The previous issue of FFTC (page 7) carried a statement that musicals have always been the most popular film subject among collectors. This delighted me (the reviewer) since song-and dance movies have always been my favourite film fare and it's exciting to have so many of the great ones on Super 8, especially since most of them were made by MGM, universally acknowledged to be the best purveyor of musicals. For many years there have been Super 8 prints of Singing' in the Rain, arguably the most popular musical of all time (though some might says it's The Sound of Music, a 20th Century Fox film). This is certainly my top favourite but for years. I've been disappointed that on Super 8 there hasn't been what is second on my list. However, wonders never cease, for here it is now On The Town one of the most exhilarating and influential musicals of all time.
This joyous film was made in 1949, three years before Singing' in the Rain. Gene Kelly, the lead in both, had been dancing in MGM films since 1942 and had choreographed some of them. Growing ever more ambitious, he was impatient to try his hand at directing. He kept pestering the head of MGM's musical unit, Arthur Freed, to give him a chance, and Freed agreed after the success of Kelly's Take Me Out to the Ball Game (GB: Everybody's Cheering). Freed assigned him to On the Town, although he gave him a co-director in the shape of Stanley Donen, a buddy of Kelly from their days in the theatre.
For On the Town Kelly brought back his Salt Game co-stars Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin to join him as sailors in search of fun and romance on a 24-hour shore leave in New York. They were also reunited with Ball Game co-star Betty Garrett, now cast as a wisecracking cab driver who "has the hots" for Sinatra playing a character more interested in seeing the sights. Kelly chose the delightful dance Vera-Ellen to partner him as the girl he insists tracking down among New York's teaming masses after falling for her picture on a poster. And that other great hoofer, Ann Miller, was'given the rote of an anthropologist who falls for gangling Jules Munshin because she sees in him a resemblance to the prehistoric species she admires more than the modern type.
Kelly was determined that On the Town should bring a breath of fresh air to musicals. Desirous of breaking away from the confines of studio sets, he wanted to shoot the entire film on location, something never attempted for a musical. The Powers That Be were reluctant, especially studio boss Louis B. Mayer who couldn't see the film being a success, but they finally reached a compromise, allowing Kelly, his cast and crew a mere five days to shoot what they could in New York. The exciting footage that resulted is most evident in the rousing opening number as the three sailors come off their battle ship in the Brooklyn Navy Yard at six o'clock in the morning and embark on a whirlwind tour of the famous Manhattan landmarks, all the time singing New York, New York, a wonderful town.
The genesis of On the Town, is a ballet, Fancy Free, composed by Leonard Bernstein. This inspired the Broadway stage musical On the Town for which Bernstein wrote the music for the songs white the Lyrics were provided by that renowned writing couple Betty Comden and Adoph Green (when it came to London in the 'Fifties, it starred Elliot Gould, then the husband of Barbra Streisand). When MGM filmed it, most of Bernstein's songs were ditched since Freed considered them a little too off-beat for the cinema going public * This seems a Little harsh to me, having comparatively recently seen a stage version of the show as well as the full-scale concert version performed at the Barbican Centre that is available on laser disc and was televised by the BBC. The only Bernstein songs left in the film were the New York, opening number and a comedy number, Come Up to My Place, with which taxi driver Betty Garret tries to lure shy Sinatra to her apartment. Also retained was his music for two pure dance sequences.
Nevertheless, the new numbers written for the film are most enjoyable, especially the Prehistoric Man, danced by Ann Miller in the Museum of Natural History in the shadow of a dinosaur skeleton that finally collapses. Kelly and Vera-Ellen do a delightful dance to the tune Main Street in celebration of the fact that, although strangers in New York, they both come from a small town. Sinatra and Garrett have a light-hearted duet You're Awful in which they tease each other with such tines as "you're awful - awful good to look at". And there's a rousing comedy number, "Count on Me", with which his pals try to cheer up Kelly when it looks as though Vera Ellen has let him down.
There's also the lively title number as the three sailors and their girls meet on top of the Empire State Building and set out to paint the town red. This was seen in edited form in That's Entertainment III. That's right - Part III, the latest in the series which, alas, has had a disgracefully restricted release over here. Note that the trailer is available from Derann.
On the Town won an Oscar for its scoring, and at the same time Arthur Freed was given a special one for his unique artistry and contribution to the technique of musical pictures.
I was pleased to see it was one of the five musicals chosen among the hundred films being televised by the BBC in its celebration of the cinema's centenary (the other four being 42nd Street, "The Sound of Music, Top Hat and Meet Me in St. Louis. It has been said that if it hadn't been the success it was, Kelly would never have been given the chance to mastermind Singing' in the Rain and An American in Paris (the tatter is another MGM classic available on 8mm, though for some reason in abridged form).
A production note: One of the location shots was done on the roof of Lowe's skyscraper with the three sailors admiring the panoramic view. But was Jules Munshin himself actually admiring it? Hugh Fordin's excellent book on the Freed musicals tells us that Munshin was so scared of heights that he couldn't bring himself to set foot on the roof, partly because the area was minimal and partly because had only a two-foot [edge. When he was eventually coaxed onto the roof, at first he was on his hands and knees. He was speechless with fear and only just managed to participate in the scene by having safety ropes tied to him under his uniform. The later sequence where he is dangled by friends over the roof of the Empire State building, in order to avoid detection by the police, was, of course shot on a Hollywood stage. But as I'm as much a hater of heights as Munshin this studio sequence still makes me feel queazy - such is the illusany persuasion of the cinema!
The print quality is more or less the same for the other two MGM musicals recently reviewed - Anchors Aweigh and Wedding Bells: quite good definition with good-to-acceptable colour and sound. Now it's available, I can die happy - but not, I hope, before I've had time to run it till it wears out.
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Distributed by: Derann
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The above review was printed in Super Eight Film Review issue 31 from July 1995. |
This page was last updated 02 Dec 2002