Animation Magazine remembers Gene Kelly’s contribution to onscreen animation:

Over the course of five decades, he more than paid his dues in the toon trenches.

Kelly was actually a pioneer in the art of the seamless melding of live action and animation, first in the 1945 film Anchors Aweigh, in which he had a fantasy-sequence dance number with Jerry Mouse. [Read more...]

Last night, the Academy held a tribute ”to celebrate the 100th birthday of the incomparable Gene Kelly (1912-1996) with a special gala evening of film clips, stories and personal remembrances of the multi-talented motion picture legend.” Here is the Academy’s summary of the evening.

A few attendees live-tweeted their experience of the event:

• @FilmNoirBlonde: Getting ready for the Gene Kelly tribute at the Academy. Can’t wait! #GeneKelly
• Glee‘s Harry Shum: One of the coolest nights ever at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater for the Centennial Tribute to Gene Kelly.  #inspired #myhero
• @TheBGSituation: Gene Kelly (aka the first love of my life) tribute at the Academy. These are the nights I’m happy to live in Hollywood.
• @BJanine: Heartfelt and emotional tribute to Gene Kelly’s life and work @ Samuel Goldwyn Theater.  Amazing and wonderful night.  @TheAcademy
• @GlamAmor: #GeneKelly tribute @TheAcademy was SO MOVING. Feel I got to know him. Rare film clips + audio. Personal stories. Celebrity tributes. I cried.
• @sharonleal17: Centennial tribute to the lengendary #GENEKELLY  at Academy of Motion Pictures…..amazing.

Some attendees took pictures:

• Pics of the program cover on Twitter and Instagram.
• Inside the program.
• The stage.

And here’s Justin Timberlake’s, uh, “tribute” and Hugh Jackman’s below:

When he wasn’t entertaining Cannes lunch crowds in 1959, Gene Kelly served as a member of that year’s festival jury. (via Vanity Fair, looking back at Cannes)

We have the delightful task of praising the dancer Gene Kelly…in the glamour contest he would surely come out top…for he is, moving or still, the most entrancing sailor one has ever seen. I have seldom seen a Western dancer from whose body such radiance emanates or who possesses such brilliance of expression. (Ballet Mag. Feb. 1946, Beryl de Zoete)

The first thing which Gene communicated to me was joy. It was exactly what I needed in my life at that time, seven years ago, and the wonderful thing is, that I still feel the same joy and exhilaration when watching him dance today.

This is another quote of significance:

He said it all, in every number, without saying a word..He combined technique with feeling. No movement or emotion ever ended but was instead projected far beyond his body, reaching out to touch a star, which he made us believe he could do. (Picture Show Magazine, date unknown)

The joy, love and light reach out to touch our lives also. I celebrate and thank Gene Kelly for fulfiling his great destiny as joybringer.

For those in the L.A. area, A Centennial Tribute to Gene Kelly

Thursday, May 17, 7:30 p.m.

Samuel Goldwyn Theater
8949 Wilshire Boulevard
Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Ticketed seating is unreserved.

According to her post, Sue and Carol also visited Gene Kelly’s LA homes (on Rodeo Drive and Alta Drive), the UCLA media library (where they watched some of the Kelly home movies), and Sony Picture Studios (formerly MGM).

Sue’s account of her journey, which you’ll find on her homepage, is (as always) full of enthusiasm for the dancer/singer/entertainer.

“I kind of remember a little bit of contrast between [Gene and Frank] because Gene was much more involved in what he was doing and I think he felt a little threatened by a child being involved, because there’s an old adage among actors: Don’t ever work with animals or kids because they steal the scenes,” Stockwell said from his home in Taos, N.M., where he creates collage artwork. ”But Frank was not that way at all. He couldn’t care less. He was very warm and very nice to me.”

Stockwell’s got a point about “stealing scenes”: after all, he was a cute little fella…

Lou also was there for Debbie Reynolds’s introduction. His report:

Warners’ new 60th anniversary digital restoration of “Singin’ in the Rain” had its world premiere Saturday night at Grauman’s Chinese, and it’s a richly detailed, vibrantly colored knockout. The musical numbers sound better than they ever have before.

Even the film’s elaborate optical effects — often the most challenging thing for restorers — look fantastic. And the beloved classic itself makes this year’s Oscar winner, “The Artist,” look like a puny achievement by comparison.

“Singin’ ” will be showing again at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in July and is premiering on Blu-ray before the end of the year.

Robert Osborne had a chat with Debbie Reynolds before the film, and she had the audience in stitches with her mildly salty humors, including references to her “t—s.”

I interviewed Ms. Reynolds before the festival, but she told a story about the film’s production I had never heard or read before.

A ladder is a prominent prop in the “You Were Meant For Me” number and Reynolds said that during rehearsals, she sat on the ladder chewing gum (“I hadn’t discovered wine yet,” she cracked to a huge laugh).

She said that when time came to shoot the number, she took the gum out of her mouth and affixed it to the ladder. But when Kelly’s head brushed next to the ladder while he was dancing, the gum “stuck to his [toupee] and took it off. He was mad at me for a year after that.”

Read more.

Gene Kelly took a stand against the McCarthy Communist “witch trials” and Hollywood blacklisting. He was a man who had strong convictions and did not back down. For this he should be celebrated. – Bethie

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“100 Reasons to Celebrate Gene Kelly”

See, for example, the dream sequence in the middle of The Pirate (1948) – yes, the one revealing Kelly’s legs in those short, tight black shorts. There’s also, of course, the lavish and expensive (it cost half a million dollars!) ballet at the close of An American in Paris (1951) for which Gene won an honorary Academy Award. Two more: the “day in New York” ballet in On The Town (1949), and the colorful “Broadway Melody” (above), which falls near the end of Singin’ in the Rain (1952).

Each ballet, although different in tone and look, is woven into the film’s story. The numbers are nothing short of spectacular and, as such, further indicate Kelly’s genius in displaying dance onscreen.

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“100 Reasons to Celebrate Gene Kelly”

– Brianna

Great news for fans of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and their films!

The Warner Archive is releasing The Sky’s The Limit (1943) and Living in a Big Way (1947) to DVD this month.  The films are going to be about $20 each.

Release information via The Examiner.

In 1945, the two dress as sailors for the first time in Anchors Aweigh (right), co-starring with singer Kathryn Grayson and Jose Iturbi. Four years later, the duo reunite and add a third male member to their already successful partnership: the funny and entertaining Jules Munshin. In this film, Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949), the trio faces a new reality when their baseball team hires a new manager, played by Esther Williams. This would be the final film of Busby Berkeley and also the first time that Frank’s love interest is played by the delightful Betty Garrett.

Kelly’s and Sinatra’s most successful pairing would come the same year with On the Town (1949). Dressed again as sailors, their characters take shore leave in New York City on a mission: to score with women and sightsee (well, this is what Sintra’s character originally planned to do). On the Town again starred Jules Munshin and Betty Garrett as well as dancers Ann Miller and Vera-Ellen.

In fact, one could argue that Anchors Aweigh is the prequel to On the Town (just as It’s Always Fair Weather is a sequel to the same). The narratives and characterization are virtually the same; Kelly’s sailors are more talkative and active in love while Frank’s are shyer and passively charming. Years later, in a stage show, Gene was still playing off this image, asking his co-star and friend if he had lost his standing with women. (Frank got married five times, while Gene had three wives.)

Almost from the time he landed in Hollywood in the early ’40s, Gene Kelly enjoyed both personal and collaborative successes and was often paired with some of the most talented people in the industry. Frank Sinatra, however, saw his popularity and music career decrease in the mid-1940s and, thus, signed on for this “musical trilogy” (with Kelly) as a way to keep himself in the eye of the public. The crooner-turned-musical-star would only get over this phase after winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in From Here to Eternity (1954). But this is a subject for another time…

His smile is sometimes one of smug self-satisfaction like the phone scene in Anchors Aweigh (right). Other times, it is a sweet, dreamy smile directed at his leading lady as when he gazes at Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) during “Would You” (Singin’ in the Rain). But most of the times, it is an expression of pure joy; see, for example, his roller-skating routine in It’s Always Fair Weather. His characters and that grin often remind me of a young child who’s viewing the world with fresh eyes, someone constantly bursting with happiness.

I think that Gene Kelly’s smile is best displayed during his famous number in Singin’ in the Rain. As he strolls down the sidewalk singing, he stops, takes his hat off, looks to the sky, lets the rain shower his face, and exultingly sings, “I’ve a smile on my face” (below).

Gene Kelly never fails to put a smile on my face. Thank you, Gene, for the joy that you bring to this world and to our lives!

– Jasmine

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“100 Reasons to Celebrate Gene Kelly”

Finally! This is the event I’ve been waiting for all year since I first learned of the GFT’s Gene retrospective. What on earth would a Gene Kelly Ceilidh comprise of? A Ceilidh (caley), for those of you who may be unfamiliar with this uniquely Caledonian pastime, is an evening of traditional Scottish dancing, a social gathering to renew old acquaintances, make some new ones, and hoot and holler long into the night. Think of the structured dances you may have seen in Jane Austen adaptations and then imagine them with decent music, real contact, and people who are actually alive.

However, before all that… Brigadoon. As I accepted the ‘wee dram’ (shot of whisky) that welcomed us into the venue, I was fortunate enough to have a minute or two with Allan Hunter — who, when I suggested that watching this musical for the second time in as many days should be marked with some kind of endurance award (Brigadoon was also screened at the GFT yesterday morning) — admitted excitedly that he wasn’t staying for the film and had the same expression on his face that Tim Robbins had in The Shawshank Redemption (1994) after he had crawled through a sewer pipe of ‘shit-smelling foulness’ to his escape. Publicly, however, Hunter was less inclined to be flippant, and in his introduction tonight suggested that we as Scots should endeavour to reclaim Brigadoon for ourselves, and accept and embrace it for what it is, but warned with his closing salvo that “some accents were harmed in the making of this film.”

To coincide with the Gene Kelly Festival, the Herald newspaper has arranged a small photography exhibition at the Royal Concert Hall, featuring various Hollywood alumni who had visited the city in the mid-twentieth century like Judy, Frank, Sammy Davis Jr, Irving Berlin, Cary Grant, Roy Rogers and Trigger, Marlene Dietrich and Danny Kaye. Gene was there too, of course, in the photo of him taken outside Glasgow Central Train Station in 1953 as he prepared to embark on a location scout for the ‘Scottish musical’ (above). The following photo is also included in the exhibition and one I was unaware even existed – Gene and a certain Arthur Freed planning possible routes around the old country.

Gene Kelly: master of dance, reader of maps.

I won’t spend any time reviewing the film itself as I have already devoted an entire essay to it on this very site, but I must comment on audience reaction to it. I recommend everybody to watch Brigadoon with a crowd of Scots ready for a Hooley (party) and with easy access to a bar. It is the only way to watch the film. There were howls of derisive laughter throughout, mainly at the wedding authenticated by the ‘ancient laws of Scotland,’ Mr Lundy’s description of what it feels like when he goes to sleep, and pretty much everything Cyd Charisse says. There were also guffaws of appreciative laughter at the superb Van Johnson and the Manhattan scene where a haunted Gene tries to cope with the mini-Brigadoon musicals that are sounding off in his head.

Kudos must also go to the solitary woman who applauded defiantly after the second of Gene and Cyd’s numbers, in a Brigadoon-hostile environment that took a special kind of devotion, misguided thought it may have been. A huge roar greeted the end of the film and I’m not entirely sure that was just determined by alcohol and the opportunity to finally lift posteriors from the most uncomfortable seats in Scotland, because I detected a smudge of affection — the kind of affection, admittedly, that you might have for a disintegrating childhood family toy that is barely hanging together by your grandmother’s pre-war stitching, but affection nevertheless.

Even though I didn’t have to use the bar, during the screening I felt comforted, safe and secure in the knowledge that it was there. It burned steadily in the corner of my eye with an ethereal glow… I imagine when I get round to watching Summer Stock again I will need not only access to a bar, but also an analyst constantly whispering reassurances in my ear as well as a device attached to my arm steadily pumping valium into my bloodstream and those two huge animated Middle-Eastern chaps Gene dances with in Invitation to the Dance (1956) standing on either side of me who, when given the nod, will beat me slowly to death using large socks filled with horse manure.

So, to the dancing, well not quite yet, there was another uniquely Scottish flourish – stovies. Stovies recipes vary, but essentially it’s a meat and potato stew with onions, beef, dough, and whatever happens to be leftover from Sunday dinner… ‘Yum,’ I hear you say. Not the best preparation for a period of exertion, you might think, but you’d be surprised. And the meal pleasantly passed the time as the room was transformed from cinema to dancehall by the staff of St Andrews in the Square who maintain this beautiful, renovated Church towards the east of the city. After spending so much time with Gene this week I warned my dance partner for the evening, current best friend and former girlfriend, that I was powerless to stop some of his athletic masculinity seeping into my pores and that she may find herself under siege by a testosterone bombardment she won’t be able to cope with (hint: to pull that kind of comment off, you really need to choose someone who doesn’t know you intimately).

Gene Kelly Ceilidh. St Andrews in the Square.

The great thing about ceilidhs is that any ceilidh band worth its salt will walk you slowly through the steps prior to each dance. Tonight’s band was worth several pillars of salt, so eternal thanks to them for guiding us through The Gay Gordons, The Dashing White Sergeant, The Canadian Barn Dance, The Progressive Canadian Barn Dance (where you changed partners constantly and got to talk about Gene with strangers), Strip the Willow (a nightmare of intricate spinning and cross-group reeling) and, in honour of the man we were celebrating, The Pride of Erin Waltz, which I felt I excelled at, if I do say so myself (I’m replacing aptitude with eagerness here). There were other dances, but alas I was too tired to remember them and my feet too sore to get me from the couch to the computer to google them.

So, how does a Gene Kelly Ceilidh differ from any other ceilidh? Well, not at all as it turned out, but it was no less enjoyable for that. The abiding memory of the evening is the number of people who made comments about Gene’s ability to bring people together, which he did at his home in Rodeo Drive and continues to do even in death, be it a gathering of Scots in a small venue in Glasgow or thousands across the world connected virtually and emotionally by their love of this extraordinary artist. This week, I have smiled, laughed, and danced more than I have in almost twenty years. I have walked with a spring in my step and attended job interviews by metaphorically entering the room by sliding across the floor in my knees and screaming at prospective employers: “Gotta dance!” I have adored every rain soaked, artistic, naval, piratical, shortstopping, and Grouse-hunting moment of the Gene Kelly Festival at the GFT. I leave with a deeper affection and greater appreciation for the man I have carried with me in my heart since I was four years old.

Oh, I got the job. Thank you, Mr Kelly.

You’ve made it to the final part of this series. To read all reviews, visit Glasgow Film Festival. 

I could barely contain my excitement as I bounded up the stairs of the GFT this morning. After Singin’ in the Rain, this is the Gene Kelly film I have watched more than any other. In fact, in the days of Betamax video, I taped it one Easter and watched it until the tape wore out, literally. On the Town is the second greatest thing Gene Kelly ever did and it is, without question, the greatest musical of the 1940s. The opening credits alone are enough to induce palpitations, not only a searing sextet of principles but also Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Jerome Robbins, and Leonard Bernstein. To some people the peripheral names on the creative team barely warrant much attention, at all — I’ve even read virtual reviews of An American in Paris that don’t mention George Gershwin — but the depth of talent that swirled around Gene allowed his own genius to flourish and, I think, nowhere is that more evident than here.

You can keep your aerial shots of the Alps and singing nuns (the favourite musical opening of all time by popular consent apparently) because I’ll take the cinematic sweep of the New York skyline and a singing shipyard worker every single time. In fact, I’d go as far to say that the sound of Bern Hoffman’s booming baritone elicits more excitement than the premiere of a silent movie at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. There is a deft economy of language at work in the opening exchange between the three sailors and the shipyard worker: barely twenty words spoken, but we discover that this is their first time in New York, how long they’ve got to stay and how they intend to spend their time. Comden and Green breathed rarefied air. Not a single second is wasted, neither by screenwriters, nor co-directors.

Gene and and his co-director, Stanley Donen, are concerned with one thing in On the Town: forward propulsion. The film ebbs and flows with movement — the deserted dockyard suddenly swarming with sailors, the frantic sightseeing tour, the subway up town, the trips in Hildy’s taxi, the dinosaur collapse, the elevator in the Empire State Building, the ‘On the Town’ number, the car chase (maybe the only car chase in musicals?), and the final pursuit in Coney Island. Even the time updates that flash across the screen enhance the sense of motion. It’s just an exhilarating ride from beginning to end. One last word about the opening: it features the greatest song written about New York. Ever.

Another Comden and Green script, another decent Gene performance. He really does rise to the occasion here as he’s genuinely sweet in the courtship scene with Vera-Ellen, downright hilarious in the scenes with Alice Pearce and the two sailors, Simpkins and Kovarsky, and rather touching in the scene with Frank immediately after the ballet sequence. I still think that Gabey needs a slap, mind you. “You don’t want to waste your time looking for one girl, Gabe,” advises a sage Jules Munshin, but, unfortunately, yes, he does… and yours too.

A twenty-four hour pass in New York? Wow! Sounds like just about the most fun you’re going to have, doesn’t it? Not for Kelly’s gloomy Gabey, who’d rather attach the kind of Shakespearean gravitas and emotional devastation to the occasion that would have Ingmar Bergman popping anti-depressants. Thankfully, Chip and Ozzy, Frank and Jules, respectively, are on hand to lighten the mood whenever they’re on screen. The chemistry between the three of them in Take Me Out to the Ball Game fizzled nicely, but here it nearly burns a hole in the screen, and when they eventually hook up with Vera-Ellen, Betty Garrett and Ann Miller, it bathes Manhattan in an incandescent light. None of the vitality is lost when Alice Pearce replaces Vera-Ellen in the party and ‘You Can Count on Me’ is my favourite ensemble number, a genuine delight with warmth, humour and joy clearly visible between all concerned.

Gene once said that the ‘Dancing in the Dark’ number from The Band Wagon (1953) was the greatest courtship number ever captured on film. I’m not going to disagree with him, but I think with ‘Main Street,’ he has one that is, at least, the equal of it. It is his most affecting and touching number with a female partner. The initial steps are simple and gentle during the ‘walk’ along Main Street, but this allows the number to segue seamlessly into the dance. It is a thing of exquisite beauty and proof, if further proof were needed, that Vera-Ellen was Gene’s greatest dance partner — she is adorable throughout.

‘A Day in New York’ polarises opinion; some feel that a serious ballet in such a lighthearted musical all but kills it, while others are entranced by its hypnotic spell. I tend to lean towards the latter. It certainly slows the film down, but don’t forget that it’s supposed to represent what’s going on inside Gabey’s head and just be thankful that it’s not an accurate representation; that would surely involve the Grim Reaper shimmying with Beelzebub in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Bernstein’s music, the masterly control of Gene’s movements and the erotic pas de deux on the ballet barre renders any complaints about narrative and momentum utterly meaningless.

If Gene’s highbrow balletic pretensions aren’t your thing, then you can derive the pleasure you seek in every other number in On the Town, the remaining of which are: Vera-Ellen’s ‘Miss Turnstiles Ballet’ (Gene certainly knew how to showcase his partners); Ann Miller doing what Ann Miller does in ‘Prehistoric Man’; and Frank and Betty Garrett’s ‘Come Up to My Place’ and ‘You’re Awful,’ one hilarious, the other quite moving in a quirky kind of way. The lyrics of all these songs are a joy and I have to go back to Comden and Green, again. I don’t know how many of New York’s cultural attractions are named in ‘Come Up to My Place,’ but it must be close to twenty. There are also pop-culture references with Goodbye, Mr Chips and The Lost Weekend, an in-joke with the reference to Ava Gardner, Sinatra’s off-screen wife at the time, and even the author of a sexual study gets a mention — Dr Kinsey. The script is sprinkled liberally with all kinds of peppy dialogue from the gossiping women on the subway to the two dancers Gene passes in the Academy of Performing Arts — how about this for an exchange:

First girl: “Are you auditioning for Grab Your Spats?”
Second girl (in broad Noo Yawk accent): “No, I’m only interested in classical ballet.”

They predate Stephanie, Saturday Night Fever’s upwardly mobile snob, by nearly 30 years. Also, I have no idea what Grab Your Spats is, but I want to see it. I wouldn’t mind seeing Comden and Green themselves in the original Broadway Show… that must have been quite something.

The final scene maintains the underlying theme of momentum, a new batch of sailors flood the shipyard and the story continues. The film ends, but life goes on. That Gene and Stanley created something of such magnificence with almost no basis for comparison is remarkable, that they amassed the location footage they did in so little time is miraculous. Final word today goes, not to Pat, but to Gene himself, who believed that On the Town was his greatest contribution to the innovation of musicals. He also said that Summer Stock was “a piece of crap.” The man knew his musicals.

Pat wasn’t happy with the management, something about “academic introductions” and “pains in the arse.” Related, I think. Although he did remark that our daily host, Allan Hunter, “does very well.” He does, indeed. So well, in fact, that while espousing on Gene and Judy’s onscreen partnership he mentioned Summer Stock (1950) and explained its omission from the festival for anyone moronic enough to be offended by its absence with a barely concerned “it isn’t that good a musical” and thereby submitting his own entry for ‘Understatement of the Century Award.’

If I don’t get the appeal of Joe Brady, then I am practically fumbling around in the dark trying to pick up pine needles with boxing gloves when it comes to the much-vaunted sexual chemistry between Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. Love them both. Don’t see it. Have never seen it. It doesn’t exist. Gene and Judy’s onscreen vibe is one that you might find between brother and sister, or very close, extremely platonic friends. Yet virtual oceans exist in the realms of Gene fandom devoted to this very subject:

• mock facebook pages showing ‘Gene Kelly is in a relationship with Judy Garland’ status updates;
• hybrid usernames incorporating both artists – Judygenefan, Jugenea, Garlandkelly, Kellygarland, Garkel, Kelgar (OK, I made the last two up, but I bet they exist somewhere); and 
• YouTube videos of love stricken teenagers mooning over imagined trysts.

[For more on this Garland/Kelly "shipping," see Kelli's essay on social media's current objectification of Gene Kelly.] I understand this is flying in the face of the general consensus of online opinion when I say that Gene and Judy are good together, but not great – they both did their best work with other partners.

Having said all that, I enjoyed The Pirate in a way I never have before. It simply HAS to be seen on the big screen; only that kind of ratio can contain the overblown spectacle of its vibrancy, colour, and Gene’s exaggerated performance. His dramatic shortcomings are exposed badly here — when he first makes his appearance, it’s impossible to take your eyes off his hands, which he throws around in affected gestures like a Marionette puppet possessed by the spirit of Peewee Herman. I confess I nearly had a seizure when he recited the line: “You should try underplaying sometimes, very effective.” Good advice for us all, Gene…

Still, as always, the moment Kelly starts dancing, nothing else matters. In the world. His ‘Niña’ routine is really all we need to be introduced to Serafin, a lithe, athletic, self-absorbed showman. Add Cole Porter’s delicious rhyming couplets to the mix and it’s impossible to resist – Niña and schizophrenia? What more do you want for your money? Well, how about ‘Be a Clown’ with Gene and The Nicholas Brothers? This number is the film’s undoubted highlight, and Gene deserve enormous credit for breaking all kinds of pre-Civil Rights Movement taboos with a dancing team who, because of their colour, never had the career they deserved. And in the eldest brother, Fayard, had, in my opinion, the finest dancer cinema has ever known. The three of them threaten to burst forth from the screen and cartwheel up and down the aisles.

The number that had the biggest effect on me was easily the ‘Pirate Ballet.’ I’ve always loved it, but in its proper setting, good God… Ladies and gay guys, I get it! Gene moves with the ferocity of a sexual panther, a testosterone-fueled force of malevolence with masculinity crackling through every rippling sinew. When Gene made his first appearance in the film, I had scrawled in my notes: ‘Douglas Fairbanks he ain’t.’ However, after the ‘Pirate Ballet,’ I put a line through that and replaced it with this: ‘More swash in his buckle than a thousand Fairbanks.’

With so much attention focussed on Gene this week, I had forgotten that I had never seen Judy on the big screen before, either. She was truly something to behold. The camera doesn’t so much love her as caress her face with an adoration and gentleness I didn’t even know existed. Judy Garland has an innate light that pulsates through every fibre of her being and you could illuminate the Eastern Seaboard with the wattage of her star quality. If ‘Mack the Black’ reveals the passion that is bubbling under the surface in Manuela, then the expression on her face prior to her ‘Pirate Ballet’ fantasy reveals a hitherto unexplored psychosexual and sadomasochistic side to her nature – she wants Macoco to ravage her completely then scoop up her withering remains with a spoon. Begs the question why she then settles for the preening, spineless Serafin? Still, Lois Lane was in love with Superman and settled for Clark Kent, so what do I know?

I must also mention the supporting cast here who are uniformly excellent, particularly Walter Slezak, whose snivelling Mayor scuffs the ground repeatedly with his foot to underline his pomposity, and Lester Allen as Manuela’s Uncle Capucho who has no more than a couple of lines to utter and spends the rest of the time smoking a pipe and grinning like a slightly sinister monkey.

1948 is perhaps the most important year of Gene’s career, he made giant leaps both as a choreographer and a performer with his work here and on ‘Slaughter on Tenth Avenue’ in Words and Music. You can see the creative genius beginning to emerge and redefine the genre; it not only heralded the beginning of Gene’s great period, but also announced that the zenith of the film musical was imminent.
Last word, as usual, to Pat: “That was remarkably good! I had never even heard of it. It was great to see him not playing an American for once…”

In case you missed them, here are my other reviews on the Glasgow Film Festival.

NOTE: If you haven’t met my fellow viewer Pat, be sure to check out my previous reviews before embarking on this one.

Back into Gene’s ‘great’ period this morning with a musical that is criminally underrated. Pat thought he had heard of Busby Berkeley before and as I explained who he was and how Gene was diametrically opposed to his directorial style via the “back to 1930” story — Berkeley was instructing the camera to go “back, back, back” and Gene was heard to mutter “Yeah, back to 1930”  – Pat barked rather abruptly: “Kelly should have known his place! There were other people around then, too. I mean, who did he think he was?” Hmm… Maybe this so-called “Astaire man” isn’t quite ready to join the Gene Appreciation Society just yet, or maybe this morning’s choice of music, Ritchie Valens’ ‘La Bamba’ (chosen, I’m quite certain, by cinema staff specifically to irritate the old curmudgeon), had put him in a worse mood than I thought.

Again, Gene’s performance here in Take Me Out to the Ballgame is one of his best, particularly in the ‘Umpire’ scene and in the dinner scene with the rest of the ball team, which is so good, in fact, that I can forgive him that woefully unfunny impression of a cooch dancer. Since Gene and Stanley Donen wrote the story, it’s reasonable to assume that the scene where Gene and Jules Munshin coach Frank in his attempted seduction of that big amphibious broad with shoulders like Johnny Weismuller is a conceit of Gene’s and a result of his affection for Cyrano de Bergerac. Whatever its genesis, it’s played with genuine comic flair and had the audience hooting with delight.

Jules Munshin adds another dimension to Gene and Frank’s obvious chemistry, his Jewish sense of humour a perfect foil for the Irish hoofer and the Italian crooner – quite a cosmopolitan trio when you think about it. The ‘O’Brien to Ryan to Goldberg’ number is a constant source of joy and Jules shines with his violin/baseball anecdote. I gather he divides Gene fans and that’s understandable, I suppose, given that his type of humour could be perceived as a bit too broad for some and his dancing is barely average, but I have nothing but a deep and abiding affection for him. I feel exactly the same way about Betty Garrett, she is an irresistible little bundle of joyous energy and visibly sizzles in her scenes with Frank – the ‘It’s Fate’ number an obvious forerunner of On the Town’s ‘Come Up to My Place.’

It’s impossible to know for sure exactly how much of the film was directed by Berkeley and how much of it by Gene and Stanley, the latter standing in for the former on several occasions due to his personal problems. There certainly wasn’t much scope for Gene to push the boundaries of dance on film, but with one of the great American perennials and a simple Vaudevillian construct for the opening number, who’s complaining? Another Comden and Green script helps immensely and with the added caveat of their lyric. Also, how many songs can you name that reference college suicides and the age of sexual consent in certain southern states? They also provided Gene, possibly with the help of an uncredited Roger Edens, with the only opportunity he ever had to do an ‘Oirish’ number: ‘The Hat My Dear Old Father Wore,’ complete with Emerald green cocked ‘tile,’ shillelagh and noble expression while tin whistles, bodhrans, and bagpipes segue seamlessly in and out of The Wearing of the Green. His footwork in this number is mesmerising — clean, crisp and hinting at the greatness that was to follow.

As much as I adore this film there is one moment that just… Well, two words: Look away. And is that the guys who minced around with June Allyson in that lame medieval number in Words and Music (1948) on the team? The twins that pass Jules the bread at dinner, I mean. Pat was nonplussed at the end, I’m afraid to say, and quickly went off to complain about the temperature in the cinema, Baltic, while I popped into the toilet to whistle ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game.’

Oh, I read somewhere that Berkeley wanted to showcase Esther Williams in one of her usual ridiculously overblown water features, but Gene vetoed the idea… God bless that guy.

The entire series may be found here: Glasgow Film Festival.

A fairly sparse crowd as expected, but still better than I anticipated for a Monday morning. This is not a favourite musical of mine and when I bought my tickets initially this film was not included. However, a combination of the fact that this was one of the films that introduced me to Gene in the mid ’70s — I also remember a ‘Christmas with Kelly’ season on BBC 1 with Anchors Aweigh on 22nd December, On the Town on 23rd December and Singin’ in the Rain on Christmas Eve — and the sense of joy that had started to pulsate through my bloodstream at being in the midst of a film-a-day Gene festival, I happily succumbed. I also got a huge kick of saying to the girl in the ticket office: “One for Anchors Aweigh, please.” A phrase I never thought I’d hear myself say at any point in my life.

The daily ritual had now been well and truly established: take my usual seat at the back of cinema, wait for Pat to appear, explain the reason why the GFT is having a Gene Kelly Festival (again) and listen to today’s complaint — the music playing was not the correct accompaniment for the film, apparently (even though it was a Gene CD) — and enjoy Allan Hunter’s engaging introduction.

I always had three major problems with Anchors Aweigh: José Iturbi, Kathryn Grayson and the running time. Iturbi, I can only imagine, must have been Hollywood’s idea of a great conductor, in the same way that Mario Lanza was considered a great tenor. He mugs his way through the entire picture with the subtlety of a scenery chewing homunculus. Thanks to the ludicrous running time of over two hours and twenty minutes, George Sidney’s pointless meanderings around Hollywood Bowl, the stuff with that way-too-cute kid and a bunch of numbers that should never have seen the light of day Iturbi is in good company. “It needs tighter direction,” whispered Pat halfway through in a spirited attempt to nab the ‘Understatement of the Century Award.’ However, to my complete amazement, the woman I had previously denounced as having the sex appeal of a female footballer in a bear suit effortlessly won me over. Maybe it was the big screen, or maybe it was, again, a result of Gene festival disarmament, but I found Kathryn Grayson just adorable — even in that ridiculous sky blue angora sweater. Her classical singing is still an acquired taste, I must say, and if Snow White on helium is your thing then she’s your gal; it’s like having your ears assailed by a Victorian teakettle.

Then there’s Joe Brady… Joe Brady. These two words probably have more impact upon the female populous of Gene Kelly fandom than any others. I’ve lost count of the number of postings I’ve read about the sea wolf in the sailor suit, the phone call to Lola the skank and the ‘Suzy Song.’ Maybe if I wasn’t a heterosexual male I’d appreciate the film just a tad more. It is undoubtedly one of Gene’s better acting performances, which isn’t really saying a great deal, and much of that must be attributed to the obvious chemistry he had with Frank Sinatra. Frank is the better actor by some distance and possesses a wonderful naturalism that Gene was rarely capable of; Gene is excellent in the ‘let’s pretend Aunt Suzy gets passed around the military like a slutty peace pipe’ scene, but it belongs to Frank. Other than an all too brief rendition of ‘I Fall in Love Too Easily’ Frank’s songs are mostly forgettable, an inexplicable fact given that they were written by Jules Styne and Sammy Cahn.

According to most critics Gene’s solos are a mixed bag, but I love them all. His number with Jerry the Mouse is one of the most magical moments in cinema, his routine with the little Mexican girl who hated Stanley Donen is sweet and engaging. And even though his Spanish Bandit routine is about as authentic as a plate of paella at Coney Island, he pulls it off with his unique brand of chutzpah: I heard a bellowing laugh from the middle of the theatre when Gene was unveiled in his bright yellow shirt and had a little giggle myself. It’s too easy to be flippant and cynical about this film; I need to remember that it was made just after the war when people were looking for joy and escapism and Gene gave them plenty of that here — the film also made an absolute fortune. I, sort of, rediscovered an old affection for it and as Pat wandered off to complain to GFT staff about the pre-feature music I found myself unconsciously whistling ‘We Hate to Leave’ in the cinema’s crowded toilet. What’s that old saying about whistling the tunes as you’re leaving the show?

Come back tomorrow for another review, and if you missed the others,
please find them at the series home. (More Pat is included, we promise!)

An American in Paris at 11 o’clock on a Sunday morning? This will gauge the true extent of Gene’s appeal in the old city, and, I have to say, the turnout was pretty good, much better than I had anticipated — not like yesterday’s packed-to-the-rafters crowd, but pretty close. As usual we began with an introduction from Allan Hunter and a thank you to the sponsors of the festival — Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, Creative Scotland, and Event Scotland.

A chap in the seat in front of me, who had clearly been dragged to the cinema by his girlfriend, asked, “Is this a musical?” Not a good start. Then, to my utter astonishment, I spotted Pat bounding up the stairs and waving at me like an old friend. An “Astaire man” at a Sunday morning screening of An American in Paris? This was much more promising. [Read yesterday's post for more on Pat.]

Fans usually place An American in Paris either at the summit or at the second spot in the Gene pantheon. For the score, the choreography and the dancing, I would place it third. There are some problems, not least of which is the character of Jerry Mulligan: a petulant, self-righteous narcissist who also exhibits the behavioural patterns of a serial stalker. Mulligan’s wooing of Leslie Caron in the Perfume Shop is perhaps the most implausible courtship recorded on film — she makes the transition from revulsion to breathlessly charmed in precisely 1.8 seconds and all because her relentless suitor (not even Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator possesses that kind of doggedness) pretends to squirt perfume in his mouth and put one of the bottles on his head…

Gene is supposed to be playing a much younger man here, so we can maybe forgive Jerry’s atrocious behaviour in the nightclub, mere minutes after his haughty and precious indignation at Milo’s little ruse to lure him to her apartment. Personally, I’ve always preferred Nina Foch’s predatory heiress to Leslie Caron’s irritatingly childish gamine; the giant bow on Milo’s blouse when we first see her is identical to those favoured by Romantic poets like Keats, Shelley and Byron, and it tells us much about her character — the romantic notions that define her will also be her undoing.

Directorially and choreographically, the film is an unadulterated joy. Vincente Minelli and Gene have never been more masterful. Gene’s heavily choreographed morning routine was met with titters of delight by the audience and I found myself marvelling again at the movement of Minelli’s camera during the initial introductions and his use of subjective camera — very reminiscent of Ernst Lubitsch. When the camera pans from Georges Guetary and Oscar Levant to the mirror where their reflections dissolve for the beautifully framed ‘Embraceable You’ medley that showcases the various aspects of Lise’s personality, it’s difficult to think of anybody who has received a more gorgeous on screen introduction than Leslie Caron is favoured with here.

Georges Guetary is more than an able replacement for the original choice of Maurice Chevalier and his rendition of ‘I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise,’ complete with unruly displays of affection from adoring fan girls, is a splendid evocation of Parisian Music Halls. Although his romantic ‘advice’ to a typically self-absorbed Jerry amounts to this: tell her you love her and ignore every other aspect of the relationship… and reality. That Jerry is not only dumb enough to believe this, but to actually put it into practice, is always met by a silent cheer from me and the wish that both men should be woefully unhappy for the rest of their lives.

Oscar Levant was possibly as big a hit with today’s audience as Donald O’Connor was yesterday. The endearingly misanthropic and cynical Adam Cook fits Oscar’s hangdog expression and pessimistic demeanour like a surgical mask. The scene where Adam is composing ‘I Don’t Think I’ll Fall in Love Today’ while a troubled Jerry is lying on the bed is one of the film’s most natural scenes: it begins and ends with Adam whistling the tune’s melody, fitting bookends to his subtle implications about the real nature of Jerry and Milo’s relationship. It is beautifully written and played, but is all too brief. Oscar is a great pianist, too, and I wondered exactly how many people in the audience instinctively reached for the fast-forward button when he sat down to perform the Concerto in F… Ah, the magic of cinema.

Gene’s most important co-star in An American in Paris is, of course, the music of George Gershwin. The audience is treated to a compendium of varying interpretations and styles throughout: from the lushness of ‘Embraceable You,’ through the jazzy medleys in the nightclub and the achingly romantic ‘Our Love is Here to Stay’ number to the breathtaking interpretation of the ‘An American in Paris Suite’ that closes the film, you merely have to sit back and allow the genius of a master craftsman to bathe you in a heavenly light. Those close to Gershwin have commented that he probably wouldn’t have liked ‘The American in Paris Ballet,’ but surely for a dance fan who would often offer Fred Astaire terpsichorean advice on set there are many elements that would have pleased him? As a film ballet and the realisation of Gene’s vision, it simply stands alone. The music, the costumes, the colour, the lighting, the interpretations of the styles and moods of various artists, the choreography and its execution… It is a cinematic gift of riches and time has been unable to diminish its majesty.

“I much prefer this to yesterday,” said Pat excitedly, the ballet clearly having worked its considerable magic on him. “Here you can see Gene Kelly the artist, whereas yesterday it was Gene Kelly, the all American.”

More to come tomorrow… And here’s what you may have missed so far:

• Glasgow Film Festival: An Introduction
• Singin’ in the Rain at the Glasgow Film Festival

‘SOLD OUT!’ A huge red sticker slapped gleefully across the billboard. What a start. What other movie would you choose to kick off a Gene Kelly Film Festival? You bring out the big guns first and if you happen to have the greatest musical in the history of cinema and one of the top five best films ever made in your canon then you load her up…

There’s always a degree of trepidation when approaching a gathering of Gene Kelly aficionados, either virtually or otherwise. Even though I have been blessed enough to encounter some intelligent, well balanced, and thoroughly engaging people through my love of Gene, I find it prudent to prepare myself for the usual barrage of giddy middle-aged housefraus gurgling inanely at all to brief glimpses of Gene’s biceps, his legs, his ass, and the prospect of the celebrity marriage that never was but really should have been: Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. (Yes, I realize I’m stereotyping here.)

Nevertheless, I was still eager to meet some Glasgow-based Gene fans and by chance found myself seated next to a retired Social Worker called Pat, a wonderfully irascible and slightly eccentric old gentleman with flowing white hair and a beard to match — who, judging by his walking clothes, footwear, and bag of large scrolls — is either a part-time delivery man or Glasgow’s oldest fly-poster. After a warm welcome and an informative and engaging introduction from Allan Hunter, one of the Directors of the Glasgow Film Festival, Pat told me that he had never seen Singin’ in the Rain, so I told him to prepare himself for a celluloid miracle.

Allan Hunter and Allison Gardner. GFF 2011

I won’t waste much time reviewing the film, for there really isn’t much that can be said about this celestial masterpiece that hasn’t been said already. Pacing, direction, editing, screenplay, choreography, score and performances: just perfection. If you remove the musical numbers then you still have a great film and I maintain that Singin’ in the Rain is the only musical about which than can be said, so take a bow Betty Comden and Adolph Green for a quite brilliant and endlessly hilarious script.

The audience burst into spontaneous applause during the film on three occasions: Donald’s physically impossible ‘Make ‘em Laugh’ routine; Gene and Donald’s ‘Moses Supposes,’ one of the most scintillating tap routines on film; and, of course, Gene’s peerless titular number and the sequence that bestowed upon him a cinematic immortality — I’ve waited about 40 years to see that number on the big screen and I’m not ashamed to admit that I welled up a little, not just for obvious reasons, but for the memories of childhood viewings with people long since departed: the power of Gene, folks.

The audience found Donald extremely funny, but I still laughed more at Jean Hagen’s Lina Lamont, surely one of the funniest creations and greatest comic characters in cinema. Don Lockwood is one of the few characters of Gene’s that I actually like, yes he’s cocky and full of himself, but he has the good grace and humility to realise it. Cyd’s legs on the big screen deserve to be marked with a national monument and unlike Angelina Jolie’s gaunt gam and bony knee thrust deliberately in front of a bewildered Academy Awards audience, they’re show stopping for all the right reasons.

Cyd vs. Angelina

When I asked Pat, buried beneath a sky blue fishing hat, for his opinion, he remarked that the comedy was ‘too broad’ and that he was more of an ‘Astaire man.’ He appeared shocked to learn that I, too, was an ‘Astaire man,’ because it’s either/or, not both, apparently…like The Beatles and The ‘Stones. Most of us know this is patently not true, of course; read Jennifer’s excellent essay for a complete understanding and appreciation of their differences.

The atmosphere upon leaving the cinema was electric, a cacophony of euphoric exclamation and elation. I had taken an umbrella with me in the hope that it was still raining outside and that I might get a chance to ‘use’ it. It wasn’t raining but I still put it up and quickly jumped into a puddle on the secluded street where I parked my car; it wasn’t a passing policeman that brought me to an abrupt halt, but a parking ticket on my windscreen. So, all in all, this afternoon spent watching my favourite film of all time has cost me £66 (£36 if I pay the fine in a fortnight), but I’d happily pay much more than that to repeat today’s experience.

Packed house for Singin' in the Rain at the GFT.

The introduction of this Glasgow Film Series may be found here. More to come tomorrow…

For cinemagoers who need substantially more than vegetarian vampires and excruciating romantic comedies with indistinguishable female leads (who could be Goldie Hawn’s daughter, or that ’mean girl’ who went on to crash weddings, or maybe it’s that one from Friends with the hairdo), there exists, amidst the plethora of multi-plexes that now dominate the city-scape, a little picture house in the city centre that has for the past 36 years provided a cultural life-raft to the more discerning film fan.

Glasgow Film Theatre, or GFT as it’s more commonly known, takes pains to insist that it’s not exclusively an ’art house’ cinema, it has been ‘leading the way in specialised cinema for 36 years — from art house cinema to late night cult screenings and from classics back on the big screen to independent documentaries, there’s something for everyone at GFT.’

So, it was with an enormous sense of pride, overwhelming elation and some genuine surprise that I learned of GFT’s intention to include in their Film Festival the work of one of the most important creative forces in the history of film musical and a man I have adored all my life. It strikes me now as I write this that I shouldn’t have been at all surprised. Glasgow is the most obvious city in the UK in which to hold a Gene Kelly Festival: he did, after all, visit the city in 1953 (right) while scouting locations for the film Brigadoon (he visited the Trossachs, Burns Country [south Ayrshire] and the Borders), and if that link isn’t tenuous enough to make my point, how about this one? His Irish Grandfather fled to Dunfermline in Fife where he borrowed money before embarking on his trip to the USA… All Celts together.

Initially, I was astonished that the BFI in London was not screening a similar festival until it suddenly dawned on me that you simply can’t have a Gene Kelly Festival in England: I hold the romantic notion dear to me that, like everybody of Celtic heritage, while maintaining all possible civilities with our overlords from the south, Gene still harboured for them an affectionate mistrust, a friendly suspicion and a genial resentment.

The Glasgow Film Festival has always been overshadowed by its more renowned east coast equivalent, although recent reports suggest that the Edinburgh Film Festival is dwindling in popularity while ours grows from strength to strength and that, quite frankly, is precisely how it should be. The decision to screen a Gene Kelly retrospective to commemorate the centenary of the great man’s birth prompted me to cast my eyes skywards and breathe a silent “thank you” — no small feat for an atheist. Finally, this lifelong Gene fan would get to see some of the films that have helped shape and define the person he is…

Let the festivities commence…

Next: “Singin’ in the Rain at the Glasgow Film Festival”

I’ve been a dancer for 20 years now and can still recall a youth recital in which our class danced to “Singin’ In The Rain,” complete with coats and umbrellas. We watched Gene’s number before rehearsing, but that was about it for Gene and me. In fact, I didn’t watch any of his movies until the 2011 Christmas holidays. Now, I am engrossed in, as some of the other fans have said, “everything and anything Gene Kelly” including movies, books, articles, and anything else I can find!

Here’s what happened: I was recently talking with a co-worker about classic musicals, which led me to seek out films with Judy Garland, the first of which was “For Me and My Gal.” But as I watched, I found myself more interested in Garland’s handsome co-star, and then I realized it was a very young Gene Kelly. As soon as his character stepped off the train, he caught my eye. But then he danced, and I felt like that little girl in dance class again, watching him perform “Singin’ in the Rain.”

I then fell in love with more of his films including The Pirate (black shorts!), An American in Paris (“I Got Rhythm” and that ballet!), Anchors Aweigh (sailor costume, sexy phone conversations!), Cover Girl (dancing with himself), On The Town, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and Summer Stock. As you can likely tell, I especially enjoy his appearances opposite Judy Garland. But I also love his non-musical films. So far, The Devil Makes Three and The Three Musketeers are my favorites.

Gene Kelly looks so charming in a hat, especially because he never wore one the right way. Moreover, as I alluded to above, he is incredibly handsome: his eyes, that bright smile, the rugged scar he refused to cover. And as others have noted, the man did have an amazing body (those legs and, yes, that ASS). I also love the fact that he is from Pittsburgh. I live about an hour away from there, so it’s nice to read about Gene and know exactly where and what the author is referencing. For a Hollywood star, he seems as though he was a hometown guy who didn’t forget where he came from. I do hope the city erects a statue downtown in his honor, especially for his upcoming 100th birthday.

Gene Kelly continues to be an inspiration to me. In fact, I recently started dancing again because of his films. I would have loved to have met him, but seeing his hand/footprints in Hollywood will have to do for now, I suppose.

– Brianna

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“100 Reasons to Celebrate Gene Kelly”

The patrons came up with excellent questions about Gene Kelly, from his height — 5 feet, 8¾ inches and “he was serious about those three quarters of an inch” — to his political activism and how it influenced his work (e.g., he refused to make The Pirate (1948) unless the Nicholas Brothers could be in it). And there was the expected question of whether or not Gene had a favorite dance partner. From my research, Gene was always very tactful about answering that question. Kerry was as well, saying that he always picked his dance partners based on the style of dance the scene called for. And although she did mention that he particularly enjoyed working with highly trained dancers, she said that even they came with their own set of challenges.

Ever wonder what Gene did to stay in shape when he was in between movies? Surprisingly, he didn’t have a set exercise routine.  He would play various sports, but that was pretty much it. According to Kerry, “He was blessed with the best metabolism in the world.” He would gain a little bit of weight when he wasn’t working on a movie, but as soon as he went into rehearsals, it dropped right off again.

When asked about her father’s friendship with Fred Astaire, she pointed out something that I didn’t know about Easter Parade (1948). Like many fans, I knew Gene was originally supposed to star in the musical with Judy Garland but because he broke his ankle, the part went to Astaire. What I didn’t know is that before Gene broke his ankle, he had choreographed the first dance number and they kept his choreography for that scene. So in Easter Parade, you can see Fred Astaire doing Gene Kelly’s choreography, which is something I’m going to have to watch for next time I see that movie.

Kerry also had plenty of childhood memories to discuss. She talked about how after dinner every night, she would choose a topic and she and her father would read about it together in the encyclopedia. When asked if she ever considered getting into the film industry, she mentioned briefly wanting to be a set designer, but she knew pretty early on that she was interested in psychology. Earlier in the evening, while introducing “The Mexican Hat Dance” number from Anchors Aweigh (1945), she said that she really wanted to play the little girl but wasn’t allowed to because she couldn’t pass as a Mexican.

One person asked if Kerry had a favorite memory of visiting her father’s sets and she said that during the production of Singin’ in the Rain (1952), she found it interesting to see adults learning new things. “When you’re a kid, you tend to think that adults just know everything,” she informed us. So by going to the set and seeing Debbie Reynolds working so hard to learn the dances, it showed her that nobody ever just knows everything and that it’s important to keep learning new things.

Overall, the evening was truly wonderful. Kerry was nice, approachable, and witty, and I’m thrilled to have had the opportunity to hear more about Gene from someone who was so close to him. (Image at right: Kerry Kelly Novick with her husband, Jack Novick. More about them, their books on child psychology, and their Ann Arbor preschool here.)

• Palace Theatre, 109-113 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W1V 8AY
• Times: Matinees: Wednesday and Saturday 3pm; Evenings: Monday and Tuesday 7pm, Wednesday to Saturday 7.30pm
• Booking Until: 29 September 2012
• Running Time: 2 hours 30 minutes

While watching the film fest, I quickly got a hint of Kelly’s physical capabilities with the Brando dance at the end of Les Girls (1957), but An American In Paris (1951) was a virtual thesis in his athleticism and fitness: the feisty tap on the piano in “Tra La La La” (why did he have to cover that tank top up?), jumping onto the fountain, wearing that skintight jumpsuit.

Great art makes you think. Here was Gene bouncing around like a kid at 39, and I could barely waddle across the room. I never considered that I could be fit, but Gene made me think that maybe it was possible. Still I remained stationary, except for searching for “everything Kelly” I could get my hands on. For instance, I couldn’t stop admiring

• The Pirate‘s (1948) fantasy ballet sequence (those thighs, oh dear).
• The vaudeville scene in Singin’ In the Rain (1952), which showcases his biceps in a sleeveless shirt.
• The bandit chief tango and swing through the air in Anchors Aweigh (1945).
• His graceful and seemingly impossible tap-dance on rollerskates in It’s Always Fair Weather (1955).
• And his athleticism in Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949), where he threw Frank Sinatra around like a sack of feathers, leapfrogged up a balcony, and tapped on one foot in “The Hat My Father Wore.”

If these films are a master’s class in the physical fitness of Gene Kelly, then The Three Musketeers (1948) is the doctorate. Note, for instance, Kelly’s leap over the statue, the shishkebabbing of half of France, and the signature move of his lying on his back with legs afloat and leaping to his feet, a move also seen in Thousands Cheer (1943) and Anchors Aweigh.

I also loved the Saturday Evening Post article from around the time of Summer Stock (1950) when Gene said his warmup was “60 pushups in 60 seconds!” Then I found the Ed Sullivan video where he did the push-up thing with Sullivan on his back, assuring him he wouldn’t drop him. The next day I went downstairs and began riding my old stationary bike; eventually I moved outside when the weather got nice. A year later I walked/jogged my first of six half-marathons.

Gene Kelly comes along during my training and these races via iPod. You can only guess what I was listening to and singing in a downpour last fall (the other racers got a hoot out of it.) While there were other factors involved in my decision to get in shape, Gene’s example was certainly a motivator. I think he’d appreciate the thought and the effort. And I hope the same inspiration happens for other fans for years to come.

Patty Grove
Rothschild, Wisconsin

Submit your contribution to
“100 Reasons to Celebrate Gene Kelly”

Clocking in at only 5 minutes, the tale is well worth your time. Moreover, I can almost guarantee it will bring a smile to your face, especially if you’ve ever wanted to strap on a pair of tap shoes and try out the art yourself.

Download Now (4.58 MB)

I actually kissed Gene Kelly. It’s true! He came to my university to give an “in-service” to our dance department and they had him come out to the football game that Saturday and wave to the crowd (he would have been in his early ’70s at the time). I was in the marching band on the field at the moment and as we were finding our way back to our seats, I caught up to him as he was walking out….leaned in…said, “Thank you, Mr. Kelly” and kissed his cheek!!!! I can’t believe I was that bold to invade his personal space, but I was young and stupid, so I didn’t think about that at the time. Wouldn’t do it today, but at least I have a good story to tell. He didn’t say anything or push me away – but he also didn’t stop walking. I wish I had a picture of it because it all seems like a dream now…. but the memory in my mind’s eye will have to do.

Unmatchable Talent and Star Power

Sure, many classical film fans still love “non-MGMers” like Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, June Haver, Gordon MacRae, and Doris Day, but there is no question that MGM’s contract players were in a class by themselves. No other studio can compare to MGM’s “triple-threat-trio” of Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Judy Garland (below). It’s virtually impossible. The other studios tried and, in turn, fared relatively well on the whole, but with those three names (among many others), the musical stars of other studios couldn’t compare.

Talented people hanging out together.

The Freed Unit

What do Singin’ in the Rain, The Band Wagon, Easter Parade, Meet Me in St. Louis, On the Town, and Gigi have in common? Other than the distinction of being some of the greatest musicals ever made, they were all produced by one brilliant man: Arthur Freed (pictured below with Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland). While to this day it’s hard to determine Freed’s exact contributions to all of these films, we can say with certainty that his movies and his “Freed Unit” at MGM are virtually beyond compare.

The producer also had the gift of honing the best talent, both in front of and behind the camera. For example,

• Gene Kelly made his film debut in the Freed-produced For Me and My Gal and rarely worked outside the Freed Unit.
• Similarly, Cyd Charisse made her journey from featured dancer to leading lady in Freed’s capable hands.
• As well, Vincente Minnelli was brought into films (and directing) because of Freed, who admired his work on Broadway.

Arthur Freed also had the knack for choosing the right talent for the right movie, whether it was enlisting arranger/later Associate Producer Roger Edens, voice coach and arranger Kay Thompson, or screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green. For more information on these geniuses behind the scenes, check out Hugh Fordin’s book entitled MGM’s Greatest Musicals, the most in-depth book published to date about life at the Freed Unit.

Star-studded birthday party

The MGM Studio Orchestra

While Twentieth Century Fox might have had the highest quality sound studio, MGM contracted arguably the greatest players, conductors, and orchestrators. Once MGM’s musicals grew in popularity around 1944, the studio expanded to hire more professional orchestral musicians. The result? The signature MGM sound heard in every musical from Meet Me in St. Louis onward. A strings section without peer, a killer horns section, and brilliant arrangers and orchestrators at the helm like Lennie Hayton, Roger Edens, Alexander Courage, and the grossly underrated Conrad Salinger, MGM’s Studio Orchestra possessed a finesse like no other.

Johnny Green conducting the MGM Studio Orchestra

Joyful, Memorable Moments

The MGM Musicals are full of iconic moments that make us smile, simple as that.

• Gene Kelly dances in the rain and flashes us that dazzling smile.
• Judy Garland “gets happy” in Summer Stock. 
• Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse effortlessly dance in the dark in The Band Wagon.
• Garland finally breaks down Astaire’s impeccable style and class when they mug like “A Couple of Swells” in Easter Parade.
• Louis Jourdan realizes he’s actually in love with Leslie Caron’s Gigi.
• Garland and Mickey Rooney sing and dance their way to stardom by “putting on a show” over and over.

Of course, I could go on and on as MGM’s musicals are some of the most joyful ever made.

A Comfort-Food Quality

MGM musical stars are our close friends and extended family, and the films themselves are our medicine when we’re taking a sick day or when we’re feeling down. Plus, they’re easily rewatchable. I’ll never get sick of revisiting Judy Garland and Gene Kelly together in Summer Stock, or Garland and Astaire in Easter Parade. In fact, I’d even say that — as a singer and film buff — my life is happier and richer because of MGM’s musicals. I’m thankful that for a few magical years, the “stars in the heavens” were perfectly aligned and movie magic was created on those MGM soundstages. The films are irreplaceable, and to say they’re special is an understatement. They’re an important part of film history, and they are eternally joyful.

• 6. Gene Kelly Fan vs. Scholar
• 5. Gene Kelly: The Scar, The Rug, The Number, The Stilettos
• 4. Gene Kelly: Status, Style, and Substance
• 3. Getting Hooked On, Teaching About, and Rating Gene Kelly
• 2. Gene Kelly’s Prominence in American Film
• 1. Dancing in the Rain: Gene Kelly, the BBC, and Me

After the famous MGM lion’s roar, we first hear in That’s Entertainment the iconic song “Singin’ in the Rain.” Soon after, we spot Frank Sinatra, who begins the narration and presents a montage of films in which that song was used: from the pioneer The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to the unforgettable film that bears the same title starring Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. But it will take almost an hour until viewers actually see Kelly on screen at age 62 praising Fred Astaire’s dancing skills and proclaiming Astaire his favorite dance partner (from Ziegfeld Follies‘ “The Babbit and the Bromide,” 1945). Then sweetly, as if to repay the favor, Astaire — alone onscreen — hosts and complements several clips from Kelly’s works.

The success of That’s Entertainment made a second movie almost mandatory. That’s Entertainment, Part II (1976) boasted two special hosts: Kelly and Astaire. Seeing them onscreen together after 30 years was magic — just like seeing Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton together in Limelight (1952). This sequel featured other stars who weren’t in musicals like the Marx Brothers, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy. Also, this second documentary showed lesser-known numbers such as the amazing dancing sequence by Greta Garbo and Kelly’s dancing with cartoon cobras in An Invitation to the Dance (1956).

Nine years after That’s Entertainment II, another dance/musical documentary was released, That’s Dancing! (1985). This one didn’t focus solely on MGM productions however; rather, it featured several clips from other studios and presented talents never seen on the previous films of the series. Jack Haley Jr., who produced the first two That’s Entertainments, also wrote and directed That’s Dancing! Likewise, Kelly narrates and hosts a segment on, oddly enough, break-dancing.

Released in 1994, That’s Entertainment, Part III, the final movie of the series, included stills and numbers never before shown onscreen including Judy Garland’s deleted “Mr. Monotony routine” from Easter Parade (1948), which would be revised for the finale of Summer Stock (1950). Although TEIII brought Esther Williams as a hostess, marking her first screen appearance since 1963, it was also a bit sad because it was Gene Kelly’s last film; he passed away two years later.

Without a doubt, Kelly’s scenes in the That’s Entertainment trilogy and That’s Dancing! are a highlight. I should also note that in the second part, Gene is the director, a function he mastered in previous musicals like On the Town (1949), Singin’ in the Rain (1952), and Hello Dolly! (1969). He also insisted on Astaire as his co-host, taking the actor out of retirement and rehearsing with him the brief numbers that introduced the clips.

This entire series wouldn’t have been the same without Gene Kelly, not only because of his hosting abilities, but also because of his undeniable contribution to musicals. As our readers likely know, Kelly revolutionized the genre with memorable numbers like the on-location sequence in On the Town, the huge “An American in Paris Ballet” (cited in That’s Entertainment as the biggest success at MGM), the title number from Singin’ in the Rain, and the surprising tap-dance in roller skaters in It’s Always Fair Weather (1955). He also danced with himself, with Cyd Charisse, Leslie Caron, Rita Hayworth, Jerry the Mouse (right), and with a squeaky board and a newspaper.

Finally, there is Kelly’s capacity to make people smile. It’s evident wherever you look: in tweets, in comments on YouTube, in blogs and forums. In fact, watching Kelly’s films and numbers has allowed me to survive some tough times with happiness and hope. This That’s Entertainment trilogy is clearly my “guilty pleasure,” but that’s okay. After all, Gene Kelly is still the epitome of joy and, like Frank Sinatra announced in That’s Entertainment!, boy, do we need it now!

Ethel Kennedy’s starry birthday surprise from RFK

Now a junior in high school, I think to myself, “Why can’t films be like that anymore?” My answer: “Because a certain Gene Kelly isn’t in them or directing them.”

I was crushed when I found out Gene died one year after I was born. I would have loved to have met him and have seen other things he could have accomplished. It’s a shame that he isn’t here anymore. He is my inspiration; I’m trying to be a successful thespian myself. Still, no one can beat the awesomeness of Gene Kelly, and no one can be compared to him.” — Macie

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“100 Reasons to Celebrate Gene Kelly”

I was prompted to write this post because I’m currently reading Todd Decker’s Music Makes Me: Fred Astaire and Jazz, a book focused solely on Astaire’s singing career. It’s a fascinating account of the dancer’s contribution to American popular music, and it made me wonder why there is no similar source devoted to Kelly’s vocals. Granted, Kelly didn’t introduce countless original standards by the likes of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Johnny Mercer as Astaire did, but his singing voice was almost always his segue into his legendary dances. And before Hollywood, he was singing live on Broadway in the critically acclaimed Pal Joey. Kelly was no slouch as a singer, to be sure.

A few examples of Kelly’s singing prowess:

• What would “Singin’ in the Rain” be without his joyful vocal rendition preceding it? He sings in the rain before he dances, remember. Plus, his version of the song, though recorded by countless others including Judy Garland, Usher, and Jamie Cullum is still the definitive rendition.
• Moreover, would Kelly’s dreamy “The Heather on the Hill” duet with Cyd Charisse in Brigadoon be nearly as romantic without his soft and crystal clear voice serenading her before they dance on MGM’s soundstage version of Scotland? I think not. The cut track from Brigadoon, “There But For You Go I,” is my personal favourite vocal performance of Kelly’s, and it’s a crime that it didn’t make it into the movie. Not many singers are able to make me tear up just listening to them, but the first time I heard the outtake, there were definitely tears in my eyes as I marveled at his emotional and honest performance.
• Finally, just this morning I was listening to the Les Girls soundtrack and was blown away by the power in Kelly’s voice at the end of his duet with Kay Kendall, “You’re Just Too Too!” Take a listen when you get a chance! It’s a side to his singing he shied away from showing us until 1957.

In a discussion of Kelly’s singing voice, we must not forget his pairings with Judy Garland. She brought out the best in his singing voice, and he brought out the best in her dancing — arguably a match made in heaven. Their infectious “For Me and My Gal” duet showcases her alto voice, which blends perfectly with his tenor. Moreover, their “You, Wonderful You” duet in Summer Stock is the definition of adorable as their two vocals blend in perfect harmony. Forget Garland and Sinatra’s or Garland and Crosby’s duets: I’ll take Garland’s and Kelly’s perfectly paired voices over theirs any day (not that I’m biased, of course).

One singing-related anecdote from the set of Kelly’s 1944 film Cover Girl has always stayed with me. In the film, Kelly premiered to the world one of Jerome Kern’s most beautiful songs, “Long Ago and Far Away.” Kern was in the studio the day Kelly recorded the song, so the latter was noticeably nervous. In fact, Kelly was never particularly confident and even self-conscious about his voice, so to have Kern himself in the studio that day only added to his tension. Kelly went for the first take, and nervously waited for Kern to weigh in. After some silence, Kern replied, “If you want to make the old man happy, please sing it again.” Pretty high praise from one of the great American songwriters.

In closing, Kelly had a unique tenor voice, great control of his sound, and more than ably serenaded his many leading ladies. So the next time you watch him in a movie, while you’ll likely always gravitate to his dancing first, you might also pay close attention to his singing voice. If you do, I think you’ll gain a whole new appreciation for the Hollywood legend that is Gene Kelly.

Sources and Further Reading

Hirschhorn, Clive.  Gene Kelly: A Biography.  New York: St. Martin’s, 1985.

In the late 1920s, some U.S. citizens, churchgoers, and government officials complained copiously about the movies’ depictions of sex and violence. “Motion pictures are too risque! They’re corrupting our children! They’re of the Devil!” To this end, Hollywood studio moguls hired a bunch of white Catholic men to sit in a room and come up with various rules to apply to their films (better the studios do this than the government, they thought). Sure enough, the men finally came up with a doctrine, which they called ”The Formula” and later “The Don’ts and the Be Carefuls“; it featured regulations like “no white slavery is allowed onscreen,” “there should be no branding of people or animals, and “the clergy should not be ridiculed.” But here’s the thing: no one working in the industry really paid attention to these laws; they kept churning out the pictures they wanted to. Directors wanted their onscreen sex and violence, dammit.

But in 1934, many believed the industry had now run grossly amuck with its gratuitous depictions of scantily clad women and bloodshed. As a result, a more severe group of rules was created and implemented. This would be named The Production Code or Hays Code after the head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA), Will Hays, a politician hired to “clean up Hollywood” after the Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle scandal among other things.

In short, The Hays Code would reign supreme throughout the studio era (1930s-1960ish), enforcing certain moral standards so audience members would not “be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin.” This means that for virtually 30 years, Hollywood shuns representations of sex, lustful or excessive kissing, nudity, homosexuality (labeled “sexual perversion” in the Code), and adultery or illicit sex. Certainly, these things were implied all the time in film; you’ve seen, for instance, the tower in Casablanca, the train/tunnel at the end of North By Northwest, and Astaire’s/Rogers’s romantic dances like “Night and Day.” All symbols of sexual intercourse. Still, literal representations like those in cinema today were forbidden.

With this in mind, it’s always fun to discover something that gets past those old white men who sat and watched movies in the Hays office all day long, looking for exposed nipples and costumes that revealed too much. So without further ado, I give you this shot/clip from The Pirate (1948), starring Gene Kelly and Judy Garland…

(Our thanks to the lovely Sepia Dreamer for posting the pic on Tumblr.)

• Gene Kelly had a most spectacular ass. Watching it is akin to a religious experience. (via @phoenix_emrys)
• Gene Kelly’s ass. Like for real, tho. #favoritethingsinclassicfilm (via @avardvark)
• Gene Kelly should pretty much *always* be in tights. #AnAmericanInParis (via @jillian6475)
• Gene Kelly puts the “ass” in assets! (via @chrissysago)
• GENE KELLY’S ARSE, YOU GUYS. (via @shelikeswaves)
• Chillin’ on the couch knitting while watching Gene Kelly’s ass. Doesn’t get much better than this. (via @phoenix_emrys)

And earlier this week, the heart-bedazzled picture above as well as this animated-gif montage of Gene’s accoutrement emerged on my Tumblr dashboard.

But it’s not just Gene Kelly’s rear-end that fans — women and men, straight and gay — are objectifying on a daily basis (yes, daily). It is also his arms, chest, scar, legs, clothes, and body in general. To accompany the following images, here are some captions, all taken from Twitter over the past month or so:

• “He was the whole package. Arm porn FTW.” (via @gamerchick02)
• “Gene, you put on your shirt far too soon!” (via @kellyakabilly)
• “Gene Kelly’s little scar drives me wild.” (via @bubblegenius)
• “Thank you God for giving us Gene Kelly…in short shorts.” (via @nxlee)
• “Gene Kelly looked damn hot in a vest.” (via @JackieHunter1)
• “Was there ever a male body as perfect as that of Gene Kelly?” #MEOW (via @saratuppen)

Still, the objectification and fetishizing and gazing and fantasizing don’t stop there. In fact, many social media users envision themselves having sex with Gene Kelly. For example, were she alive in the 1940s, The_FilmFatale “thinks [she] would have lost [her] virginity to Gregory Peck, married Jimmy Stewart, and had a brief affair with Gene Kelly.” Similarly, Fat Heffalump professes on Twitter, “Oh Gene Kelly, I do have indecent thoughts about you.” As well, while watching Anchors Aweigh (1945) one night, Bitchy Leia may or may not have “thrown [her] panties at the TV” while another fan, Mrs Friday Next, professed that Gene, the equivalent of “tap-dancing sex,” can “take [her] any time.” Finally and perhaps most directly, Donna Penski admits that she’d “fuck Gene Kelly in a New York minute.”

Men, straight and gay, play the game as well. Take BenLaVegetables and Eh_Young, for instance, who tweet respectively, “Ok, I admit it, I have a man crush on Gene Kelly #SoWhatSueMe” and “Gene Kelly really knows how to swoon anyone of any kind.” The same goes for Grand Hotel, who with “no fucks to give,” informs his followers he has “fantasized about sex with Gene Kelly because [he] imagines him as very versatile and fantastic at it.”

All this and we still haven’t made it to the Gene Kelly artwork and fan fiction currently being disseminated across social networks like Tumblr, livejournal, and deviantART. Some of the drawings like this one here and here from vintagestyledheart are of Kelly explicitly. But most, such as those below which are inspired by Calvin Klein’s black-and-white ad campaign and shots like this one and this from The Pirate (1948), tend to “ship” Kelly and his frequent musical co-star Judy Garland. Further, as the image to the right attests, some fans have even created the name Jugenea, borrowing from other celebrity supercouples and portmanteaux like Brangelina (Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt) and TomKat (Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes).

And then there are the fan-written fictional narratives featuring/objectifying the two stars. For example, in “Gene Is Liza’s Father” readers discover that on the MGM lot in 1943, Kelly and Garland “fornidanced” (i.e., “when two very talented people use their extreme talent to dance and fuck at the same time”) and thereby conceived Liza Minnelli. More graphically, the author of ”Do I Love You?” envisions that “Judy slid her hand around to the front of [Gene's] pants and felt the unyielding hardness of his erection. She caressed him and his grasp got stronger. He looked at her as if he was considering taking her right there, but he picked her up and carried her to the bed. Gene liked having room to make love.” The writer of “A Single Touch” and “Weak Will” likewise describes an affair between “Kelly” and “Garland” in detail: “He grasped onto her hips with a surprisingly painful grip, pulling her towards him and pushing into her with the same hunger yet fulfilling tenderness she yearned for.” Finally, I’ve also been directed to pieces of Singin’ in the Rain fan fiction that place Gene Kelly’s Don Lockwood, Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor), and Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) in a ménage à trois.

So what is going on here? Why is the world of social media objectifying and fetishizing Gene Kelly (as well as his co-star) so much and so often? Of course, this is not limited to the song-and-dance man; it occurs hourly on the Internet via shared images, memes, fan fiction, and artwork of other classical stars like Paul Newman and Clark Gable as well as current public figures like Ryan Gosling, Timothy Olyphant, Josh Charles, Colin Firth, and the Old Spice guy. With this in mind, I asked a romance scholar (she reads/researches romance novels) her opinion on the matter and whether this new/inverted gaze was fueled, in part, by the TV series Sex and the City as well as the Internet and our ability to self-publish. She replied that actually, romance novels began heavily objectifying men and grew more erotic in the early 1990s, pre-Carrie Bradshaw and company. Ultimately, she thinks that “the gaze just shifted” and that perhaps (or hopefully) “it’s feminism finally doing its work.”

I’d venture to bet, however, that Sex and the City as well as other shows and pop-culture phenomena that preceded it like Oprah, Madonna, Designing Women, The Golden Girls, Murphy Brown, and Seinfeld (Elaine Benes), all of whom/which (at times) consider men from a female perspective, did play a little part in this shift. I further argue that the steadying decline of religion, an institution that traditionally constrains women’s activity, voice, and sex drive, as well as our society’s growing openness about and/or attention to gender and sexuality contributes to this female gaze as well.

But mostly, I think we can thank (or admonish?) the Internet, smartphones, and social media for this as they have leveled the playing field somewhat. In other words, while much of the entertainment and news media still reinforce a conventional male perspective (e.g., women function as objects, victims, and arm-candy who should maintain impossible body images), social media, which in many instances is currently dominated by women, may promote a modern female perspective. Indeed, popular sites/blogs like Jezebel, The Hairpin, Ms. Magazine, Bitch Media, After Ellen, Healthy Women, Arianna Huffington, Feminist Ryan Gosling, Dooce, and Feministing have put women’s issues, interests, etc. in the forefront on a daily (and sometimes, hourly) basis. The same goes for hundreds of other Twitter accounts and Tumblrs and Facebook Pages, too many to list here.

This is not to say that our objectification of Gene Kelly’s and Ryan Gosling’s lips or eyes or scar or ass is not without controversy or question. After all, should women be doing the same thing to men that they’ve done to us for the past, oh, since time began? Shouldn’t we rise above that? And ultimately, shouldn’t we be teaching our children that it’s wrong to objectify either sex in this way? Those are the sorts of questions tackled recently by bloggers at The Daily Femme, Jezebel, The Good Men Project, and Salon. (See? At the forefront…) Unsurprisingly, most of these posts say no, women should not feel remorse for fetishizing men and that this is not a double standard. Here’s why, according to the authors:

1. Unlike many women, “men do not have trouble being taken seriously based on their looks or perceived sexiness, nor is their worth in society primarily judged by them.” Moreover, men will not be told throughout their lives that “their primary value is based on whether women want to fuck them. They will not be paid less on the dollar, or subject to violence in representation or acts. They will not be treated like meat or chattel.”
2. As well, in the long run, men’s objectification of women is far more harmful than vice-versa. Some proof to this is that “women do not harass men on the street, hire as many prostitutes, or think that a ‘titty bar’ for lunch is an excellent business get-together. Similarly, women don’t typically view men as nothing more than a sexy thing only good for a fuck.”
3. Along these same lines, recent studies have shown that when men objectify women, the latter perform more poorly in school; the reverse did not affect males’ performance. As well, unlike objectified men, objectified women may also undergo mental illnesses and shame, and in some cases, become silent and closed-off from others.
4. Finally, contrary to societal beliefs (and some religious teachings), “women like to look.”

Some of my readers will (perhaps correctly?) interpret these claims as mere justifications for women who want to fetishize male soccer players, take pictures of hot dudes on the London subway, or tweet about the majesty that is Gene Kelly’s ass. And that’s fine. It’s arguably a complicated matter that deserves more room/research than I’ve allowed here. But one thing seems fairly certain: the more widespread social media becomes and the more Gene Kelly (as well as other male stars/figures) keeps finding his way into the spotlight — yes, 15 years after his death, he’s more popular than ever — the more we’re going to see “appreciation” sites and images like these…

For more, see http://genekellysbutt.tumblr.com/

This morning via Twitter, author Jennifer Niven shared with me the following poem by American poet/author/editor Carl Sandburg. Niven also recalled visiting Gene Kelly in 1983 at his Beverly Hills home while her mother, author Penelope Niven, interviewed him for a biography on Carl Sandburg (the poet and Hollywood star were friends). “Gene was magical,” she tweeted. “So kind and warm and funny and gracious. So real. I fell in love with him and have been in love ever since.”

Lines Written for Gene Kelly to Dance To

Spring is when the grass turns green and glad.
Spring is when the new grass comes up and says, “Hey, hey!
Hey, hey!”
Be dizzy now and turn your head upside down and see how
the world looks upside down.
Be dizzy now and turn a cartwheel, and see the good earth
through a cartwheel.

Tell your feet the alphabet.
Tell your feet the multiplication table.
Tell your feet where to go, and, and watch ‘em go and come back.

Can you dance a question mark?
Can you dance an exclamation point?
Can you dance a couple of commas?
And bring it to a finish with a period?

Can you dance like the wind is pushing you?
Can you dance like you are pushing the wind?
Can you dance with slow wooden heels
and then change to bright and singing silver heels?
Such nice feet, such good feet.
More lines from this poem are featured over at Gene Kelly: Creative Geneius