Technicolor rapture of THE UNFINISHED DANCE
This hallucinogenic slice of celluloid captures Cyd Charisse, playing prima ballerina Mlle Bouchet, in director Henry Koster’s movie-tour of the world of ballet neurosis, THE UNFINISHED DANCE. Here Cyd performs a balletic “combré,” a deep back-bend, at the barre. The movie, made at MGM in 1947, starred child actor Margaret O’Brien. It’s a ballet soap ...
Dance Camera West to spool classic ballet flick, “The Unfinished Dance”
Everything is beautiful at the ballet. Except at the movies. In the movies, for some confounded reason, the world of pretty-in-pink turns blood red. It’s a parade of backstage drama awash in envy, rage, depression, jealousy, backstabbing, unkindness — and that’s just the light stuff. At worst, there are full-on murderous attacks, vengeful fits and ...
George Chakiris brings “West Side Story” to the wild west
Just returned from a wonderful screening of the majestic movie musical from 1961, “West Side Story,” seen in an unusual setting, The Ellen Theatre, a rare, preserved vaudeville theater in Bozeman, Montana. The movie’s Academy Award-winning star, the actor-singer-dancer George Chakiris, took part in a long interview and audience Q & A session. The enthusiastic ...
Ann Miller, in KISS ME KATE 3-D, too darn hot! 1
It was awfully fun, during TCM Fest 2015, to run into Jon Olivan who heads up the TCM Classic Movie Fan Club in Los Angeles. We mixed and mingled in Club TCM, sipping (complementary) Humphrey Bogart gin surrounded by Mike Kaplan’s great dance-movie posters exhibited in that lounge. Olivan shared a special memory of “Kiss ...
Oh yeah! Bobby Banas rocks “The Nitty Gritty” 12
Mar
25
2015
The great, great stage and screen dancer Bobby Banas swings, very hard and very well, in “The Nitty Gritty” — this television clip from The Judy Garland Show in 1964. Banas choreographed the number on the spur of the moment. “I choreographed the “Nitty Gritty,” he shared in an email, explaining that choreographer Peter Gennaro’s ...
Dance critic’s TCM Fest 2015
On the cusp of the sixth annual TCM Classic Film Festival set to open Thursday night in Hollywood, our dance-critic’s eye is finding at least two strong movie musical entries — with great cinematic dance. 42ND STREET (1933), Saturday March 28, 11:30 am “Naughty, gaudy, bawdy, sporty” 42ND STREET gets a facelift with the world premiere ...
Tap across 42nd Street with “Gotta Dance!” book & movie posters
Above: Belgian poster for 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, USA, 1933). Artist unknown. “The sharp, spunky granddaddy of all backstage musicals… [Busby Berkeley’s] choreography takes center stage in this stunning Belgian poster, showcasing his dancers atop and within the three-dimensional title treatment… the actors took second place to Busby Berkeley’s dazzling, kaleidoscopic production numbers, with their ...
To Bozeman, with Bernardo
It’s Bernardo, Anita, Riff, Tony and Maria gone waaay west. Looking forward to sharing the ultimate of urban movie-musicals, “West Side Story,” in an unusual location — on America’s real West side, Bozeman, Montana. The Academy Award-winning musical will screen at the historic Ellen Theatre, a vintage vaudeville house dating to 1919. The restored theater ...
Choreographer Alan Johnson takes center stage!
On a delicious Saturday afternoon last September, a bunch of dance devotees gathered at The Paley Center for Media to fete one of their own: the witty, prolific, tart-tongued choreographer Alan Johnson, an industry veteran of theater, nightclub, television, cinema and any-dance for the camera. “I had been thinking lately [about my career] wondering, ‘What ...
God dances. Bow down!
Mar
4
2015
At arts·meme, the words ‘Fred Astaire’ are not necessary. We believe the short code, “god,” will suffice. Here the 70-year old hoofer (now hoofer-in-heaven) gets pulled, ever modestly and reluctantly, into a solo performance by Bob Hope, at the 1970 Academy Awards show at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The brilliant solo (we love his ‘do-the-swim,’ ...