The Band Wagon

source: The Band Wagon

I was disappointed with this film as it seems, except for Fred and Cyd's scene's, the first 45 minutes were dull. Even the great dance scene's were too brief. Fred looked stiff in some of those dance routines which is something I thought I'd never say about this great dancer. The scene with Fred and Cyd with all the explosions going on could have been cut from the picture as it added nothing to these great dancers or the picture, it just stunk up the set. I guess all who thought it was a masterpiece had not seen Fred's earlier works. The dance in the park was worth the price of admission as Cyd and Fred excelled in it. The picture should have had more like it.

I've come to the conclusion that Vincente Minelli and Oscar Levant are cinematic poison. Imagine how good An American in Paris and Brigadoon could have been if Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly had been the directing team. Imagine how much better all movies, TV shows and piano recitals could have been without Oscar Levant, whose main claim to fame was that he was a friend of George Gershwin. Astaire and Charisse are phenomenal, but even they can't redeem this mishmash of forgettable songs, tortuous plotting and second-rate supporting actors/singers/dancers. They deserved better.

I am a very big fan of most film musicals, but this one always left me cold. The plot is not very engaging or involving, and Fred Astaire is not really a very likable character here-whereas in most, if not all of his other films, he is always very likable. The dance numbers are really nothing special-compare some of the ones here with say, Fred Astaire and Eleanore Powell in Broadway Melody of 1940!!No comparison. Now that film had some great dancing , superb, especially the finale, "Begin the Beguine". I know everyone simply adores Vincente Minellis's work, and he was very talented to be sure, but this is one of the most overrated film musicals ever.

Many people seem to genuinely love "The Band Wagon", and it regularly receives top recommendations from reviewers and raters, but I just don't like this movie. Some of Fred Astaire's numbers are top notch, such as "Shine on My Shoes" and Fred and Cyd's number "Dancing in the Dark", and by themselves deserve a top rating. However, the plot is irritating, particularly the characters laboriously plodding through trying to bring to fruition producer Jeffrey Cordova's (Jack Buchanan) view of what the next great stage musical show should be like. Also, Fred and Cyd seem much too far apart in age to be a plausible romantic couple. Most irritating is that the musical numbers seem to be a hodge-podge which have nothing to do with each other. It's all too disjointed to be enjoyable. I will say this is not entirely the fault of Betty Comden and Adolph Green's writing--they were, at times, given a group of unrelated songs by MGM and requested to write a movie script that would encompass them. This film was also loosely based on their own professional relationship as a script-writing team, although they were not married, as the writers, the Martons, are in the film. If you haven't seen this movie, it IS worth watching for some of the musical numbers, and when I've seen it, I try to concentrate on those. But try as I might, I never seem to be able to warm up to this film.

I'm aware of this movie's exalted reputation; I like quite a bit of Minelli's work, and I love Cyd Charisse. But after 30 years and multiple attempts, I still can't drum up any interest in slogging through this. The songs are very low-quality; and the numbers are intrusive and unrelated to the story. The movie has barely begun and we we've had two forgettable, bottom-drawer songs. We move on to a third trifle about getting your shoes shined (?!), that just bewildered me. I'm not even on board yet... why do I care that Fred Astaire loves a shoe shine? Get this beast moving! The movie is way too long. You have to watch a play in rehearsals fail, before it gets rolling with an Act 2 plot line just as arid and feeble as the first. Fabray and Levant are just a burden. Singin in the Rain is still relevant. There's something to take away from that film. Band Wagon is just nine hours of scattershot, butt-numbing 'entertainment.' It never congeals around a single guiding idea. It just feeds new genres and clichés (hay-rides, babies, gangsters, devils, etc.) through the machinery. Singin in the Rain is a classic. Band Wagon is seriously not.

Ignore some rather dim comments above about the film's supposed failings, "The Bandwagon" is one of the definitive products of the MGM Freed unit, the last wholly great musical of its era. The score is outstanding, the pace brisk, the numbers - "By Myself", "Shine On Your Shoes", "Triplets", "I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plan" and the marvelous "Girl Hunt Ballet" - a delight. Don't quibble people, it was all downhill from here!

Basically, the only competition for The Band Wagon (TBW) for the title of MGM's Uncontested Musical Champion is Singin' In The Rain (SITR). SITR is certainly the better-known of the two and features one of film's iconic dance sequences. That said, in an itemized comparison, TBW is the winner and by more than a nose. Star: Astaire over Kelly. As usual. (Stop that. You know it's true. There's no point in contesting it.) Co-star: Cyd Charisse slam-dunks the ever-annoying Debbie Reynolds (herself a major overall factor in SITR's loss to TBW), but herself gets trounced by Jean Hagen (best squeaky virago ever). A draw. Supporting: Jack Buchanan, Oscar Levant, and Nanette Fabray triple-team Donald O'Connor (in his defining and best screen performance) and edge out a victory. Choreography: Kelly and O'Connor (under Kelly's direction) hoof up a storm, just outdoing Astaire and Charisse. Kelly's title track number over Astaire/Charisse's Dancing In The Dark, although the latter is the best duet Astaire's done since Night and Day with Ginger Rogers, and is itself a textbook to economy, style, and subtlety in choreography. Music: Dietz and Schwartz over Freed and Brown. Despite Louisiana Hayride being a kitsch feature almost unparalleled in MGM musical history. Book: Comden and Green's TBW ties Comden and Green's SITR. Finale: Girl Hunt Ballet over Broadway Rhythm Ballet. By a mile. The former is tongue-in-cheek, visually-engaging despite its smaller scale, and imaginatively-choreographed. The latter a bit obvious and, in typical Kelly style, a little heavy-handed in its inclusion of "serious", "dramatic" elements. Cyd Charisse too, too hot in both, of course. Overall: SITR lights up in the Hagen-Kelly sparring and O'Connor's zinging bits, as well as in the "early days of talkies" bits and the proto-postmodernism of the Beautiful Girls sequence, but Debbie Reynolds and the love interest numbers cause the film to drag and buckle. TBW, by contrast, hums throughout, going from strength to strength: Buchanan's God of the The-ah-tuh role, Levant as Levant, Astaire's wistful By Myself, Triplets (why no Hoops?), the disaster that is the Damnation Scene, Astaire and Buchanan, signifiers for "class", soft-shoeing on I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plan. An uninterruptedly-enjoyable movie, from start to finish. So, there you have it. See The Band Wagon. Become a TBW fanatic. It's that simple.

Just saw this again, for the first time in 10 years. What a show! This is unquestionably the last of the great line of MGM – and, therefore, Hollywood – musicals . . . the last real flowering of Arthur Freed's genius at holding together a team of top production talents which had produced such a fine string of musicals. Not a dull spot in the entire movie and tremendous style in Minnelli's direction. Nice to see Jack Buchanan getting a last chance in the spotlight – his top hat routine with Astaire is one of the highlights of the movie. Astaire himself, playing the fading musical star which he was by 1953, has a magnificent opening with two contrasting numbers – the wistful By Myself and the exuberant Shine on your Shoes – tailored to set up his character perfectly. The Girl Hunt ballet is, of course, the dancing highlight of the movie and it is here that the utterly wonderful Cyd Charisse comes into her own. Apart from being arguably the best female dancer in Hollywood history, she was certainly the most beautiful: the scene in the ballet in which she appears on a bar stool and slips off her coat to reveal a dramatic red dress oozes with as much sex appeal as any movie moment I've ever seen.

There are many shimmering moments in Bandwagon: Fred Astaire (playing a role close to his own life story; he was 53 at the time), the acidic wit of Oscar Levant ('that'll keep 'em laughing!!') tempered by the sunny Nanette Fabray and musical numbers including "Shine on Your Shoes," "I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plan," and a clever novelty trio called "Triplets." But the musical sequence that stands out the most is the one which has no vocal, no dialog, and gently advances the movie's plot of whether or not oil-and-water dancers Astaire and Cyd Charisse can actually perform together (when he thinks she's too tall and she thinks he's too old). Against a Central Park twilight, the film shows its heroes enjoy a hushed walk through a park (only an instrumental refrain of 'High and Low' is heard), after which they step into an empty courtyard (he in a pastel linen suit and spectator shoes, she in a flared white dress and ballet flats; a necessity to keep her from being taller than him on film) and into the pas-de-deux of "Dancing In The Dark." It's an exquisite sequence, which at times resembles courtship, foreplay, and ultimately a romantic climax- all done in dance. It ends, just as smoothly as it began, with the two leads spinning up a short flight of stairs and mounting a hansom cab, without a single hair out of place. Now THAT's entertainment.