This was the first pairing of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse and they put into the movie a lot of Fred's fears about dancing with Cyd (that she was mostly ballet, and above all, that she was too tall for him to dance with). Michael Kidd's choreography in this is wonderfully new to the time it was made. Man alive, I miss choreography that's subtle sexy. This musical is a great blend of the requisite cheesiness, but also, some really great dancing and fantastic performances all around. The Girl Hunt Ballet is so jazzy, I love it!
Cole Porter music, Fred Astaire, and Cyd Charisse equals fantastic fun! I've loved Porter's music ever since I was involved in my high school's production of "Anything Goes". It's so catchy. His lyrics are kinda dirty sometimes, but you know, in a very classy way ;) I love love love "Stereophonic sound", a song about how you have to have gimmicks in order to get an audience to go to a movie. Astaire was 57 when he did this movie, but he was still a ladies' man through and through. Great great stuff!
Rogers and Hammerstein may be very very famous for their musicals, but I didn't like this one at all. Maybe I wasn't expecting such a jerk of a lead character. Some of the music was fun, but the way they sang it in the movie, I'm not a fan of trying to be operatic and being more worried about sounding good than getting the emotion of the song across. I'm sure this is heresy, but I just didn't like it.
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I haven't watched it since high school, but I remember utterly detesting Carousel. Didn't like the music, didn't like the characters, didn't like the story, didn't like any of it. I am with you 100% - not a gem!
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