Movie Review: The Three Musketeers (1948)

A swashbuckling adventure, The Three Musketeers is reasonably entertaining but undeniably frazzled.

It's the 1600s in France and young d'Artagnan (Gene Kelly) leaves the countryside and heads to Paris seeking to join the elite Musketeers, who form the King's guard. He proves his swordsmanship in a battle alongside Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young) and Aramis (Robert Coote) and joins them as they defend the King (Frank Morgan) from evil plots. The main threat is posed by the nefarious Prime Minister Richelieu (Vincent Price), who wants to trigger a war with England and regularly conspires with Milady, Countess de Winter (Lana Turner).

d'Artagnan meets and falls in love with Constance (June Allyson), one of the maidens of Queen Anne (Angela Lansbury). The Musketeers set off on a mission to England to retrieve jewels from the Duke of Buckingham (John Sutton), but that is just the start of many adventures to try and thwart the persistent Richelieu.

A disorganized mess of a film, The Three Musketeers just about scrapes through. The energy level is admirably high and athletic swordplay setpieces erupt at regular intervals. Yet a lack of tonal cohesion, weird casting choices, characters rotating in and out of the movie with no explanation, plot points that border on incomprehensible, and plenty of seemingly important action occurring off-screen all combine to create a disconcerting experience.

Most of the trouble originates within a lazy script intent on thoughtlessly cramming too much of Alexandre Dumas' episodic stories into a two hour movie. With no appreciation for the need to focus to achieve depth or cohesion, the film thrashes around in shallow waters gasping from one side quest to the next, barely explaining why everyone is running around, or even who everyone is or why they matter.

Director George Sidney cobbles together enough swashbuckling sword fights to paper over most of the cracks, with Gene Kelly's athleticism put to great use. The lavish sets, locations and costumes often look gorgeous in technicolor, and a certain level of joie de vivre helps hustle the film along.

Gene Kelly as d'Artagnan and Van Heflin as Athos seem to be acting in two different movies. Kelly is all smiles as he peddles a light hearted attitude and half-threatens to break out into a song-and-dance routine at every opportunity. Heflin is dour, reflective and dramatic as he pauses often to drone on about his lost love.

Porthos and Aramis barely register as the other two musketeers, but the ladies fare worst of all. Lana Turner is top billed but her role is almost incidental, June Allyson as Constance is both mis-cast and underwritten, and Angela Lansbury's Queen Anne is detached from most of the various plots.

The Three Musketeers gallops across the landscape with impressive bravado, but forgets to bring along any sense of structured significance.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Summer Stock (1950)

A lightweight musical romance, Summer Stock ambles along with happy music down on the farm, and never threatens to be anything other than a routine vehicle for the talents of an energetic Gene Kelly and a mostly unconvincing Judy Garland.

Jane (Garland) is struggling to keep her farm financially viable. She borrows money and a tractor from local businessman Jasper Wingait (Ray Collins), who wants to make sure that his dorky and allergy-prone son Orville (Eddie Braken) marries Jane.

Returning to the farm with her new tractor, Jane is shocked to find showman Joe Ross (Kelly), sidekick Herb (Phil Silvers) and their large troupe of singers and dancers setting up in her barn to practice for a new musical show. Joe is the boyfriend of Jane's flighty sister Abigail (Gloria DeHaven), who is hoping to be the star of the production. Jane and Joe initially clash but soon make up, and despite Herb and the dancers nearly wrecking the farm, the show begins to take shape. Inevitably, a romance also starts to blossom between Jane and Joe, much to the horror of Orville and Jasper.

A colourful song and dance film with no ambitions except to be a colourful song and dance film, Summer Stock is directed by Charles Walters with the innocent enthusiasm of an amateur high school play. There is no depth in any of the 109 minutes, nor any intention to inject any. This is simplistic feel-good entertainment which just about achieves its modest objectives.

Summer Stock proved to be Garland's final movie for MGM. The studio finally ran out of patience with her disruptive lack of reliability, and her contract was terminated.

Towards the end, long after most of the plot elements have been discarded and after the movie settles down to a series of unconnected climactic musical numbers, Summer Stock does boast Garland performing Get Happy. Filmed several months after the rest of film wrapped, Get Happy finds Garland looking noticeably slimmer, having received treatment for the weight issues which clearly hamper her throughout the rest of the film.

And Get Happy is a standout 150 seconds. While the male support dancers deliver aggressive choreography, Garland not so much dances as moves with angular and pinpoint precision, dressed in the distinctive and enduring image of black jacket, black hat, and dark tights. It's an appropriate farewell performance for the studio that made her a star, and a reminder of her abundant talent.

The rest of the film has some sporadic enjoyable moments, including Kelly's solo tap dance accompanied by a creaky floorboard and an old newspaper, and the clever collision of old and new dancing in the Portland Fancy number. But Summer Stock also serves up plenty of forgettable musical numbers, and romantic entanglements that fail to generate any heat. Eddie Braken and Phil Silvers try for funny but achieve irritating instead, and the plot about putting on a show in the rural middle of nowhere is remarkably limp even by genre standards.

Yielding many weeds but also some delicious produce, Summer Stock ploughs a mixed field.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Inherit The Wind (1960)

A courtroom drama fictionalizing the real trial of a schoolteacher who dared teach the theory of evolution in a rural and deeply religious community, Inherit The Wind is an engrossing battle of wits between entrenched traditional beliefs and the relentless forces of progress.

It's the 1920s in the small southern farming town of Hillsboro, and young school teacher Bertram T. Cates (Dick York) is arrested and charged for violating a law prohibiting the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution. The town leaders insist that the Bible's Book of Genesis is the only true description of human creation, and Darwin's scientific theory about the evolution of species contravenes the word of God.

Three time presidential candidate and celebrated Biblical scholar Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March) volunteers his services to prosecute the case, and he receives a hero's welcome in Hillsboro. Much less warmly received is the controversial Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy), a strong believer in the power of independent thought and scientific exploration, who arrives to defend Cates. Also arriving in town to join the growing circus and report on the trial is journalist E. K. Hornbeck (Gene Kelly) of the Baltimore Herald.

Bible salesman: Are you an evolutionist? An infidel? A sinner?
E. K. Hornbeck: The worst kind, I write for a newspaper.

To compound Cates' misery, his girlfriend is Rachel (Donna Anderson), who happens to be the daughter of Hillsboro's local religious leader Reverend Jeremiah Brown (Claude Akins). Brown whips the locals into a frenzy against Cates and Drummond, surprising even Brady with his venom. As the temperature rises literally and figuratively, the trial commences with Judge Mel Coffey (Harry Morgan) presiding, and Drummond facing a hostile gallery and the seemingly impossible task of defending Cates against deeply held but simplistic beliefs.

Drummond: An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man's knowledge is a greater miracle than all the sticks turned to snakes or the parting of the waters.

Timelessly potent, Inherit The Wind is based on the 1955 play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, written at the height of the McCarthy communist witch hunt. The play's intent was to use the real 1925 trial of schoolteacher John Scopes, in what became known as the Scopes "Monkey" Trial, as a parable on the need to vigorously defend the right to think, discuss, and debate, without fear from stifling laws and lawmakers.

The film takes artistic liberties with some of the facts of the trial, but keeps the essence intact. And it is astounding that Inherit The Wind remains relevant not as a historical artifact but as contemporary social commentary. Director Stanley Kramer shines the spotlight on the frustrating intransigence that results when literal, simplistic solutions are applied to complex issues. The film also highlights the ease with which ignorance can be enshrined in law, effectively legislating intellectual atrophy from one generation to the next.

Kramer creates all the trappings of a dangerous media circus in the fictional little town of Hillsboro, the real Scopes trial apparently instigated with at least the partial intent of placing Dayton, Tennessee on the map. Kramer then delights in teasing out the fine line between exuberant religious belief and the creeping spectre of mob violence, the townsfolk often slipping into threats, and Reverend Brown completely swallowed up by his own zeal in wishing for his daughter's destruction.

The complex relationship between Drummond and Brady is at the heart of the movie. Spencer and March bring the two grizzled men to life as aging veterans of many a political battle, often fought side-by-side, but this time fate has landed them on opposite ends of a polarizing religious and social divide. Despite the bluster, anger, and emotion, Drummond and Brady never lose respect for each other, and the scene where they share quiet words in rocking chairs on the front porch of their hotel is pure movie magic.

Brady: Why is it, my old friend, that you've moved so far away from me?
Drummond: All motion is relative, Matt. Maybe it's you who've moved away by standing still.

When the two men engage in the climactic battle of wills after Drummond places Brady on the witness chair, Kramer unleashes the fireworks in extreme close-up, dogma and independent thought clashing with breathtaking intensity.

Brady: We must not abandon faith! Faith is the most important thing!
Drummond: Then why did God plague us with the capacity to think? Mr. Brady, why do you deny the one faculty of man that raises him above the other creatures of the earth? The power of his brain to reason. What other merit have we? The elephant is larger; the horse is swifter and stronger; the butterfly is far more beautiful; the mosquito is more prolific. Even the simple sponge is more durable. But does a sponge think?

In a dramatic yet humourous role, Gene Kelly is a surprising success as the sharp-tongued Baltimore journalist E. K. Hornbeck, playing the role of the big city observer not mincing words when it comes to the backwardness of Hillsboro and its people. Kelly gets the film's best one-liners, but also serves as a serious sounding board to Drummond in the raging insanity of the farcical trial.

Townswoman: You're the stranger, ain'tcha? Are you looking for a nice, clean place to stay?
E. K. Hornbeck: Madam, I had a nice clean place to stay... and I left it, to come here.

An epic film about ideas and the essence of being human, Inherit The Wind delivers its message with plenty of punch and a wry smile.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of Gene Kelly

All movies starring Gene Kelly and reviewed on the Ace Black Blog are linked below:

Cover Girl (1944)

The Three Musketeers (1948)

On The Town (1949)

Summer Stock (1950)

An American In Paris (1951)

Singin' In The Rain (1952)

It's Always Fair Weather (1955)

Inherit The Wind (1960)

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
The Index of Movie Stars is here.

Movie Review: Cover Girl (1944)

A bouncy and colourful musical with an engaging plot and plenty of character, Cover Girl suffers from relatively lacklustre musical numbers but excels at weaving the song and dance elements into its narrative.

Rusty Parker (Rita Hayworth) is a showgirl at a low-key Brooklyn show lounge owned and operated by boyfriend Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly) and his sidekick Genius (Phil Silvers). Rusty dreams of a big break, and enters a competition to be designated the fresh new face by a celebrity magazine. She eventually catches the eye of the magazine's elderly publisher John Coudair (Otto Kruger), and he places her on the cover. Coudair realizes that in his youth he dated and fell in love with Rusty's grandmother Maribelle (also Hayworth).

Rusty's new found celebrity bring plenty of business to McGuire's, and soon she attracts the attention of Broadway producer Noel Wheaton (Lee Bowman), who wants to launch her career on the big stage and also marry her. Rusty has to decide whether to leave McGuire behind, as she finds her life beginning to parallel her grandmother's.

Unlike many musicals of the era, Cover Girl works on its sharply written story and conjures up enough plot elements and doses of humour to maintain interest apart from the performance interludes. The introduction of Mirabelle's adventure in flashback is a clever touch, allowing director Charles Vidor to play with a history repeating itself theme.

The result is a film where the musical sequences flow with the narrative rather than interrupting it. But while both Hayworth and Kelly pour their energy into their routines, they rarely find a genuine spark. The show numbers are disappointingly bland and forgettable, the one exception being Kelly (in only his fourth film) cleverly dancing with himself through the deserted night streets.

Hayworth never looks less than stunning but cannot translate her visual impact to any genuine show-stoppers. It does not help that McGuire's is supposed to be a second-rate joint, giving licence for some of the stage antics to be intentionally average.

Phil Silvers brightens up his surroundings with a witty performance as Genius (an ironic nickname), the sometimes useful spare tire in the romance between Danny and Rusty. Otto Kruger gives depth to the role of John Coudair, a man whose memories and wisdom become ever more important at Rusty reaches the crossroads.

Cover Girl may not be in the absolute top tier of musicals, but it does land on the front page.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: It's Always Fair Weather (1955)

A half-hearted attempt to recreate the vibe of On The Town, It's Always Fair Weather is only moderately successful. Weak musical numbers and generally lacklustre performances undermine an interesting story of post-war alienation.

It's 1945, and soldiers Ted (Gene Kelly), Doug (Dan Dailey) and Angie (Michael Kidd) survive World War Two and return to New York, promising to remain friends forever. Ted receives news that his pre-war girlfriend has dumped him and married someone else. Nevertheless, the three men commit to meeting at the same watering hole in ten years time to renew their friendship. In the intervening years, Doug, an aspiring artist, gets married, raises a family and settles for a corporate career in advertising. Angie, who has ambitions of becoming a respected chef, only manages to open a suburban burger joint.

But it is Ted who struggles the most, wasting the decade on floozies and gambling. When the men meet again in 1955, they all feel like failures, and they can barely stand each other. Ted is managing the career of a boxer he won at the gambling table and gradually getting embroiled in the corrupt world of boxing fixes. Through Doug's contacts he meets strong willed advertising producer Jackie (Cyd Charisse), and she helps him re-examine himself, but a reconciliation with Doug and Angie appears unlikely.

It's Always Fair Weather gives the impression of a drama contorted into a musical. Had the story been developed to its full potential, it could have easily stood on its own as a compelling peek into the difficult challenges of adjusting to mundane civilian life after surviving the chaos of war, a ten year echo of The Best Years Of Our Lives.

But rather than maintaining a focus on narrative strengths, song and dance numbers of widely varying quality are coarsely mounted onto the story, blunting most of the film's power. A few of the musical routines work well: Kelly, Dailey and Kidd dance up a storm with garbage bin lids on their feet; Charisse lights up a boxing gym; and Kelly gets to show his moves on roller skates.

But there are also some pretty unfortunate misfires, Dailey's Situation-Wise descending to the embarrassing farce of lampshade-on-head, and annoying radio show host Dolores Gray over-performing her two numbers into painful small market touring company territory.

A sense of disturbing unevenness runs through the film, stemming from a strained relationship between co-directors Stanley Donen and Kelly, and some poor editing decisions. Kelly co-starring with Charisse and yet not sharing a dance sequence with her is a phenomenally weird decision. Somehow, the finished product has much more of the crass Gray than the stunning Charisse, a truly horrific miscalculation, while Kidd's solo number was left on the cutting floor, resulting in a fundamental imbalance in the film's core triangle of friendship.

While the performances are competent, the leads lack spark. Charisse comes closest, but she is given so little to do that it does not matter. Kelly, Dailey and Kidd never convince as war-time buddies, the script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green lacking the necessary wit and warmth to delve into what makes a deep friendship.

It's Always Fair Weather does end on a high of sorts, a well-choreographed brawl on live television reminding the friends why they liked each other to begin with. After all, there is nothing like a mindless fight to bring back the good memories of war.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: On The Town (1949)

A rapturous celebration of wild fun, quick love and the pleasures of New York City, On The Town is an infectious musical with a glittering cast.

Three sailor friends have a 24 hour shore leave in New York. Gabey (Gene Kelly) wants to find the girl of his dreams, Chip (Frank Sinatra) wants to see all the sites, and Ozzie (Jules Munshin) is the overwhelmed sidekick. Gabey falls in love with the picture of the latest winner of the monthly "Miss Turnstiles" subway competition, and soon catches a glimpse of her: Ivy Smith (Vera-Ellen) is a simple girl from a small town, but Gabey thinks that she is a high society star. He is determined to catch up with her, and convinces Chip and Ozzie that they should help.

But as soon as they start their search for Ivy, anthropologist Claire (Ann Miller) bumps into Ozzie at the museum and is immediately enamoured with him, while determined taxi driver Hildy (Betty Garrett) sets her lustful sights on Chip. Ozzie and Chip abandon Gabey as they set off to have fun with Claire and Hildy respectively, and Chip gets to meet Hildy's nasally roommate Lucy Schmeeler (Alice Pearce). Gabey does track down Ivy and a serious romance ensues as they reconnect with Chip, Ozzie and their girls. The wild night progresses from the top of the Empire State Building to a variety of nightclubs, ending with a madcap police chase across the Brooklyn Bridge and into Coney Island.

An adaptation of the war-time stage musical, On The Town is revitalized for the screen with on-location shooting (unique for the time), a largely new musical score, and high energy dance numbers. Most of Leonard Berstein's songs for the stage production were dumped in favour of more upbeat material by Roger Edens, as co-directors Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen start pushing to define the boundaries of the new form of screen musical that will take hold in the 1950s. The dancing is high tempo, athletic and mixed with large doses humour, Kelly getting the flamboyant best out of Vera-Ellen and Ann Miller.

The highlights include the opening number New York, New York, as the sailors start their shore leave, and the quite hilarious Prehistoric Man with Claire wrapping Ozzie around her finger as Ann Miller tap dances up a storm. The aggressive Hildy finds all sorts of reasons for Chip to abandon his tour of the city and instead Come Up to My Place, while Gabey and Ivy imagine a small town date on Mainstreet.

Vera-Ellen features much more prominently than her sixth-ranked billing suggests. She shines as the multi-talented Ivy in Gabey's Miss Turnstiles imagination before he even meets her, and again dancing with Kelly in the dreamy ballet sequence.

As the day draws to an end the energy of the movie just gets stronger, the screenplay by Adolph Green and Betty Comden drawing inspiration from all that New York has to offer to maintain momentum. The sub-text of man-hungry women like Claire and Hildy hunting down the sailors is somewhat surprising, but likely linked to the war-time origins of the musical, with men absent from the home front and women doing their duty to entertain those on leave. A clever tour of various nightclubs adds more humour and builds the romance between Gabey and Ivy to a crescendo, complete with a Cinderella-style runaway lover close to midnight.

With a compact running length of just under 100 minutes, On The Town turns into the perfect day in the big city, and a perfect musical experience.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: An American In Paris (1951)

A dreamy musical romance, An American In Paris is a celebration of George Gershwin's music. The film works well as a joyous fairy tale, but it leaves many dangling threads.

Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is a struggling American painter living in Paris. His friend Adam Cook (Oscar Levant) is an equally struggling pianist. Adam is friends with the suave Henri Baurel (Georges Guetary), a successful entertainer, and Henri confesses to Adam that he is newly in love with young dancer Lise Bouvier (Leslie Caron).

Rich socialite Milo Roberts (Nina Foch) takes an interest in Jerry's artwork and offers to sponsor him, although she may be more interested in Jerry than his pedestrian paintings. At a swanky restaurant with Milo, Jerry spots Lise and falls in love at first sight, much to Milo's disappointment. As Milo pursues Jerry and Jerry pursues Lise, Adam becomes aware that both his two friends are madly in love with the same girl.

The story of An American In Paris is a thin wire to hang a lot of song and dance numbers on, and by the time the credits roll a couple of characters are forgotten, their emotional investments trampled under the weight of elaborate musical set-pieces. Sacrificing plot for spectacle is expected in musicals, but as written by Alan Jay Lerner, An American In Paris attaches a lot of unwarranted drama to its various narratives.

The romance between Jerry and Lise, complete with Shakespearean by-the-river-at-night interludes, is handled with exaggerated earnestness, while Milo's pursuit of Jerry wavers uncomfortably between serious support for an artist and an awkward toy-boy grab. The predictable rush to the happily-ever-after climax leaves unclaimed baggage strewn all over the place in favour of a long, imaginary dance sequence.

The rest of An American In Paris hits all the right notes, a mix of romance, humour and unlikely coincidences against the backdrop of a post-war Paris where life is fun again. Kelly is light-footed and sympathetic as Jerry, Levant gets the best lines and typical sardonic jabs while dazzling on the piano, and Leslie Caron, in her big screen debut, is convincing as both the love interest and dance partner.

Director Vincente Minnelli makes good use of a stylish Paris as recreated on the MGM studio lot, and the movie's spirit captures both the ramshackle world of struggling artists and the more glitzy aspects of high Parisian society. With George Gershwin's music the inspiration for the entire film, Kelly's choreography and Ira Gershwin's lyrics bring the lively instrumental score to energetic life.

An American In Paris will always mangle some parts of the local language, but is absorbing to watch all the same.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Singin' In The Rain (1952)

A classic celebration of song, dance, and Hollywood history, Singin' In The Rain has an infectious positive energy, and a young, celebratory attitude. The film recalibrated musical genre expectations, respecting the old while creating the new with a burst of colour, energy and sheer bravado.

In the late 1920's, Hollywood is transitioning from silent to talking movies. Celebrated but studio-manufactured screen couple Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) are the biggest stars of the silent era, and they face contrasting fortunes. Lockwood has the talent to continue his career, but Lamont's screechy voice is a deathblow to her future as a movie star. In the meantime, Lamont believes the studio hype that she and Lockwood have a real-life relationship; in reality, he is falling in love with young struggling actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds).

With the latest Lockwood and Lamont film release facing financial disaster unless it can be quickly turned into a talkie, Lockwood's sidekick Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor) comes up with the idea of having Selden provide the voice-over for Lamont. Lockwood builds on this and converts the film into an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza. But the jealousies between Lamont and Selden threaten to side-swipe all their careers.

The plot is funny, interesting and romantic, but it is just a side-show. Singin' In The Rain is a collection of terrific, innovative song and dance numbers, transitioning the Hollywood musical into a new era, and in many ways setting the stage for what would become the high-energy music video in decades to come.

Gene Kelly, who co-directed with Stanley Donen, injects larges doses of artistic creativity and innovative choreography. Kelly also projects a winning self-depreciating persona while infusing the dance numbers with unbridled joy and enthusiasm. He finds the perfect partners in the impossibly rubbery and quick-witted O'Connor, as well as the spunky and willing Reynolds.

Make 'Em Laugh, Singin' In The Rain, and Good Morning are just some of the classics re-imagined and revived in vivid colours and with creative props, Kelly, O'Connor and Reynolds attacking physically demanding numbers with conviction and a smile.

Late in the movie, Kelly inserts the long Broadway Melody Ballet scene, with Cyd Charisse putting her endless legs to excellent use, in a sequence which has nothing to do with the plot but that at the same summarizes everything about Singin' In The Rain: brash, modern, and vivacious.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.