1h 53min | Adventure, Musical, Fantasy | 8 December 1955 | Color, WS
Directors: Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Donen (uncredited)
Stars: Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, Dolores Gray, Vic Damone, Monty Woolley, Sebastian Cabot.
Jack Cole ... musical numbers and dances staged by
Patricia Denise ... assistant dance director (uncredited)
Barton Mumaw ... assistant dance director (uncredited)
Aleksandr Borodin ... music adapted from themes of
What to love: the color, the music, the dancing, the singing, the plot twist (unexpected in what seemed to be a comedy).
The colors are as vivid as they come, and whoever got credit as designer, we also have the fine eye and hand of V.Minnelli at the helm. (Very strange that the poster is so colorless.)
The music is from the opera Prince Igor, nearly finished by Borodin, but completed by Rimsky-Korsakov and another friend of AB. In the opera, these melodies are brief interludes, danced by the Polovtsian (nomadic) entertainers. Very enjoyable there, but the music is further enhanced/magnified here. Kudos to Bob Wright and Chet Forrest for their adaptation of AB's music, and the striking lyrics to these songs from the B'way show. 11 songs in this Soundtrack, all full-blown productions.
The dancing is pure Jack Cole. This feels like a culmination of all his studies and applications of Asian (middle and eastern) dance. We've seen many of these moves in prior films, but brought together in this way, with this music, it's happily mesmerizing. The best is the 3 princesses dancing with 2 peddlers. The first sister is so highlighted, and steals all the attention to the extent that I never noticed that one of the sisters is not Asian. Also prohibiting that: the women frequently have their backs to the audience while the men shine.
The singing is fabulous from all 4 performers: HK gets to "go big" with everything he does, because he's playing a street performer in ancient Bagdad. Of course that means he has to paint with broad strokes, and he does it marvelously. Similarly, DG plays the highest wife of the Wazir, and also plays a character with grand gestures and voice; perfect for her, and she delivers her numbers wonderfully. VD has never looked or sounded better, and I often put ch20 in a loop to watch and listen to the procession to his wedding over and over. Ann Blyth finally gets to sing her own songs (she's sometimes dubbed), and her renditions are also apt. Her duets with VD are excellent.
Previously rated 8; that's just not enough for me now.
BTW, the antecedent film Kismet ('44), 7+, with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich in the HK and DG parts, is also highly enjoyable.
MGM, dir. Minnelli; 9
