that we'll discuss next week.

OVP: Cover Girl (1944)

Film: Cover Girl (1944)
Stars: Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly, Lee Bowman, Phil Silvers, Leslie Brooks, Eve Arden, Otto Kruger
Director: Charles Vidor
Oscar History: 5 nominations/1 win (Best Scoring*, Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound, Original Song-"Long Ago and Far Away")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 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 Rita Hayworth-click here to learn more about Ms. Hayworth (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

When discussing the films of Rita Hayworth in the early 1940's, every single one of them seems to be followed by "Film X made Hayworth a star!" and in some ways they are all right, and in other ways they're wrong.  Hayworth by 1944 was pretty much a household name, and was someone who could clearly open movies (and get top billing, as she did with this picture).  Her work with Fred Astaire had guaranteed her opportunity, but she wasn't really in the stratosphere in the way she would be soon, and that stratosphere came with Cover Girl.  Teamed with Gene Kelly (in may ways this is also the "film that made Kelly a star!") this musical was a massive hit for Columbia, enough so that, from here on out, no one was calling Hayworth's work "the film that made her a star," but simply "she was a huge star, period."  What was it about Cover Girl that so sparked the imagination?  Let's find out, shall we?

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Rusty (Hayworth) a chorus girl in her boyfriend Danny's (Kelly) nightclub who by a freak chance-of-fate gets hired to be the cover girl for Vanity magazine (it feels very akin in the film to Vanity Fair).  She gets the job in part because the magazine's publisher John Coudair (Kruger) thinks she bares a striking resemblance to her grandmother, whom he loved in her youth (and indeed, Hayworth does play this role in flashbacks).  The film alternates between both women's fates, and both end up meeting the same end.  Both are given a chance at fame-and-fortune, potentially marrying a wealthy man who adores them, but instead stick with the simple life with the men who first pursued them there.

The plot here isn't breaking new ground, but the music is divine.  The film is early in Kelly's career, and is marked as the first of his films to have some of his choreography & direction (which to that point with MGM he hadn't been able to impose onto his films).  As a result, we get some of the astonishing precision of Kelly's best musicals coming out in full-force here, from the joy of "Make Way for Tomorrow" to the hilariously cheeky "Poor John" to the soaring "Long Ago (and Far Away)."  It's hard not to see a lot of Singin' in the Rain in some of the choreography, particularly comparing "Good Mornin'" to "Make Way for Tomorrow" and "Cover Girl" to "Beautiful Girl" from the movie, and I'm surprised that Google didn't show more similarities between the two when I did a search.  Perhaps Cover Girl isn't as discussed today to make that connection?

Either way, this is a gem.  Eve Arden practically steals the whole movie as a wisecracking assistant to Kruger's boss, and Hayworth has never looked so glamorous.  The film's plot doesn't always make sense, but the production design is so splendid you won't care.  The film won five Oscar nominations, and deserved them all.  The score is light and winning, the sound work excellent (particularly considering how well they do to make Hayworth's lip-syncing feel natural), and the lighting is delicious, the shadow work in "Long Ago" being a particular highlight.  Hayworth would weirdly find herself steering further away from musicals shortly after this, moving into drama and noir (our final two pictures from her this month will focus on this period of her career), but for those who only think of Hayworth from Gilda and The Lady from Shanghai, it's kind of bliss to watch her be so genuinely happy in a picture like Cover Girl.

OVP: Les Girls (1957)

Film: Les Girls (1957)
Stars: Gene Kelly, Kay Kendall, Mitzi Gaynor, Taina Elg
Director: George Cukor
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Costume Design*, Art Direction, Sound Mixing)
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 Mitzi Gaynor-click here to learn more about Ms. Gaynor (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We pick up with Mitzi Gaynor just over a week after her last film.  We've had some movies from the same year for a star in this series, but I don't think we ever had two films so close together as The Joker is Wild and Les Girls, which is our picture this week.  As a result, we don't have a lot to update you on with where Gaynor was in her career, though you have to give her credit for going from the diva behavior of Frank Sinatra to the psychotic perfectionism of Gene Kelly.  But the reason I picked this film for our penultimate Gaynor film is that it comes from MGM.  The bulk of Gaynor's career was alternating between Fox and Paramount, and while she made musicals for both studios, MGM is really the lot where the singers & hoofers went.  However, in the 1950's they were more obsessed with our March star Cyd Charisse than any other actresses, and quite frankly were about to be done with big-scale musicals.  Les Girls wasn't the last significant musical to come out of MGM (that would be Bells are Ringing three years later), but it was Gene Kelly's final musical for the studio.  So I wanted to see, with the clock ticking, if they had the right part for Gaynor, and what she'd look like in a musical the way only MGM could make them.

(Spoilers Ahead) Les Girls takes part in three acts, focusing on three different dancers in the film, all representing different countries: the American Joy (Gaynor), the British Sybil (Kendall), and the French Angele (Elg, who is really Finnish but her character is French).  Angele is suing Sybil for libel in court (the film seems to have weirdly been inspired by Rashomon in the way it delivers its story), stating that Sybil lied in her book about the three women.  We then flash back to first Sybil, then Angele, and finally the man that came between them their dancing costar-director Barry (Kelly) taking the stand to straighten things out.  The film ends with us realizing that it was Joy that Barry was in love with the whole time (Hollywood law dictates that Kelly go after the biggest name in the cast, after all), and all three women end up happily ever after...with Joy keeping an eye on her new husband, whom she suspects maybe had a little bit of romancing with the other two women to keep their stories straight.

The movie is weird for an MGM musical because it's the plot that actually dominates the tale, rather than the musical numbers.  There are a few lovely song-and-dance scenes (I loved the saucy "Ladies-in-Waiting" with the peekaboo costume design, and the ballet duet between Gaynor & Kelly was sublime), but it's actually the plot and the witty banter that keeps you there.  It's the rare movie where generally pretty much everyone upstages Gene Kelly, who is mostly just there to pitch woo and be a dance partner, as it's the women that steal the entire film.  Gaynor is great here-she's relegated with the least flamboyant character, but she gets a lot of snappy one-liners that generally made me cackle.  Elg and Kendall both get the better parts, though, and they tied at the Golden Globes (can you imagine that happening today-two actors from the same film tying for an award?!?) for Best Actress.  If I had to pick a favorite it'd probably be Kendall, who is delectable on the stand throwing bon mots at the judge; leave it to George Cukor to direct a musical with Gene Kelly and still make it all about his actresses.  While Elg is still alive and worked for decades on the stage (she was in the original cast of Nine on Broadway), Kendall (who was once married to Rex Harrison) died tragically young at the age of 32 from leukemia just two years after the release of Les Girls.

The film won three Academy Award nominations, each deserving but to different degrees.  Like I said above, the musical numbers are fine, if only 1-2 are really memorable, so I feel like the Sound citation is more because there was a lack of musicals in 1957 to throw this one toward.  The Art Direction and Costumes are sublime, though.  Orry-Kelly is clearly in heaven getting to parade the three beautiful leading actresses in an array of matching, carefully-constructed outfits, and the set design, particularly the girl's compact but believable apartment, is brimming with detail.  This movie competed with Funny Face in both those categories, so the OVP for this field is going to be hell, but I was utterly charmed by Les Girls and don't really understand why this isn't a more celebrated MGM musical.  Next week we will conclude our look at Mitzi Gaynor, and our first season of "Saturdays with the Stars" with a different film that won a trio of Oscar nominations & a trophy...on one enchanted evening.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)

Film: Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)
Stars: Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, Betty Garrett, Jules Munshin, Edward Arnold
Director: Busby Berkeley
Oscar History: No nominations
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 Esther Williams-click here to learn more about Ms. Williams (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We continue on a few years into Williams' career.  Throughout the late 1940's, Williams was perhaps the most important star on the MGM lot, at least in terms of keeping the lights on.  She had a Top 20 movie every year between Bathing Beauty and her double-feature victories of 1949 (the second of which we'll discuss next week).  MGM, famous for its high quality and cavalcade of stars, desperately needed an actress that could consistently churn out hits, as many of its stars were aging, and so Williams was put into near constant production during the era.  This film is one of the few she made with Arthur Freed, legendary musical producer who would make some of the best movies the studio ever made, and teamed her with Gene Kelly & Fred Astaire, obviously big stars in their own right, but having all of that stardom might have helped at the box office, but behind-the-scenes Williams was in hell.

(Spoilers Ahead) Before we talk about Williams life (and work in the picture), let's get to the story, written by Kelly himself (and frequent collaborator Stanley Donen).  The movie is about Dennis Ryan (Sinatra) and Eddie O'Brien (Kelly) who in 1908 are both baseball players who in the off-season have a successful stint as vaudeville performers.  They goofily enjoy their time on the fictional team the Wolves, but the team's new owner KC Higgins (Williams) turns out to be a female, and one with a knowledge of baseball & who is no-nonsense when it comes to her new players.  Both Dennis & Eddie try to woo her, but she ultimately falls for Eddie, who is kind of a louse but she has chemistry with him (Dennis is consoled by Betty Garrett's thirsty Shirley Delwyn, a fan-in-the-stands whom he falls for), but not before Eddie nearly screws up their shot at the pennant by taking a contract with Joe Lorgan (Arnold), a rich hood who has bet on the game & is trying to sabotage its players.  The film ends with a meta-musical number where the four actors are costumed as their characters, but singing as the actual actors (if you don't care too much about spoilers, it's kind of unusual & worth checking out here).

The film itself is fine.  The meta ending number was so odd that it was probably my favorite part (name-checking the actual actors in the film by name, as well as other leading performers of their day), but the musical numbers in the film are largely forgettable.  Kelly dances, Sinatra croons, Garrett & Munshin steal scenes, and Williams (briefly) swims, so everyone is doing what you'd expect, but the flimsy plot and lack of a major, memorable ballad or number causes it to be ill-compared to something of the era like Meet Me in St. Louis or On the Town, which features all but Williams from those name-checked actors.  That said, it's still lovely & fun-this is an Arthur Freed musical during MGM's heyday starring some of the razzle dazzliest stars in Hollywood-you'd have to be pretty cynical to dislike the picture.

It's interesting to approach the film from the perspective of Esther Williams, though, so I'm excited to have watched this in the context of her month as the star rather than if we did Sinatra or Kelly in a future season.  Williams's character is fun, and she gets some sassy lines & moments; it's hard to be the female lead in a movie where Betty Garrett is also on-deck (Garrett is one of the quintessential Golden Age scene-stealers, ranking up there with Thelma Ritter & Ann Miller), and she isn't quite as flashy as Garrett, but Williams is memorable & aces her scenes taking down Kelly's chauvinistic Eddie.

However, I was curious as to why MGM cast Williams in such a role, particularly when they were making so much money with her work in aquatic musicals.  Turns out, she wasn't even remotely their top choice; June Allyson, Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland & Kathryn Grayson (the latter two are name-checked in the "Strictly USA" final number) were all favored for the role before circumstance caused all four to skip out, and Kelly in particular did not want to cast Williams in the part.  Berkeley was technically the director of the picture, but apparently was absent for much of the shoot due to his issues with alcoholism, so Kelly & Donen had a very heavy hand in the making the film, and (according to her memoirs) treated Williams like garbage on the set.  Berkeley even had an idea for a Williams' musical number in the water, potentially helping the film's box office, but Kelly refused and it was cut (as was a duet between Kelly-and-Williams, a rare circumstance for a classic age musical where the main romantic leads don't have a love ballad).  Williams would continue to slam Kelly in interviews sixty years after the film she hated making the movie so much (she apparently liked Sinatra), but it was another money-maker for the star, though thankfully for Williams' sense-of-self, they never again teamed her with Kelly.

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.

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: What a Way to Go! (1964)

Film: What a Way to Go! (1964)
Stars: Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, Robert Cummings, Dick van Dyke
Director: J. Lee Thompson
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Art Direction, Costume)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

There's nothing better than a surprise when it comes to a movie, and I will admit I wasn't paying very close attention to the opening credits to What a Way to Go! so imagine my delight in this black comedy as a cascade of the biggest names in Hollywood came out to woo Shirley MacLaine in What a Way to Go!.  It's not really a spoiler alert (they get top-billing and all of that), but it's still a sheer joy to watch a bunch of game performers, particularly the likes of Newman and Mitchum who so rarely worked in comedy, come out in such an interesting and lovely way in a film that is heavy on repetition, but has such a game cast that it's hard to fault it.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Louisa May Foster, a black widow of sorts, as she tries to donate $211 million to the US government, and we hear during a long session with a therapist how she ended up in possession of such an enormous sum of money, despite spending most of her life hoping for "the simple life."  The film is a black comedy, so know that we're going to see a number of different major Hollywood stars die a comic death, but the film watches as MacLaine marries men who seem hapless and not remotely capable of success, and then through her inspiration, manage to become mega-tycoons who then die comically as part of hubris from neglecting their wives.

The film's heart is MacLaine, who is one of my favorite performers and always a joy to watch.  Her Louisa was originally intended for Marilyn Monroe before her death, and then for Elizabeth Taylor (who wanted a larger salary), but while both of these women are the sort that random men would give their fortunes to obtain, MacLaine sells both the sex angle and has the comic skills to back it up (that Monroe and Taylor probably lacked, let's be honest).  MacLaine's constant blustering toward her paramours, particularly as the film gets more predictable, is wonderful and she is certainly the best part about the movie.

Which of the men is your favorite will probably depend on which of these men are your favorite actors in real life.  The five husbands (Newman, Mitchum, Martin, Kelly, and van Dyke) all play some version of their Hollywood personas, albeit for laughs.  Kelly is fun to watch as he, in many ways, starts to mirror Lina Lamont, but for my money Paul Newman is the winner of the bunch, as he so rarely got to be funny so watching him as a "starving" artist (despite being broke he's eating in literally every scene he's in) is lovely, and it's worth noting that he has rarely looked this sexy, considering he's sporting some otter-inspired realness with a beard and a gigantic artistic chip on his shoulder.  It's easy to see why he was the one who, in a series of cinematic vignettes that run throughout the movie, got the Fellini-inspired motif.

The film nabbed two Oscar nominations, for Art Direction and Costume, and both were wildly deserved.  The art direction occasionally runs into the category of "most" rather than "best," but considering the film's comedic sensibilities it's gaudy enough that it works as a visual punchline.  The best moment surely would be Pinky's (Kelly) randomly pink mansion, going places even Jayne Mansfield wouldn't have wanted to tread, but the entire film from the elevating psychiatrist chair to the impeccably structured art machine created by Paul Newman to the garage sale beginnings of Dick van Dyke's store show touches that you don't normally get from a comedy.  The costume work was done by Edith Head, so you know this isn't a nomination due to coasting, and indeed MacLaine is outfitted from head-to-toe in elaborate gowns, a costuming budget that felt like it never got cut from when Liz Taylor was still in negotiations, and we see MacLaine in nearly every hair color and style imaginable.  Some highlights (for me) included MacLaine (in a pink wig) sporting a pink mink sable, her incredibly sexualized widow's outfit, and her elbow-length gloves in a yellow-blue-and-pink gown that recalls Newman's paintings.  All-in-all, both of these are massive triumphs in terms of Oscar ingenuity, so well done all-around.

The film is a bit silly and predictable, so I'm going with three stars, but a hearty three stars so if you have a few hours and want a good time, catch this movie.  For those that have seen it, what are your thoughts?  Can you imagine this movie with Taylor or Monroe?  Which husband would you succumb to (Paul Newman is the only acceptable answer)?  Share in the comments!

AFI's 25 Greatest Actors, Part 2

This Article is part of a 15-Year Anniversary series commemorating the American Film Institute’s 25 Greatest Stars.  For the Actresses, click the numbers for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.  For the Actors, click the number for Part 1.

I'm really enjoying this series, even if it's timeliness is questionable (I'm hoping you are too!).  Where last we left off, I had just finished discussing James Cagney's surprisingly high ranking on this list.  We're now going to discuss the next eight fellas on the list, going through their Oscar history, chief, fame, my favorite performances and the ones I've shamefully neglected (please play along with your own thoughts in the comments!).

9. Spencer Tracy (1900-1967)

Oscar Nominations: Tracy was one of the most beloved in the history of the Academy (he's probably the closest analogy to Meryl Streep amongst classic Hollywood, even better than Kate Hepburn or Bette Davis, since it seems like he ALWAYS was nominated, whereas Hepburn and Davis went through periods of their career where they missed).  He received nine nominations for Best Actor, winning for Captains Courageous and Boys Town.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being half of one of the most scandalous relationships in the history of Hollywood.  Though married, Tracy carried on a decades-long affair with actress Katharine Hepburn, to the point that they are generally considered one of Hollywood's most iconic couples, despite not discussing the relationship publicly during his lifetime.  Tracy was a bit of a cad, though, if we're being honest.  Amongst his other conquests were Loretta Young, Joan Crawford, Ingrid Bergman, and Gene Tierney.
My Favorite Performance: Hmm-I've seen only one of Tracy's nominated performances (his films, if you look at them collectively, are not what you'd call "in my wheelhouse").  I'd probably go with Woman of the Year, one of the better pairings between he and Kate.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I mean, I'm missing eight nominated performances-that's pretty damn glaring.  Probably toward the top of the list would be Judgment at Nuremberg and Inherit the Wind, though-both seem like classic Tracy "actorliness."

10. Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)

Oscar Nominations: This is actually a bit tricky.  Chaplin won three Oscars in his career: one honorary one at the 1971 ceremony, a competitive one a year later for Original Dramatic Score for Limelight, and an Honorary Award at the very first Oscars for acting, writing, directing, and producing The Circus.  Chaplin received another trio of nominations, and possibly a fourth depending on if you count his nomination for Best Actor (which was later taken away) for The Circus.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being the quintessential Silent Era star.  With his cane and mustache and waddle he's the definition of an icon-most of the populace hasn't seen a Charlie Chaplin movie, but few wouldn't recognize him going through the gears of Modern Times or eating a shoe in The Gold Rush or charming a girl in City Lights or even parodying Hitler in The Great Dictator.  He is an icon of the cinema.
My Favorite Performance: You just can't beat City Lights, and I don't know that anyone could try.  I frequently debate with myself what my favorite Silent film is, but City Lights is in the Top 3, if not the top spot period.  It's one of the most romantic movies ever made.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've seen three of his four "major" films, but have never gotten around to The Great Dictator, the only film that Chaplin officially received an Oscar nomination for acting for (he lost to Jimmy Stewart).

11. Gary Cooper (1901-1961)

Oscar Nominations: Cooper received five Oscar nominations in his career, winning Best Actor for Sergeant York and High Noon.  Cooper also won a posthumous Honorary Award.
Probably Best Known Today For: Looking super duper.  While Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, The Pride of the Yankees, and High Noon are genuine, recognizable classics, it was Cooper's mention in "Puttin' on the Ritz" that has entered the lexicon most fully.  Cooper also was one of several men on this list that had a notoriously long list of romantic conquests: Clara Bow, Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly, Anita Ekberg, and most famously (and tragically) Patricia Neal.
My Favorite Performance: I haven't seen High Noon in decades, and I remember not particularly caring for it when it first came out-I have a suspicion that would have changed quite a bit since then (I've seen clips enough to form that opinion), but I'll reserve that right until I re-view the film.  In the meantime, we'll stick with Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: Cooper and Tracy are not what you'd consider my favorite actors (along with Burt Lancaster, these are kind of the trio of actors from this era that I respect but don't love).  That said, I know that I need to get around to seeing The Pride of the Yankees at some point to see Cooper become the luckiest man on the face of the earth (does anyone else always picture Bill Pullman whenever that quote comes up?).

12. Gregory Peck (1916-2003)

Oscar Nominations: Peck received five Oscar nominations in his long career, winning for To Kill a Mockingbird.  He also won the Jean Hersholt in 1968.
Probably Best Known Today For: His commanding and calming presence in the film To Kill a Mockingbird.  His work as Atticus has been celebrated by generations of young adults investigating the novel by Harper Lee and then coming to the movie.  Peck was also known to a number of people for his political causes, being a strong advocate for gun control and against President Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork for the Supreme Court (one of the rare Democrats on a list that is pretty Republican).
My Favorite Performance: I mean, To Kill a Mockingbird sort of has to be at the top of the list, doesn't it?  If not that, I've always been truly mesmerized by him in Spellbound and of course enchanted by him in Roman Holiday.  I will also take this opportunity to point out that I have long had a crush on young Gregory Peck (yes, it's the ears).
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I would probably have to go with The Yearling, one of those rare genuine classics of childhood that my parents didn't have me watch.

13. John Wayne (1907-1979)

Oscar Nominations: 3 nominations (one for producing), he finally won in 1969 for True Grit (a film that would later garner Jeff Bridges an Oscar nomination as well).
Probably Best Known Today For: Being Hollywood's quintessential cowboy.  Few people were so perfectly typecast as John Wayne, an actor who was occasionally brilliant but always a star.  I would assume that if you asked my generation about Wayne, they'd reply with some variation of "I remember my grandpa sitting around watching John Wayne movies all the time."  Wayne's filmography doesn't have a classic that stands out so fully that he's associated with it (Stagecoach may come the closest), but he himself is a universally recognized legend even today.
My Favorite Performance: You'd be hard-pressed to find a better Wayne performance (and he gave a LOT of them) than his work in The Searchers, which is to Wayne what Vertigo is to Jimmy Stewart.  An absolutely astoundingly good piece of acting from an actor that traded pretty hard in typecasting.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: Wayne made SO many movies (he starred in 142 films, and from what I can tell was almost always the lead).  I will probably go with his Oscar-winning work in True Grit, but I've oddly both seen a lot of the essentials (Stagecoach, Red River, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) and yet missed quite a few more (Sands of Iwo Jima, Rio Bravo, True Grit, The Shootist).  Wayne's the sort of actor where you never really finish his filmography it's so long.

14. Laurence Olivier (1907-1989)

Oscar Nominations: 13 nominations for producing, directing, and acting, he won Best Picture and Best Actor for Hamlet, as well as Honorary Awards in 1947 and 1979.  Plus, Kenneth Branagh would be nominated for playing Olivier in My Week with Marilyn!
Probably Best Known Today For: Being the ultimate Shakespearean actor of the 20th Century.  Olivier brought Shakespeare to the silver screen in a way no other actor ever has, and was amply rewarded for it at the Oscars (four of his acting nominations were for playing the Bard).  Olivier is well-regarded as one of the first and most successful actor-directors, and for his long relationship with actress Vivien Leigh.
My Favorite Performance: Which of his stoic romantic leads is it easier to fall in love with?  I'll probably go with Maxim de Winter in Rebecca just slightly over his work in Wuthering Heights (Henry V isn't as much my cup of tea, I have to admit, even if it's his most well-regarded work).
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: If I'm being honest, this would probably be Marathon Man-his villainous dentist has always seemed like a hammy but memorable-looking performance.  The film buff in me knows, though, that Hamlet with its pair of Oscars for Baron Olivier should probably be up there.  I'll eventually get to both though.

15. Gene Kelly (1912-1996)

Oscar Nominations: Kelly won the Honorary Award at the 1951 Academy Awards, but only received one competitive nomination in his career for Anchors Aweigh.
Probably Best Known Today For: Laughing and singing in the rain.  His Don Lockwood puddle-jumping is one of the most memorable and celebrated scenes in the history of the movies, ranking up there with Janet Leigh's interrupted shower and Judy Garland clicking her heels.  Kelly would of course celebrate multiple dances on-screen, and while he wasn't quite as personally popular as Astaire off-screen (Kelly was apparently a bit of a tyrant on the set), he was effortlessly graceful onscreen.
My Favorite Performance: The sheer joy that is Singin' in the Rain.  It's so weird that in an era where the Academy was honoring some of the very best in musicals (just the year before they'd honored the Kelly vehicle An American in Paris with Best Picture) they for some reason couldn't get more excited for what is basically a perfect movie.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I'm going to go with the "last" of the great MGM musicals It's Always Fair Weather as the movie I'm most intrigued by seeing.  There's really no topping Kelly dancing, but Cyd Charisse is a good way to try.

16. Orson Welles (1915-1985)

Oscar Nominations: Welles was nominated for acting in, writing, and directing Citizen Kane (he won for writing), then had to wander through the wilderness of filmmaking until his Honorary Award at the 1970 Oscars (it's fascinating thinking about how many legends of the movies ended up with Honorary Oscars even though they already had one-I think we should make that a rule that if you've already won, you can't take the Honorary Oscar).
Probably Best Known Today For: Creating what is considered the go-to reference for the great American film, Citizen Kane (which, for the record, is one of the finest motion pictures ever put to a projector).  Welles would become rather large and a bit of a sell-out later in his career, but there was no denying the man was a genius and Citizen Kane remains a towering, complete triumph.
My Favorite Performance: After Marlon Brando, Welles is my favorite actor, so I've not only seen most of his movies, I've genuinely loved them.  I would probably put Charlie Kane at the top of the list, but Harry Lime (The Third Man) and Hank Quinlan (Touch of Evil) would be worthy choices as well.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: The Other Side of the Wind (kidding...kind of).  I'd surely have to go with his mesmerizing noir The Lady from Shanghai opposite Rita Hayworth.

And those are the second round of gents.  Considering the clip I'm on, there's a decent chance we'll have another actors' list this weekend, but these are eight of the most famous men in the history of cinema-any opinions to share?  The comments await!