Not my favourite, but still one I will have to have for
a) the trash can lid dance with Dailey, Kelly and Kidd
b) Cyd's great number, "Baby You Knock Me Out" and
c) Dolores Gray's "Thanks a Lot"
(the Kelly roller skating number is fun too).
Glad to hear that this is coming out. Definitely this is one where are the parts are greater than the whole, it's more interesting in many ways than entertaining. There was a lot of tension on the set of this film and it actually shows on the screen as it often feels more funerial then celebratory.
Certainly Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly weren't happy working together, just a year after Donen's Seven Brides won so much acclaim and opened at Radio City MH, while the Kelly's heavily favoured Brigadoon was left in the dust. There is some enjoyment to be had to in many of the performances and musical numbers including all of Dolores Gray' campy numbers and Kelly's aptly named I Like Myself which makes great use of the Cinemascope frame . Hope they include the outtake musical numbers.
This might be Warner Brothers Motion Picture Imaging's greatest challenge yet. This film ends with one of, if not THE most grainy and out-of-focus optical zooms I have ever seen. It was pretty daring to try something like that in early CinemaScope and Eastmancolor.
Despite the technical imperfections, I can't imagine any film musical fan saying "Thanks a lot, but no thanks" to this release.
Great news! We already have Kismet and now this, so hopefully the Warner Archives will soon get around to Designing Woman and The Opposite Sex so the Dolores Gray tetralogy will be complete!