Blue Moon Blog

Being a long-time Gene Kelly fan, I was pleased to discover recently one of his movies I’d not seen before. Belying it’s title, the last collaboration for Kelly and his co-director, Stanley Donen (the team that gave us the greatest movie musical of all-time, Singin’ in the Rain) and the end of an era for MGM musicals, this 1955 production doesn’t completely gel, but is still well worth a viewing. There are a number of clever and entertaining sequences, including one featuring a drunken trio at 4 AM clanging through the streets with garbage lids on their feet. I’d previously seen brief clips of this sequence and another, but it’s another thing to see them in their entirety.

That isn’t the only alcohol-induced number, as a bitter and spastic Dan Dailey later lampshades his way through a business party, complete with a Jerry Lewis parody. These three guys are not in a happy place. Ten years after they agree to meet after coming home from the war, they find they aren’t where they thought they’d be in life, and hate each other’s guts. It’s somewhat dissonant fare for a Hollywood musical, but is leavened by the funny and satirical jabs at television, the then-rising threat to movies.

Also pepping up the sometimes gloomy proceedings is the gorgeous, lithe and leggy Cyd Charisse. You’ll recall her as the gun moll in the middle of Singin’ in the Rain, but she’s more attractive than ever in this movie, especially in the dynamic and burly number “Baby, You Knock Me Out,” which she performs with a team of brawny characters in a gym. Excellent stuff.

Topping off the story, which of course ends well is Gene Kelly in skates, gliding down the streets in a scene that doesn’t quite reach but evokes the centerpiece of Singin’ in the Rain. Watching him tap dance on roller skates, you try to figure how they cheated it, when he suddenly takes off without a cut. Astonishing and graceful, it’s a brilliant capper to a less known musical.