The movie for this week's Cinema Sunday is for the first time in two weeks in glorious TECHNICOLOR.
Kiss Me Kate is a 1953 film based on 1948 Broadway musical of the same name. The movie stars Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel (who also starred in Show Boat) as now divorced theater actors Fred Graham and Lilli Vanessi brought together to star opposite one-other in the roles of Petruchio and Katherine in a Broadway musical version of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew called Kiss Me Kate.
The movie Kiss Me Kate is about the making of a play called Kiss Me Kate.
Anne Miller is on hand as Lois Lane (no, not THAT Lois Lane) who has a supporting role in the play and is a current romantic dalliance of Fred's.
Lois is also dating Bill Calhoun, another actor in the play. Bill has a bad gambling habit that has led him to run up some debts with some nefarious characters. Bill signed the IOU as "Fred Graham".
Flowers sent by Fred to Lois wind up going to Lilli instead. She thinks Fred has renewed romantic feelings for her and she thinks she feels the same. At least until she reads the card.
Lilli works out her anger with Fred in the middle of the play as Katherine takes out her anger at Petruchio. Petruchioi wraps up the first act by giving Katherine a good spanking right there on stage in front of an audience.
Being spanked in front of people has awakened Lilli's inner sex freak and she's never been so turned on in her..
OH HELL NO! She's royally super pissed off at Fred!
Meanwhile, gangsters Slug and Lippy have come to collect on the gambling IOU from "Fred Graham". Somehow, the gangsters wind up in the play somehow working for the real Fred Graham.
Lilli threatens to leave the play right in the middle of the performance. Fred manipulates Slug and Lippy into helping keep her on stage and prevent her from leaving the show.
But Lilli departs before the final act. But the show, as they say, must go on and a call goes out for her understudy.
But when Fred strides back on stage for the final act, he is surprised to see that Lilli has returned, delivering Kate's speech about how women should surrender to their husbands. The play reaches its triumphant climax with Katherine tamed by Petruchio and Fred carrying a reconciled Lilli away in his arms, both still in costume.
OK, what the hell?
All right, this has been a fun show up until now with some fun musical performances propelling this show.
The leggy Anne Miller's "Too Darn Hot".
Howard Keel with Petruchio's pompass take on "I've Come To Wife It Wealthily In Padua".
Slug and Lippy try to make Fred feel better with "Brush Up Your Shakespeare".
But that ending? Really?
There is no real reason for Lilli to come back Fred. Yes, Katherine's capitulation to Petruchio works in the context of the play within the play but there is nothing basis established for Lilli's change of heart to come back and forgive Fred.
Part of the abruptness of Lilli's return to Fred may be attributed to some significant edits from the stage version where Lilli is engaged to a domineering up-and-coming politician named General Harrison Howle. In the stage musical, the new man in Lilli's life is a clearly not an improvement over Fred.
In the film, he's replaced by Tex Calloway, a cattle rancher who is virtually a non-entity in the movie. Which may be the point. Living with Calloway in the vast empty expanse of Texas is just too damn boring a prospect and so she returns the more interesting Fred.
Who I will remind you spanked her in front of a Broadway audience. Maybe this did awaken Lilli's inner sex freak.
You may notice there is a lot of oddly staged scenes with stuff coming at the screen. Anne Miller kicking her legs towards the audience. Kathryn Grayson throwing things at the audience. Kiss Me Kate was shot for release in 3-D. But by the time the film was finished, the 3-D craze of the 1950's had ebbed and it was never released in 3-D.
Aside from the out of nowhere ending with Lilli reuniting with Fred, Kiss Me Kate is a bright, colorful, funny and entertaining musical.
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