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The joke is Anglo-American relations, "hard work but it's fun." (Keenan Wynn in a dual role gives the structure, twins connected by a diagonal split-screen and separated by a common language.) The bachelor-aesthete (Fred Astaire) and his outgoing sister (Jane Powell), the toast of Broadway, a bored king and a flirty maid in their signature hit, "Every Night at Seven." Romance awaits in London, an aspiring dancer (Sarah Churchill) for him and an aristocratic smoothie (Peter Lawford) for her, though not before a stormy bit of transatlantic choreography: Choppy waters beneath the liner make for a seesawing ballroom, the artists keep their balance amid rolling furniture while Stanley Donen seizes the opportunity to let the camera float. (Altman in The Company offers his own view of grace during bad weather.) Astaire at the gym with a metronome is a painter adjusting his colors, pins and bars and speed bags pass in swift succession until he finds his Ginger in a wood coat-rack. New York brassiness at the Mayfair Music Hall with "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Love You When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life" renders a movie version of Guys and Dolls obsolete, while "I Left My Hat in Haiti" posits Donen as the rare filmmaker who has seen (and understood) Yolanda and the Thief. The signature number is "You're All the World to Me," with a preamble recalled in Truffaut's La Nuit américaine (crane down, filched marquee picture, crane up) and a still lens on a rotating hotel room. What is gravity to love? "A pretty box of pickles," resolved neatly with documentary glimpses of royal pomp and a joking nod to Byron's Manfred. ("We're going to get married!" "I thought you two were related.") With Albert Sharpe, Viola Roache, and John R. Reilly.
--- Fernando F. Croce |