I was ready to write this off almost completely, and then the noir pastiche came up. Amazing. One of my favorite sequence of a musical or, really, any movie.

What I liked most about this was the strand of melancholy that weaves its way through the film, not just in the story, but in the contents of the stage designs and the occasional song. This feeling is likely wrapped up in the insecurity typical to performers, and as such provides a uniquely musical look at the process of staging a show. This is a really strong film from Minnelli, one of my favorites of his.

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some great musical numbers that are only loosely held together by the weak plot. this is a good reprise for astaire, too bad all the songs are so different it feels like a combination of about ten different movies.

#150

This film was a joy to watch.Fred Astaire gives a command performance with his singing and dancing, especial the shoeshine number.The story is good enough to keep the movie interesting between the musical numbers and isn't as weak as other musical's I've seen.

It's nice even for those who doesn't care much about musicals, like me. But, as usual with classic Hollywood, it has some bad stereotypes, like the black actors always playing the roles of the servants of the white men, shining their shoes, and happy with that.

It seems to be saying that any kind of artistic or intellectual ambition is silly, and shows should never try to do anything but entertain. And if you are going to have this outlook, then what you produce had better be REALLY entertaining. And Band Wagon isn't. The "Shine On My Shoes" bit is spectacular, the detective ballet is very good, and Astaire and Charisse light up the screen. But many of the routines are forgettable little nothings. Except for a few good moments, it's thoroughly average.

If you can't see singing in the rain then go for the lite version of Band Wagon. It does have the bonus of being darkly cynical about the Hollywood musical sausage machine (and therefore itself). You wonder if the Studio execs got the irony. . what am I saying of course they didn't Some good numbers, great cast and solid routines but by this stage the musicals were becoming samey and pretentious which is sort of the point.

# 159

There's nothing really wrong with this, the musical numbers aren't too painfully corny, Astaire and Charisse are good leads. But it all kind of feels like "Singin' in the Rain" - lite - though the films have different plots, they share a number of similar elements (commentary on celebrity, absurdly bad production receiving an organic transformation from the lead and thus converting it to something good, etc) and Singin' is just overall a much more impressive feature.

A wonderfully cynical musical. We rarely get a decent musical these days, and we sure as HELL are never going to get another Fred Astaire

A marvellous film, even though the songs are not as strong as in some other musicals. Stanley Cavell discusses the film in a very interesting way in "Philosophy the Day after Tomorrow."

that's fucking entertainment!

Has its fair share of weak moments but makes up for every one of them and caps it all off with a fantastic final 20 minutes. The spin on musical conventions is interesting and, while I was a bit disappointed with how the production part of the story went, the backstage dynamics were well done and Astaire and Charisse have great presence.

Simple but sophisticated musical with the bare minimum of plot, told mostly in jokes, and the maximum of music and song. Level of technical accomplishment very high.

"Dancing in the Dark" is wonderful and "Girl Hunt Ballet" is inventive, ridiculous (in the best way) and just awesome. Unfortunately "Triplets" is just plain annoying and stupid but other than that one slip up the film is generally quite strong. The plot is good but it does leave a sour taste in your mouth as the film seems to have a very nasty opinion of plays, musicals (and by extension probably films as well) that are made for any reason other than straight-forward entertainment.

A candy-colored Inside Show Biz musical. The private jokes, the campy parody, and the cheerful cynicism give the movie its air of knowingness; but the disruptively dazzling musical numbers are never brought together into a stable framework or consistent style. With Astaire as an aging hoofer on the comeback trail, Charisse as his newfound dancing partner, Fabray and Levant as a Betty Comden-Adolph Green songwriting team.

Great MGM musical from their golden era. Terrific musical numbers and very funny book. If you love Singin' in the Rain, you'll love this one too.

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