Cinema Sunday: The Band Wagon

Welcome to Cinema Sunday and today is New Year's Eve and what a perfect day for a classic movie musical.  And we're looking at a classic regarded as one of the best MGM movie musicals.  

And with a pedigree of Fred Astaire and director Vincente Minnelli, well, it's to be expected.   

From 1953, it's The Band Wagon.  

Fred Astaire is Tony Hunter, a famous star of musical comedies on stage and on screen but that star has dimmed a bit after 3 years off.  

He returns to New York City to hear a pitch from his good friends, Lester and Lily Marton, who have written a stage show, a light musical comedy, that they think will be a perfect comeback for Tony.

Their script has caught the attention of Jeffrey Cordova, actor/writer/director/producer.  At the moment, he's starring in (AND directing) a new adaptation of Oedipus Rex that he wrote based on the original Greek story.

Cordova establishes his bonavides as a producer but securing the beautiful and talented ballerina Gabrielle "Gaby" Gerard (Cyd Charisse) to join the production. 

Cyd Charisses has legs that, as the saying goes, go all the way up.  

But can the dramatic Cordova really put on a comedy. Cordova makes the point it's all entertainment, be it comedy or tragedy, song and dance or romance. This leads to a big production number with Tony, Lester and Lily Morton as well as Jeff Cordova, "That's Entertainment!"

(Which is used A LOT in the compilation films That's Entertainment I, II and III which we covered here.)   

But getting Gaby for the show is the only thing he gets right. Otherwise, Cordova is a clueless about how musical comedies work.  

Cordova thinks the Marton's play is a brilliant adaption of the legend of Faust. He swears to Tony and the Marton he gets what they're doing but he still pitches the play to financial backers as "a brilliant adaption of the legend of Faust".

And during rehearsals Cordova decimates the production with dark and sinister turns that totally eviscerates the whole "light musical comedy" concept the Martons pitched.  

Everyone is miserable. 

Especially Tony who is stuck in a play that's not the one he signed up for. And he's got problems with Gaby.

And Gaby is bugged by Tony. But their animosity is not driven by ego but by insecurity. Because Gaby is a classically trained ballerina, Tony feels his self taught hoofing will make him look bad next to her. And because Tony has such an easy free spirited style, Gaby feels her structured dancing training will make her look bad next to him.  

Eventually these two crazy "kids" will finally sit down and talk and find they have more in common than they thought and they will fall in love.

("Kids" as in Fred Astaire was 54 years old and Cyd Charrise was 23 years his junior.)  

While Tony and Gaby make their relationship work, the play is not working.  

Cordova just keeps piling on with more dark turns of the plot and has, of course, cast himself as the Devil. (Can't do a story about Faust without a Devil to bargain with.)

And the play makes its debut.

And it BOMBS! 

It's not the light musical comedy the Martons envisioned but it gets laughs but for all the wrong reasons. 

Tony takes control of the production and oversees making the show the light hearted musical comedy it was supposed to be. 

The show makes it's Broadway debut (sans Faust) and it's a smash success! Gaby and Tony kiss in front of everybody as we get a reprise of "That's Entertainment!"

The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Department

• One of the play investors Jeff Cordova meets with is Aunt Harriet from Batman. Yep, that's Madge Blake.  
• Oscar Levant as Lester Marton co-starred with Gene Kelly in An American In Paris.
• And speaking of Kelly, Cyd Charisse appeared in Singin' in the Rain (1952) as the long-legged woman in the green sequined dress and Louise Brooks hair who vamps Gene Kelly in the "Broadway Melody" sequence

And on the subject of Gene Kelly, the"The Girl Hunt Ballet" is very evocative of Gene Kelly's more surreal dance sequences that tend to culminate his movies but he had nothing to do with this one.   

The role of Tony Hunter reflected Fred Astaire's real life status at the time. Astaire saw himself as moving away from the prolific schedule of his younger years and certain moving away from being a song and dance man. He had to be talked into starring in The Band Wagon.  

Over all, The Band Wagon deserves it's acclaim and is quite an enjoyable film. It has all the hallmarks of a classic musical but with a knowing awareness of the absurdities of the format.  

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NEXT WEEKEND: 

It's not one but two (TWO!) movie posts a weekend.

This weekend debuts Cinema Saturday which will focus on more recent films and serve as a companion piece to Cinema Sunday which will post about older classic movies. 

This Saturday, Cinema Saturday premieres with a write up about the new musical currently in theaters. Starring Timothée Chalamet, it's Wonka!