Starring Gene Kelly, Igor Youskevich, Claire Sombert, and Tamara Tourmova
Directed by Gene Kelly
Music by Jaques Ibert, Andre Previn, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Kelly wanted to make a movie that was nothing but dance for a long time. Filming began in 1952, but wasn't completed until 1954, due to the complicated animation/live-action sequence. MGM further held up the release for two years while they tried to figure out what to do with a dialogue-free, all-dance anthology film with one major star. They eventually sent it out to art houses and upscale theaters in an attempt to cater to more sophisticated tastes. It didn't work, and the film was a flop...but did it deserve that fate? Let's begin at a Circus in a fantasy land, where the show is about to begin, and find out...
The Story: This being an anthology, there's actually three stories.
The Circus: A clown in Pierrot makeup (Kelly) falls for a beautiful dancer (Sombert), but she loves the daring Aerialist (Youskevich).
Ring Around the Rosy: When a jealous wife (Daphne Dale) gives the bracelet her husband (David Paltenghi) gave her to an artist (Yousekvich) to make her husband jealous, it sets off a round robin as the bracelet goes all over the city.
Sinbad the Sailor: The sailor (Kelly) is drawn into an animated Arabian Knights storybook by a kid Genie (David Kasday), where he falls for a harem girl and tries to evade a pair of sword-wielding guards.
The Animation: Done in the sketchy style then in vogue, the sherbet watercolors are likely intended to invoke a storybook come to life. The backgrounds are lovely but fairly static watercolors. The characters move better and are slightly more detailed, and yes, they do move in time with Kelly very well, even now.
The Song and Dance: Obviously, this one's all about the dance. Kelly gathered an array of ballet stars (Youskevich), stage dance luminaries (Carol Haney), and familiar film dancers (Tommy Rall) to bring these three romantic tales to life. The final segment is the most fun, with its flirtatious dragon, dancing guards, and child Genie who turns into a mini sailor sidekick. The second probably has the best actual performances, especially from star ballerina Claude Bessy as the playful model, Tamara Tourmanova as the streetwalker whom the husband buys the bracelet off of in the end, and Rall as the model's hustler boyfriend.
Favorite Number: Kelly and the clowns kick things off with a lively and slapstick-filled number in the Circus opening as they show off for the townspeople. The peasants are transported by the circus and the Dancer by the Aeralist...but the Clown wanders through town, dancing of his loneliness after everyone's left.
"Ring" features two great duets - the playful romance of the Artist and the Model as she steals a sandwich from him and the darker exchange of the Lady of the Streets (Tourmanova) and the drunk Marine (Kelly) who is angry at his girlfriend (Diana Adams) after she gets the bracelet.
Kelly has another gorgeous romantic duet in "Sinbad," this time with the harem girl as they glide through an imaginary field of rainbow flowers against a misty blue backdrop. (Kelly would do a similar routine in another Hanna-Barbara musical hybrid he did in the 60's on TV, Jack and the Beanstalk.) Kelly's in trouble with the dragon...until Kasday charms it, and it turns out to have more than a sailor meal on its mind! He does even better with the guards, dancing them into jars and shoving them into their hats in a desperate attempt to avoid them.
What I Don't Like: If you're not a fan of dance or Kelly, forget it. This is isn't for those looking for a more traditional musical with a few big chorus routines and spoken dialogue between numbers. You have to love dance as much as Kelly to really get into this. There's the mood whiplash too, from tragic romance to round-robin dark comedy-drama to fluffy animated fantasy.
The Big Finale: As much as I enjoy dance, I'm not sure what to think of this unique passion project. The dancing is first-rate, but if you're not a huge fan of Kelly, ballet, or modern dance, you'll probably be bored.
Home Media: Alas, the Warner Archives DVD is currently out of print and not on streaming. Your best bet is looking for the DVD used or catching it occasionally on TCM.
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