Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen co-directed the film which was not a big success when it was released but has become over the years a well regarded movie due to some really inventive dance numbers.
- The time: October 1945.
- The place: Tim's Bar & Grill in New York City.
- The players: ex-G.I.'s Ted Riley, Doug Hallerton and Angie Valentine have served in World War II together and become best friends and vow they'll stay friends forever and ever.
Tim the Barman is skeptical of their devotion so the three men make a bet they will reunite in this very bar in 10 years. So there!!!
So....
- The time: October 1955.
- The place: Tim's Bar & Grill in New York City.
- The players: Ted Riley, Doug Hallerton and Angie Valentine reunite at Tim's just as they promised they would.
But...
- Hallerton planned to become a painter but instead has gone into a high-stress job in advertising, and his marriage is crumbling.
- Valentine wanted to become a gourmet chef, is now running a hamburger stand in Schenectady, New York that he calls "The Cordon Bleu" where the closest he gets to French cuisine are the fries. He has a wife and several children.
- Riley had wanted to become an idealistic lawyer, but instead has become a fight promoter and gambler, associating with shady underworld characters.
They don't really like themselves very much but their self loathing explodes outward. Each man expresses how much they can't stand the other two.
Intersecting with our miserable trio is Jackie Leighton, an attractive and brainy advertising executive. Jackie gets the idea of reuniting the three men later that evening on a TV show to spotlight the heartwarming story of 3 war buddies who reunite after 10 years.
Well it would be heartwarming if they didn't outright despise each other so Jackie has her work cut out for her.
And her meet cute flirtatious relationship with Riley complicates things as well.
Meanwhile, Riley's got trouble with mobsters because he refuses to fix a fight. Evading the gangsters by dashing inside a roller skating ring, he skates out on the streets of Manhattan where Gene Kelly does what is perhaps the most audacious dance routine of his career: tap dancing in roller skates!
Somehow the three "buddies" met up at the TV station where the mobsters have followed Riley. The trio mixes it up with the mobsters in a brawl on live TV where the head gangster confesses his crimes.
By the end, our three war buddies are friends again, but go their separate ways without making plans for another reunion.
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| Michael Kidd, Gene Kelly & Dan Dailey |
It's Always Fair Weather was once prepped as a potential sequel to On The Town which followed 3 US Navy sailors on shore leave but none of the principals involved could (or would) return so the 3 guys are now different guys and Army soldiers.
How much the cast of On The Town were really hung up with legitimate logistical issues versus just not wanting to put up with notoriously prickly Gene Kelly again, who can say.
It's Always Fair Weather was the death knell of Kelly's collaboration with Stanley Donen.
Donen had just scored a major success with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (with Michael Kidd as choreographer) and really did not want to go back to work with Gene Kelly but reluctantly agreed. Kelly and Donen clashed over creative issues in the film, with Donen tending to side with Kidd against Kelly.
After It's Always Fair Weather, Donen and Kelly never worked together again and their friendship was over forever.
It's Always Fair Weather is a bit unusual for an MGM movie musical dealing as it does with dark themes centered around anxiety and self loathing. The 3 war buddies find their spark again at the end of the movie but it is note worthy that the film ends with them not making plans to meet up again.
If nothing else, you gotta give it up for a guy who can tap dance in roller skates.
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