The Band Wagon
Directed by Vicente Minnelli
Written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green
1953/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/from my DVD collection
#266 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
[box] Stagehand: You got more scenery in this show than there is in Yellowstone National Park![/box]
I have loved this movie for decades. Yesterday’s viewing did nothing to change my opinion.
Tony Martin (Fred Astaire) is an aging dancer who has been called back to New York from Hollywood by his friends Lester Martin (Oscar Levant) and his wife Lily (Nanette Fabray) who have written a musical for him to star in. Lester and Lily are thrilled that Jeffrey Kordova (Jack Buchanan) is interested in directing the play. Jeffrey is an obvious take off on the Orson Wells type who is directing three shows on Broadway while starring in one of them.
Jeffrey envisions the simple plot of Lester and Lily’s play about a children’s book writer as a modern-day version of the Faust legend. He decides to get prima ballerina Gabrielle Gerard (Cyd Charisse) on board by engaging her boyfriend as choreographer. Tony has grave misgivings about Jeffrey’s approach and thinks Gabrielle is too young and too tall to be his partner. But Jeffrey has organized the money and Tony, Lester, and Lily are helpless to resist.
The musical moves into production. Rehearsals are full of tension. Jeffrey has loaded up the show with so many gimmicks and so much scenery that the out-of-town tryouts are a disaster. But the show must go on and, with Tony at the helm, Lester and Lily’s original version is resurrected.
I have always thought the comedy in this film was almost equal to Singin’ in the Rain. I just love Jack Buchanan who manages to play the egomaniac director to perfection while retaining the ability to do a mean soft shoe. The fund-raising scene is hilarious. You are going to get a lot of dancing in a musical with Fred Astaire and I think it is well-incorporated into the plot. Recommended.
The Band Wagon was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of: Best Writing, Story and Screenplay; Best Costume Design, Color; and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.
Trailer
Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan doing the soft shoe
I absolutely love this film and you’ve reminded me of all the reasons why. Astaire is just fabulous in this!
He is. They are all great with the possible exception of Cyd Charisse who I never did think could act. Whatever she lacks in her acting she more than makes up for in her dancing though!
The comedy here is good and that scene at the fundraiser gets top marks. I also liked the idea of the Faust play. What I liked less was the end show. Deeply inconsistent and mainstream I would preffered the Faustian version.
True, we never did see the plot of the show at the end. I watched it thinking about you and can see why you didn’t like it. Different strokes for different folks.
Fred is my favorite male dancer and Cyd Charisse is my favorite female dancer. (Well, except maybe for Eleanor Powell. Poor Eleanor Powell! I love her and I love her dancing scenes, but her movies overall just aren’t as good as they should be.)
And yet, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of The Band Wagon is “Triplets” and Cyd Charisse isn’t even in it!
Oh, I love me some Triplets! Agree with you on Fred Astaire. I can watch him in all his incarnations but I think my favorite will always be in his pairing with Ginger Rogers.
And Ginger was such a great comedian and actress as well! She’s hilarious in 42nd Street. Roxie Hart is my favorite movie version of that particular story.
My favorite Ginger Rogers moment is probably an odd one. It’s in The Barkeleys of Broadway (nobody’s favorite Astaire/Rogers movie) where she’s playing Sarah Bernhardt in The Young Sarah and she recites La Marseillaise as her audition for the acting school. I would much rather watch Ginger Rogers in The Young Sarah than watch The Barkeleys of Broadway again.
I’m with you 100% I like watching Ginger’s face while she dances with Fred. It is really expressive.