1h 17min | Comedy, Musical, Romance | 20 March 1953 | Color
Director: Don Weis
Stars: Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Una Merkel, Richard Anderson, Allyn Joslyn, Les Tremayne, Noreen Corcoran, Jim Backus.
Robert Alton ... choreographer
In the Tap! Appendix for Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds. 2nd and final feature film pairing them.
(It's as though they went through a checklist of numbers to include.):
- ch1. A Lady Loves, Performed by Debbie Reynolds and male chorus in dream with fuschia dancehall dress (Opening number grabber)
- ch2. We Have Never Met, As Yet, Performed by Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor in parallel in a park (Meet cute)
- ch2. Saturday Afternoon Before the Game, Performed by chorus and Debbie Reynolds as onstage football (B'way musical mockery)
- ch3. Where Did You Learn To Dance, Performed by Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds in her living room (Good Mornin' number)
- ch4. Life Has Its Funny Little Ups and Downs, Performed by Noreen Corcoran and Donald O'Connor (he skate/taps in a gazebo; notice the cuts before and after the tapping; wheels are likely inactive during taps; interesting to see the tap movements accentuated with/by the skates) (Male lead solo/ Fred Astaire homage (GK doesn't do skates until '55))
- ch4. film within film dance sequence with ensemble (they're at the movies) (H'wood musical mockery)
- ch5. I Wanna Wander, sung/danced by Donald O'Connor alone in photo studio (Make 'Em Laugh number)
- ch7. A Lady Loves, And There You Are (perhaps?), danced by Debbie Reynolds & male chorus (Fred and Gene mockery (by name, costumes and masks))
- ch7. Saturday Afternoon Before the Game reprise time montage, Performed by Debbie Reynolds and chorus (Time montage via musical clips)
Following a formula can be fun if you mock or honor things well, but this is too formulaic, and not clever enough. A big flaw in I Wanna Wander: the only reason he wants to wander is because the room is full of travel backdrops, props and costumes, and, whoops, someone forgot to include an internal audience for this show-off dance. (GK was sitting there before and after Make 'Em Laugh.)
This has some good dancing (as I would expect from Alton/O'Connor/Reynolds), but I don't care if they get together or not, or if DR gets to be a star or not. However, I was happy that DR did NOT get together with RA, since he was a square who would have wanted the perfect 50's housewife (although that was never spelled out.)
MGM, dir. Weis; 7-
