Vincente Minnelli Movies
Once assigned by critic Andrew Sarris to the far side of auteur paradise for believing "more in beauty than in art," MGM's Vincente Minnelli was celebrated nonetheless for bringing new levels of sophistication to the movie musical in the 1940s and 1950s. While such musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and An American in Paris (1951) made his name, Minnelli also directed highly regarded dramas, including the Hollywood story The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and frothy comedies. Though his career faltered with the studio system's demise, his distinctive, fever-pitch sensibility endeared him to European and American cinèastes, ensuring his lasting reputation.Born to a Midwestern travelling theater family, Minnelli spent his childhood shuttling between relatives in Delaware and Chicago. After high school, he headed to Chicago to pursue a creative career, landing a job as a window dresser at the Marshall Fields department store. Honing his visual skills in this and subsequent work as a photographer's assistant and costume designer for live shows at premiere Chicago and New York movie houses, Minnelli earned accolades for his 1930s work as a costume/set designer and then as a stage director in New York theater.
After an aborted attempt at movies in 1937, Minnelli finally heeded Hollywood's siren call, via MGM producer Arthur Freed, in 1940. Unimpressed with the state of movie musicals (except for Fred Astaire's work), Minnelli headed West to learn moviemaking as a low-ranking part of MGM's burgeoning Freed Unit. After staging numbers for the Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney vehicles Strike Up the Band (1940) and Babes on Broadway (1941), Minnelli earned his shot at directing with the all-black musical Cabin in the Sky (1943). Stylishly mounted on a low budget, Cabin in the Sky became a modest, critically praised hit. His third directorial try subsequently sealed his reputation as a singularly gifted musical director.
With Freed behind him, Minnelli overcame resistance from the studio and recalcitrant star Garland to craft the musical hit Meet Me in St. Louis. A beautifully Technicolored, lovingly meticulous portrait of intimate Americana, Meet Me in St. Louis gracefully integrated music with the quotidian activities of the Smith family and its romance-minded daughters, reaching a kinetic peak with Garland's rendition of "The Trolley Song." A critical and popular smash, Meet Me in St. Louis established Minnelli as the Freed Unit's maestro and won him his first of four wives in Garland; their collaboration on the lyrical non-musical romance The Clock (1945) confirmed Minnelli's versatility.
While his mobile camera injected life into the revue Ziegfeld Follies (1946), Minnelli's prodigious imagination was given even freer reign in two troubled musicals, Yolanda and the Thief (1945) and The Pirate (1948). Centering on romances between shady men and innocent girls in ornate fantasy settings, Yolanda and The Pirate each suffered from mismatched leads (Astaire and Lucille Bremer in the former, Gene Kelly and an unstable Garland in the latter) and what some considered an excess of art direction at the expense of story. Both failed at the box office. Still, such charged numbers as "Coffee Time" in Yolanda and "Mack the Black" and "Be a Clown" in The Pirate made the films required viewing for musical fans.
Despite the birth of daughter Liza, Minnelli and Garland's marriage fell apart after The Pirate and he took a break from musicals. Rather than harm his career, however, the hiatus made him even more valuable to MGM. Not only was his skill at translating his elaborate imagery to the needs of drama underlined by his version of Madame Bovary (1949), but the deft pacing of his musicals served him well when he turned to comedy with Father of the Bride (1950). Starring Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor as father and bride, Father of the Bride made light of wedding traumas while hinting at Tracy's paternal anguish (akin to Margaret O'Brien's disturbing grief in the otherwise blithe St. Louis). Father became an enormous hit, begetting the sequel Father's Little Dividend (1951).
Minnelli returned to musicals when Freed chose him to helm the ambitious An American in Paris (1951). Starring Gene Kelly and young ballerina Leslie Caron, scored with classic Gershwin songs, An American in Paris merged high art and pop entertainment in the story of an aspiring painter's romantic entanglements with his patroness and a young girl. Inspired by The Red Shoes (1948), the climactic 16-minute "American in Paris Ballet" rapturously soared through tableaux inspired by French paintings, as Minnelli's camera danced with Kelly and Caron. The Oscar for Best Picture capped An American in Paris' resounding artistic and popular success.
Minnelli's remarkable run continued with The Bad and the Beautiful. A sharp black and white Hollywood exposé about a producer and the people he betrayed, The Bad and the Beautiful's chiaroscuro photography, emotive camera work, and intense performances by Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, and Oscar-winner Gloria Grahame revealed the dark side of an industry driven by artifice. Minnelli made show business his subject once again in his next musical, The Band Wagon (1953). An astute, funny parody of the desire to turn entertainment into art, as well as a gorgeous merging of the two in the Astaire/Cyd Charisse set pieces "Dancing in the Dark" and "The Girl Hunt," The Band Wagon joyously celebrated the musical form and is considered Minnelli's greatest work in the genre.
Working constantly throughout the 1950s, Minnelli churned out such sleek comedies as The Long, Long Trailer (1954), Designing Woman (1957), The Reluctant Debutante (1958), and the lavishly conceived -- if uninspired -- musicals Brigadoon (1954) and Kismet (1955). Irving Stone's biography of Vincent Van Gogh, though, recharged Minnelli's creative powers. Enlivened by Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh and Anthony Quinn as Gauguin, Lust for Life (1956) vividly recreated the colorful world of Van Gogh's paintings and the traumatic incidents of his life, earning several Oscar nods.
Minnelli finally won his own Oscar with the musical of Colette's story Gigi (1958). Filmed on location in Paris and featuring an excellent score by Lerner & Loewe (including Maurice Chevalier's "Thank Heaven for Little Girls"), Gigi made exquisite blockbuster entertainment out of a potentially sordid story about a courtesan. Also scoring a critical hit with his adaptation of James Jones' chronicle of small town despair Some Came Running (1958), featuring Rat Packers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and rising star Shirley MacLaine. Minnelli's two films earned a total of 13 Oscar nominations; Gigi went nine for nine, including Best Picture.
Though the vivacious Judy Holliday musical Bells Are Ringing (1960) and Home From the Hill's (1960) operatic widescreen angst seemed to bode well for Minnelli's continuing creativity, changes in Hollywood and the audience precipitated a career decline. The ill-conceived, big-budget remake of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) was a disastrous flop; Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) was perhaps worse. An artistically adventurous companion piece to The Bad and the Beautiful, Two Weeks signaled classical Hollywood's decline, both in its story and reception. Recut by MGM against Minnelli's wishes, it was slammed by critics and shunned by audiences. His final films for MGM, The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963) and The Sandpiper (1965), were commercially safe fodder. Despite the presence of new musical stars Barbra Streisand in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970) and daughter Liza Minnelli in A Matter of Time (1976), Minnelli's old-school version of musical fantasy failed to cross over to the youthful 1970s audience, ending his directorial career.
Hating idleness, Minnelli published his memoir I Remember It Well in 1974; once he stopped directing, he retired from all work. His daughters, film scholars, European honors, and the work of such film school grads as Martin Scorsese, though, confirmed his legacy before and after Minnelli passed away in 1986. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- 1976
- PG
Singer and actress Liza Minnelli teamed up with her father, legendary director Vincente Minnelli, to make this evocative drama. Nina (Liza Minnelli) is a popular film star who, in the midst of a press conference, finds herself remembering her life before her big break, when she worked as a chambermaid at an Italian hotel which had seen better days. In the course of her duties, Nina meets Countessa Sanziani (Ingrid Bergman), an aging and eccentric woman who regales Nina with tales of her glamorous younger days. As the Countessa tells her more stories of her days of wealth and adventure, Nina imagines herself living out the same exciting stories, and soon the Countessa encourages her to find the courage to live out her own dreams. A Matter Of Time also featured another family team-up; Ingrid Bergman's daughter Isabella Rossellini has a small part as a nun attending to the ailing Countessa. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liza Minnelli, Ingrid Bergman, (more)
Gene Kelly does his patented Pal Joey bit as Jerry Mulligan, an opportunistic American painter living in Paris' "starving artists" colony. He is discovered by wealthy Milo Roberts (Nina Foch), who becomes Jerry's patroness in more ways than one. Meanwhile, Jerry plays hookey on this setup by romancing waif-like Lise Bouvier (Leslie Caron) -- who, unbeknownst to him, is the object of the affections of his close friend Henri (Georges Guetary), a popular nightclub performer. (The film was supposed to make Guetary into "the New Chevalier." It didn't.) The thinnish plot is held together by the superlative production numbers and by the recycling of several vintage George Gershwin tunes, including "I Got Rhythm," "'S Wonderful," and "Our Love Is Here to Stay." Highlights include Guetary's rendition of "Stairway to Paradise"; Oscar Levant's fantasy of conducting and performing Gershwin's "Concerto in F" (Levant also appears as every member of the orchestra); and the closing 17-minute "American in Paris" ballet, in which Kelly and Caron dance before lavish backgrounds based on the works of famed French artists. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, (more)
- 1937
Jack Benny had one of his first starring film roles in this breezy comedy with plenty of music. Benny plays Mac Brewster, an advertising man trying to hold on to his biggest client, a silver company run by Alan Townshend (Richard Arlen). Elsewhere in the office, Paula Sewell (Ida Lupino) longs to compete in the Artists and Models Ball and win the title of Queen. However, professional models are frowned upon at the Ball, and all entrants must be debutantes, which is two strikes against Paula; besides, snooty Cynthia Wentworth (Gail Patrick) looks to be a shoo-in to win. But Paula has a plan, and if it works she'll have won more than a crown at the end of the night. Comedy stars Ben Blue and Judy Canova highlight the supporting cast; the great Louis Armstrong performs a tune with Martha Raye. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Benny, Ida Lupino, (more)
Judy Holliday re-creates her Broadway role of flibbertigibbet telephone operator Ella Peterson in Bells are Ringing. Ella works for Susanswerphone, a hole-in-the-wall answering service run by her cousin Sue (Jean Stapleton). Our girl Ella can't help but become involved in the lives of her customers, which brings her to the attention of a dimwitted police detective, Barnes (Dort Clark), who suspects that Susanswerphone is a front for a house of ill repute. The cop is so obtuse that he never notices the story's genuine criminal, a flamboyant German bookie (Eddie Foy Jr.) who poses as a record executive and uses the names of composers as code for the various racetracks around the country. To avoid Barnes' wiretapping, Ella goes around New York in person to minister to the needs of her clients--most notably playwright Jeffrey Moss (Dean Martin), who is in danger of becoming an alcoholic if he can't come up with a good idea for a play. Assuming a false identity, Ella prattles on about some of her other clients, notably a dentist (Bernie West) who composes pop songs on his air hose. Moss is inspired by Ella, and eventually falls in love with her. Because she will not reveal who she really is to Jeffrey, Ella decides that her relationship is founded on lies, and walks out of his life. But Moss, together with the other Susanswerphone customers who have been "rescued" by Ella, show up at Ella's doorstep for a happy ending. Bells are Ringing is not an example of MGM's Arthur Freed unit at its best, but Judy Holliday is luminescent in this, her last screen role (incidentally, Holliday's "blind date" in one scene is played by her then boyfriend, jazz musician Gerry Mulligan). The film's songs, by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Jule Styne, include the hit numbers "Just in Time" and "The Party's Over". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judy Holliday, Dean Martin, (more)
Reportedly, Vincente Minnelli turned down the opportunity to film Brigadoon on location in Scotland insisting that MGM's studio mockups looked more Scottish than the genuine article. This lavish adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe Broadway musical stars Gene Kelly as an American tourist who stumbles upon an enchanted Scottish village. Every 100 years, the people of Brigadoon awaken for a 24-hour period, then go back to sleep for another century while Brigadoon itself vanishes in the mists. Tommy Albright (Kelly) falls in love with village lass Fiona Campbell (Cyd Charisse) while his hard-drinking pal, Jeff Douglas (Van Johnson), dismisses the legend -- and indeed the existence of Brigadoon as a result of delirium. Fiona's betrothed Harry Beaton (Hugh Laing), upset by Kelly's intervention, threatens to leave Brigadoon -- an act that will spell doom for its residents. When this crisis has passed, Tommy is persuaded against his better judgment to escape Brigadoon himself and return to his own fiancée (Elaine Stewart) in New York. But the love between Tommy and Fiona results in a miraculous finale. Most of the Lerner-Loewe score remains intact, including the hit songs "Almost Like Being in Love," "Heather on the Hill," and "Come to Me Bend to Me." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, (more)
MGM knew it would take a bath on its all-black musical Cabin in the Sky (few Southern theaters of 1943 would touch the film), but the studio still provided its standard A-plus production values to the film; besides, it served as a training ground for up-and-coming director Vincente Minnelli. Based on the Broadway musical by Lynn Root, John LaTouche, and Vernon Duke, the film tells the story of Joe (Eddie "Rochester" Anderson), a shantytown denizen torn between the affections of faithful wife Petunia (Ethel Waters) and slinky seductress Georgia (Lena Horne). Seriously injured in a barroom brawl, Joe dreams that he is the centerpiece of a celestial power struggle between a heavenly emissary (Kenneth Spencer) and Lucifer Jr. (Rex Ingram, who ironically had played "De Lawd" in The Green Pastures). Joe is given another chance to redeem himself on Earth, lest he fall into the clutches of the Devil's little boy. Louis Armstrong briefly shows up, appropriately cast as "The Trumpeter." Song highlights include "Taking a Chance on Love," "Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe," "Life's Full of Consequences," and the title song. A troubled production thanks to the on-set rivalry between Ethel Waters and Lena Horne, Cabin in the Sky is nonetheless an excellent first feature effort from Vincente Minnelli. Thanks to his careful treatment of the material, the expected patronization of the black characters does not impede latter-day enjoyment of the film as much as it might have. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ethel Waters, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, (more)
Vincente Minnelli directed this sophisticated comedy, which owes a debt to Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn vehicles. Sportswriter Mike Hagen (Gregory Peck) and fashion designer Marilla (Lauren Bacall) are New Yorkers who meet while both are vacationing in California. It's love at first sight, and the two decide on the spur of the moment to get married. However, once they return to the Big Apple, it starts to occur to them just how different they are after Mike moves out of his sloppy bachelor lair in the Village and joins Marilla in her luxury flat on the Upper East Side. While they try to sort out their differences, Mike encounters his former girlfriend Lori (Dolores Gray), while Marilla runs into her onetime beau Zachary (Tom Helmore); given the haste with which they married, neither of their exes had yet heard that Mike and Marilla were hitched, and the notion that they could still be lured away hangs in the air. Meanwhile, Mike has written a series of articles exposing corruption in boxing, which earns him no friends among some ill-mannered Gotham mobsters. Bacall's sparkling comic performance was a remarkable display of personal strength; as the movie was being filmed, her husband Humphrey Bogart was suffering from the last stages of the cancer that would soon claim his life. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall, (more)
Spencer Tracy received an Oscar nomination for his performance in this classic comedy. Stanley T. Banks (Tracy) is a securely middle-class lawyer whose daughter Kay (Elizabeth Taylor) announces that she's going to marry her beau Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor). From that point on, everything in Stanley's life is turned upside down. His wife Ellie (Joan Bennett) wants Kay to have the kind of formal wedding that she and Stanley never had, and between meeting his soon-to-be in-laws, the socially prominent Herbert and Doris Dunstan (Moroni Olsen and Billie Burke), his man-to-man talk with the groom, hosting the engagement party, financing the increasingly lavish wedding, and wondering if Kay and Buckley will resolve their differences before arriving at the altar, Stanley barely has time to deal with his own considerable anxieties about his advancing age and how his "little girl" became a grown woman. Director Vincente Minnelli reunited with the principal cast a year later for a sequel, Father's Little Dividend; and the movie was remade in 1991 with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, (more)
- 1951
- NR
This sequel to the 1950 comedy hit Father of the Bride finds Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett returning as Stanley and Ellie Banks, the parents of newlywed Kay Dunstan (Elizabeth Taylor). In the first film, Stanley Banks was forced to endure the chaotic events leading up to the wedding. This time, he must comes to grips with the prospect of becoming a grandfather. Once he's reconciled himself to this jolt of mortality, Stanley must contend with the little bundle of joy, who screams his head off every time Grandpa comes near him. Father's Little Dividend was remade in 1994 as Father of the Bride II, with Steve Martin assuming the Spencer Tracy role, and with the added complication of discovering that his own wife (Diane Keaton) is also pregnant. The copyright for Father's Little Dividend was not renewed in 1978; thus the film has lapsed into public domain. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, (more)
Leslie Caron plays Gigi, a young girl raised by two veteran Parisian courtesans (Hermione Gingold and Isabel Jeans) to be the mistress of wealthy young Gaston (Louis Jourdan). When Gaston falls in love with Gigi and asks her to be his wife, Jeans is appalled: never has anyone in their family ever stooped to anything so bourgeois as marriage! Weaving in and out of the story is Maurice Chevalier as an aging boulevardier who, years earlier, had been in love with Gingold's character. Chevalier gets most of the best Lerner & Loewe tunes, including Thank Heaven for Little Girls, I'm Glad I'm Not Young Any More, and his matchless duet with Gingold, I Remember it Well. Caron's best number (dubbed by Betty Wand) is The Night They Invented Champagne while Jourdan gets the honor of introducing the title song. Filmed on location in Paris, Gigi won several Oscars, including Best Picture; it also represented the successful American movie comeback of Chevalier, who thanks to this film was "forgiven" for his reputed collaboration with the Nazis during World War II. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, (more)
- 1964
George Axelrod's Goodbye Charlie flopped on Broadway with Lauren Bacall in the lead, but fared a little better as a film vehicle for Debbie Reynolds. Charlie (Harry Madden) is an inveterate philanderer who is shot dead by jealous husband Walter Matthau. Through a celestial fluke, Charlie's soul enters the well-rounded body of Debbie Reynolds. In this form, Charlie/Debbie seeks to settle old scores with her murderer as well as several other enemies. As if these aren't complications enough, Charlie's best friend Tony Curtis falls in love with Debbie, knowing full well that Debbie isn't really Debbie. If you liked Goodbye Charlie once, you'll love it twice: Blake Edwards retooled the whole megillah for Ellen Barkin, added a trendy feminist underlining, and came up with Switch (1991). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Curtis, Debbie Reynolds, (more)
William Humphrey's novel Home From the Hill is compressed into 150 minutes for this MGM all-starrer. Robert Mitchum plays Capt. Wade Hunnicutt, a Texas millionaire, married to Hannah (Eleanor Parker). The Hunnicutts have two children of approximately the same age: Wade's biological son, Theron (George Hamilton in one of his earliest film roles), and his illegitimate son, Rafe (George Peppard). As the story opens, Wade conducts an extramarital affair; meanwhile, Theron (George Hamilton), disturbed by his parents' dysfunctional relationship, is not anxious to marry his true love, Libby Halstead (Luana Patten). The vicious cycle threatens to continue when Libby gives birth to Theron's out-of-wedlock son, but it is Rafe who turns Libby into an "honest woman" by acting as father to the child. Vincente Minnelli directs his material operatically, which is as it should be given the larger-than-life character and emotional entanglements he has to deal with. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Eleanor Parker, (more)
- 1943
In later years, director Vincente Minnelli would dismiss I Dood It as his worst picture, though a more deserving candidate for that "honor" would be Minnelli's valedictory film A Matter of Time. In this remake of Buster Keaton's Spite Marriage, Red Skelton plays pants-presser Joseph Rivington Reynolds, who develops a crush on glamorous stage star Constance Shaw (Eleanor Powell). "Borrowing" a tuxedo from one of his customers, Joe courts Constance backstage and at a fancy nightclub. Jilted by her fiance, the temperamental Constance marries Joe out of spite, leading to a series of silly situations. In the original Spite Marriage, Buster Keaton proved his worth to the heroine by rescuing her from bootleggers: in the remake, Joe saves Constance from a nest of Nazi spies. Some of the routines-notably a scene in which Joe makes a shambles of a Civil War play, and a lengthy bit in which he puts his drunken bride to bed-were lifted directly from Spite Marriage, no surprise considering that Buster Keaton was one of the I Dood It gag writers. Musical highlights are provided by Lena Horne, Hazel Scott and Jimmy Dorsey, while the film's finale is lifted bodily from the 1936 Eleanor Powell musical Born to Dance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Red Skelton, Eleanor Powell, (more)
This fourth film version of the warhorse Edward Knoblock theatrical piece Kismet was based on the Broadway musical version of the same property. Howard Keel stars as Hadji, the poet of old Baghdad, who goes from beggar to millionaire in a single day. Hadji's daughter Marsinah (Ann Blyth) falls in love with the young Caliph (Vic Damone), while Lalume (Dolores Gray), the sexy wife of the despotic Wazir (Sebastian Cabot), sets her sights on Hadji. Meanwhile, the Wazir plots and plans to topple the Caliph from the throne and to add Marsinah to his own harem. Making periodic appearances is Omar Khayyam, played as a doddering old meddler by Monty Woolley. The Robert Wright-George Forrest musical score, based on themes by Borodin, includes such standards as "Baubles, Bangles and Beads", "This is My Beloved", "Stranger in Paradise" and "Not Since Ninevah". Though the dancing girls in the film are more modestly dressed than their stage counterparts, they are put through some fairly sensuous paces by choreographer Jack Cole. Kismet was good for another go-round in 1967, when it was adapted for television with Jose Ferrer, Barbara Eden, Anna Maria Alberghetti, George Chakiris and Hans Conried in the cast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, (more)
- 1941
The 1924 George Gershwin stage hit Lady Be Good was brought to the screen by MGM; any resemblance (beyond the Gershwin score) to the original play is purely accidental. The MGM scriveners came up with a new story concerning married songwriters Ann Sothern and Robert Young, who can't live with each other and can't live without each other. Top billing goes to dancing star Eleanor Powell, who certainly deserves it. Red Skelton is around and about as well, inserting a few much-needed laughs. While such Gershwin songs as "So Am I", "Fascinating Rhythm" and "Hang on Me" are well showcased, the hit of the evening is a new song by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, the Oscar-winning "The Last Time I Saw Paris". Our favorite scene: Ann Sothern and Robert Young composing "Lady be Good" out of thin air in two minutes flat! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eleanor Powell, Ann Sothern, (more)
This filmed biography of Vincent Van Gogh was adapted by Norman Corwin from the best-selling novel by Irving Stone, which was in turn inspired by the written correspondence between Van Gogh and his brother Theo. Kirk Douglas plays the tormented genius, whose obsessive devotion to his art engulfs, consumes, and finally destroys him. James Donald costars as Theo Van Gogh, who provides financial and moral support to his brother from the time Vincent leaves his Holland home in 1878 to his death in Auvers in 1890. Anthony Quinn won an Oscar for his eight-minute turn as Van Gogh's fast friend and erstwhile rival Paul Gaugin. Nearly 200 of Van Gogh's original paintings were borrowed from private collections for brief display in the film: some are "recreated" before our eyes, as the artist stands before his easel, spattered with paint and with a look of white-hot intensity burned into his countenance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, (more)
MGM circumvented the censorship that would otherwise have prevented a film version of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary by adding a prologue and epilogue that assured any and all bluenoses that the story was strictly a work of fiction. James Mason appears as Flaubert, defending his inflammatory novel before a French jury. Thus, the tragedy of Emma Bovary (Jennifer Jones) is offered as a product of Flaubert's imagination, rather than a real-life story. The body of the film concerns Emma's attempt to escape the boredom of her bourgeois existence by marrying a wealthy doctor (Van Heflin). She finds life with the physician even more tiresome than her previous experiences, thus begins taking a series of wealthy lovers-all of whom prove to be two-dimensional cads. Unable to tolerate a lifetime of dead-end affairs, Emma eventually commits suicide. The best sequence-indeed, one of the finest set pieces ever directed by Vincente Minnelli-is the "Emma Bovary Waltz" sequence, a dazzling experience in dizzying camera movements. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Jones, James Mason, (more)
Sally Benson's short stories about the turn-of-the-century Smith family of St. Louis were tackled by a battalion of MGM screenwriters, who hoped to find a throughline to connect the anecdotal tales. After several false starts (one of which proposed that the eldest Smith daughter be kidnapped and held for ransom), the result was the charming valentine-card musical Meet Me in St. Louis. The plot hinges on the possibility that Alonzo Smith (Leon Ames), the family's banker father, might uproot the Smiths to New York, scuttling his daughter Esther (Judy Garland)'s romance with boy-next-door John Truett (Tom Drake) and causing similar emotional trauma for the rest of the household. In a cast that includes Mary Astor as Ames' wife, Lucille Bremer as another Ames daughter, and Marjorie Main as the housekeeper, the most fascinating character is played by 6-year-old Margaret O'Brien. As kid sister Tootie, O'Brien seems morbidly obsessed with death and murder, burying her dolls, "killing" a neighbor at Halloween (she throws flour in the flustered man's face on a dare), and maniacally bludgeoning her snowmen when Papa announces his plans to move to New York. Margaret O'Brien won a special Oscar for her remarkable performance, prompting Lionel Barrymore to grumble "Two hundred years ago, she would have been burned at the stake!" The songs are a heady combination of period tunes and newly minted numbers by Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin, the best of which are The Boy Next Door, The Trolley Song, and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. As a bonus, Meet Me in St. Louis is lensed in rich Technicolor, shown to best advantage in the climactic scenes at the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, (more)
- 1970
- G
- Add On a Clear Day You Can See Forever to QueueAdd On a Clear Day You Can See Forever to top of Queue
Vincente Minnelli directed, and Alan Jay Lerner adapted the stage musical he had written with Burton Lane, for this this feature film version. Barbra Streisand stars as Daisy Gamble, a chain smoker who, at the urging of her uptight fiance Warren (Larry Blyden), seeks help in kicking the habit from a psychiatrist, Dr. Marc Chabot (Yves Montand). While undergoing hypnosis, however, Daisy and Dr. Chabot discover that she is clairvoyant and can remember a past life as a 19th century heiress named Melinda. As their sessions continue, Dr. Chabot falls in love not with Daisy, but Melinda, while Daisy begins to fall for Chabot and decides she's had enough of Warren. Excised from the final cut of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970) was a musical number performed by Jack Nicholson, who costars as Daisy's stepbrother. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbra Streisand, Yves Montand, (more)
- 1942
Cole Porter's musical hit Panama Hattie originally starred Ethel Merman on Broadway. But Merman was not a proven movie commodity, thus it was Ann Sothern who appeared in the film version as Hattie, brassy but golden-hearted proprietress of a Canal Zone hotel. Accustomed to dealing with such raucous cohorts as she-sick sailors Red (Red Skelton), Rags (Rags Ragland) and Rowdy (Ben Blue), Hattie isn't quite certain how to handle herself when she falls in love with wealthy and cultured Dick Bulliett (Dan Dailey Jr.) Socialite Leila Tree (Marsha Hunt), who'd previously set her cap for Dick, does her best to break up the romance, but Hattie is championed by Dick's kid sister Geraldine (Jackie Horner) and family butler Jenkins (Alan Mowbray). The play's original storyline, which shifted into gear when Hattie began picking up Nazi shortwave radio broadcast in the fillings of her teeth, is virtually nonexistent here, as is Porter's score, save for "I've Still Got My Health" and "Let's be Buddies" (Lena Horne does, however, show up to sing "Just One of Those Things", a carryover from an earlier Porter musical). A notoriously troubled production, Panama Hattie was completely refilmed after a disastrous preview, delaying its scheduled release by nearly a year. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Red Skelton, Ann Sothern, (more)
After the success of From Here to Eternity, pairing Frank Sinatra with another James Jones novel made perfect sense. Set in the aftermath of World War II, the film stars Sinatra as a recently discharged soldier whose promising writing career has derailed. After a drunken card game, Sinatra finds himself aboard a bus for his Indiana hometown of Parktown, with recent acquaintance Shirley MacLaine in tow. An unrefined good-time girl, MacLaine allows her affections to settle on the hard-drinking Sinatra, who wants little to do with her as he reluctantly sets about re-establishing ties he thought to have abandoned over a decade before. These include a brother (Arthur Kennedy) unable to discard his salesman's persona, his disapproving wife (Leora Dana), and their teenage daughter (Betty Lei Keim). Meanwhile, Sinatra makes a variety of new acquaintances both respectable and otherwise, including a local gambler (Dean Martin) and a creative writing instructor (Martha Hyer) smitten with his writing and possibly with him. Shaking up the complacency of his small hometown more by accident than design, Sinatra forces all those around him to reevaluate their behavior. After a variety of smaller parts, this is the role that cemented MacLaine's name, earning her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. ~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, (more)
- 1956
1956's Tea and Sympathy is a diluted filmization of Robert Anderson's Broadway play. The original production was considered quite daring in its attitudes towards homosexuality (both actual and alleged) and marital infidelity; the film softpedals these elements, as much by adding to the text as by subtracting from it. John Kerr plays a sensitive college student who prefers the arts to sports; as such, he is ridiculed as a "sissy" by his classmates and hounded mercilessly by his macho-obsessed father Edward Andrews. Only student Darryl Hickman treats Kerr with any decency, perceiving that being different is not the same as being effeminate. Deborah Kerr, the wife of testosterone-driven housemaster Leif Erickson, likewise does her best to understand rather than condemn John for his "strangeness." Desperate to prove his manhood, John is about to visit town trollop Norma Crane. Though nothing really happens, the girl cries "rape!" Both John's father and Deborah's husband adopt a thick-eared "Boys will be boys" attitude, which only exacerbates John's insecurities. Feeling pity for John and at the same time resenting her own husband's boorishness, Deborah offers her own body to the mixed-up boy. "When you speak of this in future years...and you will...be kind." With this classic closing line, the original stage production of Tea and Sympathy came to an end. Fearing censorship interference, MGM insisted upon a stupid epilogue, indicating that Deborah Kerr deeply regretted her "wrong" behavior. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Deborah Kerr, John Kerr, (more)
Kirk Douglas plays the corrupt and amoral head of a major film studio in this Hollywood drama, often regarded as one of the film's industry's most interesting glimpses at itself. Actress Gloria Lorrison (Lana Turner), director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan), and screenwriter James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell) are invited to a meeting at a Hollywood sound stage at the request of producer Harry Pebbel (Walter Pidgeon). Pebbel is working with studio chief Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas), whose studio is in financial trouble and needs a blockbuster hit. If these three names will sign to a new project, he's convinced that there's no way he can lose. But there's a rub -- all three of these Hollywood heavyweights hate Shields's guts. He dumped Gloria for another woman, he double-crossed Fred out of a plum directing assignment, and he was responsible for the death of James Lee's wife. All three are ready to tell Pebbel to forget it, until they hear the voice of Shields, calling from Europe to discuss the project by phone. The Bad and the Beautiful won five Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Gloria Grahame. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, (more)
One of the most subtle and sophisticated of the musical comedies that came out of MGM's Arthur Freed Unit in the '40s and '50s, The Band Wagon stars Fred Astaire as Tony Hunter, a movie star whose career is in a downturn. Looking for a boost, Tony decides to try starring in a Broadway musical. His friends Lester and Lily Marton (Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray) have written a show they feel would be just right for Tony, and the three team up with Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan), a self-styled "genius" director, who gets the idea to turn the play into a revised version of Faust. Cordova's more pretentious ideas don't always sit well with the Martons, and Tony isn't too happy with his leggy co-star, Gaby Gerard (Cyd Charisse), whom he's convinced is too tall (then again, she thinks he's too old). But when the show proves a disaster in out-of-town tryouts, everyone realizes they have to put aside their differences if they want a show that will be on Broadway for longer than four hours. The Band Wagon featured a rare American appearance for British musical star Jack Buchanan, who does a fine soft-shoe with Fred Astaire on "I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan." Astaire also shines in the numbers "Shine on Your Shoes" and "The Girl Hunt," a witty Mickey Spillane parody. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, (more)
The Clock was designed by MGM as a "small" picture--though characteristically, it was a bigger production than most "A" efforts from any other studio. Paul Gallico's simple story involves a girl (Judy Garland) and a GI (Robert Walker), who meet under the huge clock at New York's Pennsylvania Station. Over the next 48 hours, the girl and the soldier fall in love, make the acquaintance of such lovable gotham types as cabbie James Gleason and inebriate Keenan Wynn, and decide to get married before the GI is shipped out again. The enormous Pennsylvania Station set, combined with some unusually convincing back projection (MGM was hitherto notorious for the worst back projection in the business) has convinced even lifelong New Yorkers that The Clock was actually lensed in Manhattan rather than Hollywood. Director Vincente Minnelli injected further visual dynamism in The Clock by seldom repeating the same camera angle twice. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judy Garland, Robert Walker, (more)
