Friday, September 23, 2011

The Great Scenes # 8: The Band Wagon (1953)


Directed by Vincente Minelli

In the same time period that saw the release of big, splashy musicals An American In Paris and Singin' in the Rain, Vincente Minelli's The Band Wagon came out and is often overlooked by some film enthusiasts today. It has experienced a somewhat slight resurgence and rightfully so. It's a delightful musical. The plot is simple: A washed-up movie star (Fred Astaire) teams up with his songwriter buddies, a famous ballet dancer and a prominent stage actor to come up with a show for him for the stage. Much of the entire last half hour or so is simply the stage show (SPOILERS) they come up with, culminating in this clever musical spoof film noirs brought to life by the amazing choreography by Michael Kidd helped by the cinematography, sets and costumes (the reveal of the magnificent Cyd Charisse's red dress gave me goosebumps).

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice. I've never seen this one though.

Outcast said...

Awesome scene. Never watched this before but it's great all the same, thanks for sharing buddy.

Mark said...

I've never seen this movie :( As much as I hate to admit it I'm less likely to give the really old movies a shot, even though they might be really good.

neatfit said...

I remember watching this a loooooong time ago, it was really interesting for me for some reason, I was really young and I still found it entertaining to watch.

Damon said...

nice post :P

Jaccstev said...

Great that you sharing this with us cause I never seen this before.

Jase said...

Got to say that video was pretty cool! Great find man! Thanks for the update!

Unknown said...

I really need to watch this. =p