THE BAND WAGON (1953)

There are two kinds of ‘Golden Age’ Hollywood movie buffs, those who think SINGING IN THE RAIN is the greatest film musical, and those who go with THE BAND WAGON.  The choice is stark: Team Gene Kelly or Team Fred Astaire?  A compendium of snappy ‘30s Hollywood tunes by Arthur Freed/Nacio Herb Brown or ‘swellegant’ ‘30s B’way sophistication from WAGON’s Arthur Schwartz/Howard Dietz?*  The jokey elan of co-directors Kelly & a young Stanley Donen or Vincente Minnelli’s swank, seamless elegance?  Thank goodness Cyd Charisse is in both, though only a specialty dancer in RAIN.  Also in common, original book & dialogue from Betty Comden & Adolph Green.  And now we’re getting somewhere since RAIN’s spoofy, tourist’s view on Hollywood, as The Silents became The Talkies, makes for delicious satire and kidding-on-the-square romance, but not the depth of view coming from Comden & Green’s insider status after a decade’s work on B’way musicals.  RAIN is fun; WAGON is fundamental.  Hilarious without kidding or getting the cutes, its satire deepened by nuts-and-bolts knowledge and ‘privileged moments.’  Who else could have written a backer’s audition scene for Jack Buchanan’s all-round theatrical genius as he sells a modern version of the Faust story to fat cat backers?*  And who but Minnelli would have staged & edited it like a cubist deconstruction?  (A two year seminar in mise en scène in two minutes.)  WAGON also the only film from legendary B’way designer Oliver Smith, with a painterly look & trompe l’oeil effects like no other film.  That Paul Klee backdrop for Astaire & Buchanan’s soft shoe!  This song one of the series of back-to-back numbers in the final act that make people recall the film as back-loaded even though it’s not.  (Great stuff all the way thru.)  Ending with Minnelli sending up his own big ballet finish in AN AMERICAN IN PARIS with Michael Kidd choreographing a nightmarishly funny Mickey Spillane like detective story.  (Mock tough guy narration written without credit by Alan Jay Lerner.)  Then an unexpectedly moving little coda to send us home thinking maybe we too could sing & dance.  (Heck, didn't even get to mention ‘Triplets.’)

LINK: Astaire’s original 1931 recording of the beer drinking ‘I Love Louisa’ song comes with unexpurgated lyrics and an all-German second verse.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDjXfFS3CY4

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Ironically, a modern musical version of the Faust story was soon to be a big B’way hit, 1955's DAMN YANKEES where a middle-aged fan sells his soul to the Devil and becomes a young baseball sensation.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: * Both songwriting teams coming up with one new number: RAIN’s ‘Make ‘Em Laugh’ (blatantly lifted from Cole Porter’s ‘Be A Clown’ in THE PIRATE) and WAGON’s ‘That’s Entertainment,’ written to order in less than an hour when producer Arthur Freed (ironically RAIN’s songwriter) asked for something just like Irving Berlin’s ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business.’