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Fred Astaire is both its star and subject, the abstraction behind the opening credits (top hat, white gloves, cane) is not a museum display but an auction item, there are no bidders. From Hollywood back to Broadway, the seasoned song and dance man putting a tune to Henry Miller's quote about artistic solitude: "I'll go my way by myself, all alone in a crowd." The effulgent galaxy within a penny arcade gives the essence of 42nd Street, "A Shine on Your Shoes" showcases Leroy Daniels' virtuosic ease in a beautiful example of Vincente Minnelli's totality of mise en scène. The new beginning promised by the comedy writers (Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray) is seized by the Ferrer-Welles-Cocteau theatrical prodigy (Jack Buchanan), introduced emerging from an Oedipus Rex cauldron and eagerly dilating their light satire into a full Faust update. A light turning on in a vacant stage inaugurates "our little sweatbox of the arts," smoke and filters and ornate routines choke rehearsals, "more scenery than in Yellowstone National Park." Meanwhile, the hoofer and the ballerina (Cyd Charisse) discover harmony together underneath the cardboard moon in a studio evocation of Central Park. Singin' in the Rain's melancholy older cousin, a shimmering revue that, despite the script's insistence on the superiority of uncomplicated entertainment, can't help siding with the highbrow wizard who dares mixing forms. "In my mind, there's no difference between the magic rhythms of Bill Shakespeare's immortal verse and the magic rhythms of Bill Robinson's immortal feet." Brooks in The Producers reworks the opening-night flop, the overhaul is a procession of smash numbers building to the pièce de résistance, "a murder mystery in jazz." Angular Michael Kidd choreography, a sequined femme fatale slinking around the noir gumshoe's erect pistol, the balletic and the hard-boiled fused for the timelessness of an Astaire dance. Cinematography by Harry Jackson. With James Mitchell, Robert Gist, Thurston Hall, Douglas Fowley, and Julie Newmar.
--- Fernando F. Croce |