Vincente Minnelli | Panama Hattie | I Dood It | Meet Me in St. Louis | Ziegfeld Follies | The Clock | Yolanda and the Thief | Undercurrent | Till the Clouds Roll By | The Pirate | Madame Bovary | Father of the Bride | Father's Little Dividend | An American in Paris | Lovely to Look At | The Bad and the Beautiful | Mademoiselle | The Band Wagon | The Long, Long Trailer | The Cobweb | Kismet | Tea and Sympathy | Designing Woman | Gigi | The Reluctant Debutante | Some Came Running | Home From the Hill | Bells Are Ringing | The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse | Two Weeks in Another Town | The Courtship of Eddie's Father | Goodbye Charlie | The Sandpiper | On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
Classic Film and Television Home Page
Some common subjects in Minnelli's films:
Art and Artists:
Minnelli was a great admirer of the film director Max Ophuls. He called Ophuls his "spiritual leader" as a filmmaker.
A basic theme in Minnelli's work is the destructive effect codes of machismo and male supremacy have on other people. The father in Meet Me in St. Louis insists on moving his family to New York for business reasons, thus breaking up all their friendships and romances. In Gigi, the boyfriend insists on Gigi assuming her inherited role as a courtesan, something designed to exploit women, and nearly destroys her integrity as a human being. In Home From the Hill, the macho code of the father nearly destroys the two sons he forces to try to live up to it. And The Sandpiper is a full look at feminism, and the need for drastic improvements in the way women are treated by society.
Linked with these destructive gender role codes is the role of parents. They are always trying to coerce their children in Minnelli films. This is usually seen as a purely negative experience.
Another related theme: the negative impact of "kept" people. In addition to Gigi, where this is the central theme of the story, there is the heroine sold into marriage to benefit her greedy uncle and aunt in The Pirate, the mistreated mistress and child in Home From the Hill, and the painter's destructive relationship with his patron in An American in Paris.
A scene that anticipates some of Minnelli's imagery is the first visit to the chamber of the Great Oz in The Wizard of Oz (1939):
Panama Hattie has got to be one of the most low brow musicals ever to come out of Hollywood. It has relentless dumb dialogue, a song celebrating getting drunk, "(Did I Get Stinkin') at the Savoy", and mugging by Red Skelton that makes the Three Stooges look like Olivier. Minnelli's dance numbers are the only part of the film with any interest. Several of the musical numbers involve the singers just standing there and singing - it is hard to see any Minnelli contribution to them. A few numbers involve full scale dancing, and are more interesting. The numbers are also important, because they form a historic record of such talented black performers as Lena Horne and the Berry Brothers.
Hattie from Panama. This opening number has the singers in blindingly white tropical suits and dresses, with black accents. Such starkly white and black clothes are hardly uncommon in black-and-white musicals. Still, they anticipate the "white and black clothes" that will later run through Minnelli's color films. The men in the chorus line resemble some of the male chorus boys to come in Minnelli, all dressed alike.
Berry Me Not. The Berry Brothers' first number continues the white-and-black clothes. The Brothers do a virtuosic dance with canes. The whole sequence is shot with just two complex camera movements. The first movement closes in on one of the brothers, moves down to a close shot of his legs, and then pulls back to a long shot of the dancers again. A remarkable shot, especially for the way it seems to move down to the legs and back out in some unified complex pattern. The Brothers wind up with an athletic leap that anticipates Gene Kelly and The Pirate.
Good Neighbors. Relatively more ordinary dancing, but genial. The three sailors trying to pick up women suggest The Clock, and the dancing servicemen in the ballet in An American in Paris. The floor they dance on is tiled in a complex pattern, anticipating the complex floors that will later show up in Minnelli. Minnelli moves up with the crane, to get an elevated angle, showing dancers and floor, for the climax of the dance. The dancers form two concentric equilateral triangles: three men in the middle and revolving, three women outside.
The Sping. Dynamic song-and-dance number, with Lena Horne and the Berry Brothers, that anticipates the Caribbean feel of The Pirate. A drummer is on a moveable platform, that travels back and forth across the dance floor. This anticipates the Kinetic Art that will run through later Minnelli. When the three Barry Brothers enter, they too sometimes form triangles during the dance. Some of the triangles are equilateral; others are more irregular. Other times, they are in a row. The dance can get as geometric as the finale of "Good Neighbors". This is the film's most intricately patterned dance.
Unfortunately, there is only a little of Minnelli's trademark style in I Dood It. The crane shot showing row after row of the orchestra at the end of the early number "One O'Clock Stomp" is good. And the rope dance to "So Long Sarah Jane" is skillful.
There is perhaps a serious side to all of this. The heroine (Elizabeth Taylor) of Father's Little Dividend will adamantly refuse sedation during childbirth. She wants to be aware and understand everything. And several Minnelli films have heroines rebelling against hypnotic control.
All in all, the nasty nature of the story goes a long way towards explaining why I Dood It is such an unlikable movie experience.
The social climbing forms the long central section of I Dood It. It is the weakest part of the picture. Before and after it, there is better material:
At one point, Powell is surrounded by three cowboys with lariats, who stand in a triangle. This recalls the triangles in the dances in Panama Hattie.
The finale has six dancers in a circle, with Powell rotating around them outside. Such concentric circles recall the finale of "Good Neighbors" in Panama Hattie.
The start has singer Bob Eberly performing the song, in cowboy gear. Eberly was at one time a well known singer in real life. His brief song here and at the start of the "Star Eyes" number are one of his few appearances on film. Eberly wears one of the most elaborate sets of chaps on film. They are of black leather, and both stick out on the sides in front, and wind around his legs in back. Minnelli gives us views of both during Eberly's entrance.
The section is basically a straightforward performance piece. It lacks either dancing, or the heavy stylization that would allow Minnelli to create extremes of visual style. So one should not oversell it.
Minnelli treats the members of the troupe as individuals. Each one comes across as their own personality. In this, the section recalls crowd and party scenes in Minnelli, with each extra getting their own characterization. Hazel Scott, too, comes across as a vivid personality, just through her performance on the piano.
Minnelli gets his hero into a uniform: here a Union Cavalry officer. Several shots emphasize his tall boots.
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) is one of Minnelli's most beautiful films. It is widely viewed as one of the most beautiful color films ever made.
Some images draw on color harmonies, among many objects on screen. Towards the end of her phone conversation, there is a medium close-up of Rose (Lucille Bremer), showing her in the corner against the wall paper. The red leaves that run through the wall paper, the wine in the decanter, the frame of the picture, and the lace in Rose's blouse and her belt, are all in similar colors of dark scarlet red. The effect is quite strong and over powering. The red areas make beautiful geometric patterns, against the off-white of the rest of the wall paper, and the white of Rose's blouse.
When Esther (Judy Garland) and John (Tom Drake) put out the lights, the camera is at a high angle, showing the chandeliers, looking down at the rooms. The red pattern on the living room rug becomes conspicuous here. It recalls the red wall paper in the dining room. Similarly, during "Under the Bamboo Tree", the films shows us the red wall paper in the dining room again, forming a contrast to the living room framing it on either side.
The early scenes of Esther singing first "The Boy Next Door", then "Meet Me in St. Louis", show harmonies based in white and green. The green is provided by vegetation. The most amazing shot is the close-up of Esther and Rose singing "Meet Me in St. Louis". They are framed against green curtains on the window; green ivy twirls around the bust on the piano, and a green plant is hanging in the pot on the window. The three shades of green are all different, yet all three work together in a color harmony. The different geometric patterns of the green objects, especially the looped, arching green curtains, also contribute a fascinating geometric design. The close postures of the two sisters, with Esther's hands on Rose's shoulder, is echoed by the twin bust on the piano. This is one of the most exquisite shots in the picture.
Another color harmony shows the father outdoors, coming home from work. The shot is framed by green vegetation, that also contains pinkish-red flowers. The combination of the green and red is beautiful. Both red and green are motifs throughout much of the picture, especially prominent in the settings. By contrast, the women in the film often wear shades of blue, purple and lavender, while the men are often in gray suits.
When Esther dances briefly to "Meet Me in St. Louis", she is wearing a blue and red cape. Charles Walters' choreography seems designed in part to show off the red and blue, with as much variety of rhythm and display as possible. Alternating bright red and blue are well-known to create "Op Art" type effects, creating a pulsating contrast.
Minnelli's fondness for "small bright red objects" is also found in Meet Me in St. Louis, a fondness he shares with the Japanese director Ozu. The ketchup in the kitchen, and the bright red fez hat worn by Grandpa, are examples.
During the "red" close-up in the phone conversation, a picture frame on the wall is partially shown in the upper right corner of the screen. Such partially included picture frames are a Minnelli staple in his compositions. A memorable portrait of Frank Sinatra in Some Came Running also includes the corner of a picture frame in its composition. Later in Meet Me in St. Louis, Minnelli will use the pictures on the staircase to make several interesting portraits of Esther, as she descends the stairs to enter the party. These pictures too tend to be shown just partially, with one corner peeking into the shot, as part of the compositions that Minnelli creates. Oddly enough, Minnelli shows little interest in that cliché of film composition, the "person whose head is entirely contained in the outline formed by a picture frame on the wall behind him". In Minnelli, the actor and the picture frame on a wall rarely overlap. The two are instead entirely distinct. Typically in Minnelli, the actor will be near the center of the shot, while the picture frame will have one corner peeking into the far left or far right of the camera shot.
Many shots in Meet Me in St. Louis draw on the tall windows in the house for their composition. These windows are huge, with tall and fairly wide panels. They tend to repeat: there will be several such windows side by side, making repeating, regular patterns. Three such shots in the film are especially well done: Esther singing "The Boy Next Door" while the camera looks out through the windows towards the house next door; the father entering through the double, window-like doors while Rose and Esther sing "Meet Me in St. Louis"; and the telephone conversation, with Rose standing in the foreground, the family around the dinner table behind her, and the tall windows of the dining room at the back and top of the shot. All of these shots are brilliantly composed. They form a visual high point in the movie.
There are two long take sequences at the party. The first occurs during the musical number "Skip to My Lou". It starts when Esther enters the shot carrying a tray of drinks, and eventually ends much later when John sings "Lost My Partner, Skip to My Lou". This sequence is immensely complicated. The camera movements are all coordinated with the dance numbers in the film. The camera sometimes soars over the dancers' heads. It can move rapidly and forcefully, or make small adjustments. The most intricate dancing in the film takes place here, an ensemble piece that also contains many individual brief numbers for small groups of dancers. I cannot imagine how hard this was to rehearse. It is unclear whether this moving camera sequence in the work of Minnelli, or of Charles Walters, the film's choreographer. Walters would soon go on to be a director himself. His first film, Good News (1947), has a delightful finale in which the characters do the "Varsity Drag". This finale shows an equally breath taking intricacy of dance and camera movement, with the dancers moving through the most complex moves. Oddly enough, in both films the dancers look as if they are having a terrific time. However Walters got them to hit their mark and move with such precision, it has not affected anyone's morale. Everyone is smiling and looking as if they are having a whale of a time. On the other hand, one does not want to discount Minnelli's presence here. Such moving camera shots, presumably executed from a boom overhead, are a signature in Minnelli's movies. Both Minnelli and Walters have the artistic skills to pull such camera movements off, and it is hard to decide who is doing what.
A second long take occurs during the preparations for singing "Under the Bamboo Tree", and continues during the recitative that precedes the main melody. This too has intricate staging. Brother Lon is in the early part of the shot, then exits, stage left. Later, when the camera has moved back to the left, he is discovered sitting near the entrance to the dining hall.
Minnelli has long explored sexist social institutions in his work. His films show a consistent feminist perspective. Meet Me in St. Louis is one his most detailed looks at a sexist society, and the coping mechanisms used by women, and some men, in dealing with its severe limitations.
Meet Me in St. Louis takes place in the United States in 1903-1904. It deals with a society even more sexist than that of 1944 America. In many ways, it shows "traditional" restrictions on women in a "pure" or concentrated state. In this society, only men have jobs and college education. They are in complete financial control of everyone else: women, children, and old people, all of whom are dependent on them for survival. The men make big decisions, such as what city people will live in, and how, and small decisions too, such as when dinner will be served. It is like living in a slave state. Women's only means of support is through finding and marrying a man, and having him support her. This means that young women's major job is to try to attract a man, and have him marry her - the activity performed by the two marriage age sisters who are the leads in the film, Rose and Esther, throughout the movie. Women cannot even go anywhere except through male driven vehicles, such as the trolley and Mr. Neely's ice truck. And men control the telephone, and ration out access to conversations and communication through it.
The society shown in Meet Me in St. Louis shows in exaggerated form, gender roles that were still in force in 1944. They are more severe in the film than in the real world of 1944, but they were still powerful. By 1944, many women had access to phones, and transportation was more widespread. Also, many women were successfully performing "male" jobs, while many US men were away fighting World War II - this was the age of Rosie the Riveter.
One of Rose and Esther's strongest allies in their struggle to cope with this society is their brother Lon. He has a foot in both camps. He has the entree into the male world that comes from being a man, yet he also has a strong loyalty to his sisters, and he does everything he can to help them throughout the film. This dual identity on his part is one of the sisters' strongest weapons. He is their "ace in the hole", to use card game terminology. He is both male, and a man who has an identity and place in the world of his family's women.
Esther is in love from afar with "the boy next door", John Truitt. Her passion for him is both romantic and physical, the film establishes, with overwhelming yearning. A sexist society gives her few means to reach out to him. But Lon has a way. Lon and John Truitt immediately male bond, establishing a powerful relationship that works at many levels. The film idealizes this relationship. It is seen as wonderful and powerful. The two men have a similar social role, being nice young men who are on their way to college. This common role helps them bond. The two also look and dress almost entirely alike. At the party, for instance, both wear dark colored, double breasted sport coats, white trousers, and bow ties. The only difference in their spiffy clothes, otherwise almost identical in detail, is that John's coat is dark blue, while Lon's is black. (John's blue is a color often worn by women in the film, while men are often in gray.) The two men even have similar hair styles, with their hair being slightly wavy in front. This ability to wear common clothes is also a liberating male bonding tool of the two men. One suspects that Minnelli regards the relationship between these two men as a personal ideal.
The two actors who play John and Lon also look alike. Both also look much like John Kerr, who starred in Minnelli's much later film, Tea and Sympathy (1956). All three have a gentle look. They look like friendly, non-threatening men. The character played by John Kerr in Tea and Sympathy is a young man who fits naturally into the world of women, but who is rejected by the macho male types around him. This is partly similar to Lon in the current movie. Like Kerr's character, Lon has a happy existence in the world of women, and is their ally in their struggles. But Lon and John are happier than Kerr, in that they also apparently have full acceptance in the world of men. Minnelli never actually shows this acceptance on screen - both are only seen among mixed social gatherings, or among the women at Esther's home.
The actor who plays Rose's boyfriend Warren Sheffield is much more macho acting and looking than Lon and John. While Minnelli is largely sympathetic to him, Warren is also not quite as nice to Rose as Lon and John are to Esther. He dates other women, and does not say much of anything significant to Rose during their telephone conversation, much to her disappointment. His presence does make it clear that Lon and John's type is not universal among men in the society.
The bonding between John and Lon allows Esther to meet John, for the first time. It is only by throwing a party, allegedly in John's honor, that Esther can invite John to her home. This party is in honor of Lon's going to Princeton - the subject of his male bonding with John. Then at the party, it is Lon who introduces John to Esther. During this introduction, it is plain that society approves of the instant relationship between John and Lon. But Esther's ability to even talk to John comes from her brother's formal introduction.
Lon has the relationship with John that Esther wants. Lon does everything he can to help her. The film shows the two relationships as equivalent and parallel.
At first Esther tries to use traditionally "feminine" wiles, to try to get John to notice her. These are only partially successful. Somewhat startlingly, it is only later in the film that Esther breaks through to John. This occurs when she forgets her traditional feminine role, and starts behaving in a traditionally "male" fashion. Esther is defending her little sister Tootie, and in her fierce emotion she starts acting and fighting like a man. It is here that John finally notices her romantically. John even compares what Esther does to his experiences in football practice. This is a strong physical interaction John has with other men. It is clearly the key towards his recognizing Esther as a physical romantic partner. Once again, the film has John's relationships on two parallel, equivalent tracks: one with other men, one with Esther. Both are clearly gratifying to John.
There are other scenes of cross gender behavior in the film. During Halloween, the little kids in the film cross-dress: Tootie dresses like a boy, and the boys dress like girls. I do not remember anything like this from my childhood Halloweens. Everyone was instead in some costume. It is a very unusual scene.
Many critics have noted an undercurrent of anxiety in Meet Me in St. Louis, and sometimes this is ascribed to the talent involved. This is partially true. Judy Garland is noted for her intensity, and even hysteria, as a performer. And Minnelli similarly always has an intense edge, with complex feelings towards his material. But this intensity has an objective correlative in Meet Me in St. Louis: the sexism of the society the film depicts. This society would be enough to cause anyone intense anxiety in their attempts to cope with it.
Another critical cliché about Meet Me in St. Louis says that it depicts an idealized America. In some ways this is certainly true: the peaceful life shown in the film must have seemed intensely nostalgic to war time audiences. But in other ways, the society in Meet Me in St. Louis is not ideal at all. Interpreting it in this way ignores the enormous difficulties faced by women in this world.
Sexism can seem invisible to many viewers, even though it is one of the primary subjects of a work of art. Take the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, the greatest of all Greek dramas. Society's discrimination against women is one of the two principal subjects of Agamemnon, the other being the destructiveness of war. But while Aeschylus is relentless about exploring the problems caused by women's second class status in society, this whole aspect of the play often seems invisible to many critics. It is as if it doesn't exist, and just can't been seen by them. One reason that I have gone on in such detail about gender discrimination and roles in Meet Me in St. Louis is that I wanted to make them more "visible" to viewers. These comments might seem "obvious" to anyone who watches the film. But it is clear that many people are ignoring or not seeing this aspect of the movie.
Ziegfeld Follies was shot right after Meet Me in St. Louis, largely in 1944. It is a "revue": a series of comedy sketches and musical numbers with no connection to each other, and no continuing characters or plot running through the whole film. This type of entertainment used to be extremely popular on the Broadway stage, but it has always been much rarer in Hollywood. A few such revue films were made in the first great burst of musicals in 1929-1930, after the introduction of sound. (The Hollywood Revue of 1929, apparently the first of all such films, is best in its two versions of "Singin' in the Rain", and for a comedy skit in which William Haines ruins Jack Benny's clothing. Otherwise, it is not much.) The first version of Ziegfeld Follies ran for around three hours. It did not play well in previews, and eventually nearly half of the material was scrapped, and the film was not released until 1946. Even in its current shortened state, the various numbers are a mixed bag. They are by many different directors. The six musical numbers by Minnelli are usually considered the best parts of the picture. Some of these are outstanding, and show Minnelli and his collaborators at the top of their form.
"This Heart of Mine". Dance director: Robert Alton. Design: Jack Martin Smith. This is a dance featuring Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer. It is the high point of Ziegfeld Follies. In some ways this is in the pure tradition of Fred Astaire dance numbers. It features Astaire and an expert partner, here Lucille Bremer, dancing to a song. Astaire has made many such numbers throughout his long career; this is simply one of the most beautiful and joyous of them. In addition, all aspects of the number are designed in spectacular color, making rich visual patterns on the screen. This is more Minnelli and his collaborators than Astaire. This fusion of Astaire dance and Minnelli visual style is seamless and graceful. The number has a simple plot, with Astaire playing Raffles, the society jewel thief created by E. W. Hornung.
"A Great Lady Gives an Interview". Dance director: Charles Walters. Judy Garland spoofs a Hollywood grande dame giving an interview to the press. The interview is in the form of a song, and the gentlemen of the press form a chorus line and do much dancing. This interview is a funny parody of all things Hollywood. Plus the dancing is in Walters' most enthusiastic tradition, with an infectious liveliness that makes it a joy to watch. These are the youngest looking, least hard-boiled reporters in the history of the screen. They look like the young, non-threatening, pleasant men that run through many Minnelli pictures. They are all dressed alike, and recall the way that Lon and John in Meet Me in St. Louis dressed and looked alike. Only here, there are a dozen such men. This number is also known as "Madam Crenaton", being the subject of the next picture the actress is going to make, as sung in her interview.
"La Traviata". Dance director: Eugene Loring. The catchy, melodic "Drinking Song" from Verdi's opera La Traviata is performed, accompanied by dancers who swirl around the screen. This number is highlighted by the bizarre, spectacular black and white costumes by Irene Sharaff. The dancing frequently has the costumes swirling around, making geometric patterns on the screen. It is a pleasant spectacle, with beautiful music.
"The Babbitt and the Bromide". A Gershwin tune featuring Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, no less. This little song satirizes bourgeois businessmen, like the father in Meet Me in St. Louis. The two men also dress alike, like the younger Lon and John. Finally, the Heaven-set finale here anticipates the heavenly religious themes of Yolanda and the Thief.
The Clock (1945) is a non-musical romance film, set in New York City during World War II. Robert Walker plays a serviceman with 48 hours leave, who meets secretary Judy Garland. The film tells of the their romance, and little adventures while they explore the city. It is Minnelli's first non-musical film, and the first set against a fairly "realistic" background, as opposed to his richly stylized musical films.
I think The Clock is more successful in its first half, showing light hearted romance, than in the heavy dramatics of its second half. These later parts of the film take one into the hyper-dramatic, awfully intense world of Minnelli drama. They can have a nightmarish quality, like one finds in The Cobweb and Two Days in Another Town.
This film was not shot on location; it was shot in sets on the MGM lot. All of the performers in the film, including all of the extras, are actors recruited for their roles. The extras look astonishingly believable and life like. At the same time, they are far more polished in appearance than most real people. Minnelli somehow conveys that each of these people have their own lives. They are like little miniature dramas that pass across the screen. Oftentimes their facial expressions and the gestures suggest that they are in the middle of some fascinating story of their own. We get only a glimpse at these stories as the extras hit their marks and move across the screen - everyone in this version of New York City seems to be in a hurry. The clothes these mini-characters wear convey their personal experiences. This is true both for the civilians, and the people in uniform.
There are several long take sequences in The Clock. The film opens with a boom shot, traveling over the astonishing recreation of Penn Station built for the film. Then a moving camera shot on the ground picks up Walker, moving through the crowds. The first person Walker meets is played by the film's producer, the legendary Arthur Freed. Freed was in charge of the Freed Unit that made the famous MGM musicals of the 1940's and 1950's, including Minnelli's. Freed offers Walker a book of matches. It seems symbolically important that Freed will open the series of encounters that Walker has in the film. He stands at the entrance of this complex studio-created world of The Clock. He is not the first extra we see - there have been quite a few well-drawn extras in the traveling shot before we encounter Freed - but he is the first with a line of dialogue in the movie. Later, the film's restaurant sequence will begin with Roger Edens, the music supervisor at the Freed Unit, playing the pianist at the restaurant. Edens is given the glamour treatment, a good suit, romantic lighting, romantic gestures with his body while he plays the piano synchronized with the rhythms of the music, and adoring glances from female fans. But Freed is seen with plain and simple straightforwardness.
The scene at the Astor Hotel with the flowers is split into two long takes, each full of complex camera movements around the lobby. They are broken up by a shot of the clock which gives the film its title. The camera movements here are often linked to the thoughts of the hero, and allows us to see inside his head. When Walker is confused and thoughtful, the movements are slow and in a series of mixed directions, echoing the hero's indecision. When Walker decides to buy the flowers, the camera moves swiftly to the right across the lobby and into the florist shop, in the sort of forceful lateral track that has been heretofore absent in the sequence. Flowers are always very important in the work of Minnelli, he has them everywhere in his films, both outdoors, and as arrangements on tables in his interiors. Both the motion of Walker, and that of the numerous extras, makes up much of the content of these shots. The geometric patterns made by the paths of the extras, which stretch in every direction and speed across the lobby, are the visual core of the shot.
The scene at the restaurant also opens with a beautiful moving camera shot. The camera keeps moving deeper and deeper into the restaurant. Meanwhile it swings to the right then to the left, then back again, taking it different views of the restaurant and people in it. This reminds one of the camera movement during the "Skip to My Lou" dance in Meet Me in St. Louis. The middle of the shot follows the waiter with the cake platter from the right to the left of the restaurant.
Shortly after this shot, there will be a reverse look at the restaurant, from exactly the opposite angle used in the opening moving camera shot. This shot is very beautiful. It is a fixed shot, not a moving camera one. We see several of the restaurant's diners and employees; Minnelli has arranged the shot so that each person is clearly visible, in their own little subsection of the screen. These are more of the mini-portrayals so vividly created for all of the extras in The Clock. The Italian diner at the forefront of the shot is a model of dignity and warmth. His portrayal stands as a welcome contrast to all the "what's-a-matta-u" caricatures of Italians in the movies. One sees the hand of Italian-American Minnelli in this, trying to give a more dignified and accurate portrayal. The family behind him includes a little girl, now seen from the back looking small in a big chair. She reminds one of the adorable little girl Tootie in Meet Me in St. Louis. The wallpaper in the restaurant reminds one a bit of the red-and cream wallpaper in the family dining room in Meet Me in St. Louis, too, although it is of a different pattern. The table in front of the Italian diner is full of a gorgeous still life, including glasses, bottles of wine and olive oil, a candle and a beautifully arranged glass of bread sticks. The still life is so arranged to make intricate and beautiful mathematical and geometric patterns in the composition. It is almost like a separate character in the shot. It has its own special region in the frame, just like all the people. Minnelli included similar still lifes of objects on the family table in Meet Me in St. Louis. Those objects were in glowing color, often green glass. Finally we see Edens again, playing the piano at the far rear of the shot. One of his pieces of music on the piano has elaborate artwork on the cover. This is another Minnelli touch, making the shot even more complicated than it is. This shot, like many in Minnelli, is so full of imagery in different sections of the frame, that it is almost impossible to take everything in it in a glance. Such shots, in which every region of the frame is loaded with visual detail, are associated with Jacques Tati, and his film Play Time (1967). There are many such shots in Minnelli. Even with the stop-motion capabilities of today's video machines, every time one watches this shot, one sees something new.
The Clock is full of overhead camera angles. These are often used to include both the leads, and a good deal of New York City background in a shot. Minnelli had used such overhead angles in the "putting out the lights" sequence in Meet Me in St. Louis, and also in the telephone call in that film. Both of these scenes were associated with romance. Many of the overhead shots here also have elements of romance and adventure.
One of the most elaborate shots in The Clock combines long take, camera movement, and the overhead angle. This is the shot of Walker delivering milk. It starts out on a balcony, moves on down a circular staircase, and finally closes in on cats drinking milk. A shot like this definitely recalls the Ophuls tradition.
New York City is full of servicemen of all types here. Over half of the younger men in the film are in uniform. Especially noticeable are all the black men in uniform. The film makes a pro-Civil Rights point by including so many prominent black servicemen. It constantly reminds viewers of the contributions made by black men in the service of their country. This was a major focus of Civil Rights thinking of its time. Black people were making a major contribution on an equal level with white people in the Armed Forces; they therefore deserved equal treatment back home in the United States. Few American films underscored this contribution so vividly as The Clock. A black serviceman saying good-bye to his wife and child has some brief dialogue towards the end of the film. There are also several dignified black civilians seen in the course of the movie.
One notices some other things about the many servicemen seen in the crowd scenes that run through The Clock. They are carefully assigned to every possible branch of the service. Such equal treatment of the Army, Navy and Marines was a major concern of most Hollywood films of that era. Minnelli has made sure that every possible uniform is displayed in different parts of the film. This helps create visual variety, and ensures that many different parts of the service are represented.
Robert Walker plays one of Minnelli's gentle, non-threatening young men here. He is in the tradition of Tom Drake in Meet Me in St. Louis, and John Kerr in Tea and Sympathy. Walker specialized throughout his career in non-macho men. While some directors saw this characteristic of Walker in negative terms - Alfred Hitchcock cast Walker as a horrendously stereotyped Evil Homosexual in Strangers on a Train (1951) - Minnelli sees such a man as his hero. This is typical of the tremendous sympathy Minnelli has for such non-macho men throughout his career. Walker's hero meets fewer obstacles here than many later Minnelli heroes who do not fit into society's macho norms for men.
Walker has the advantage of his uniform here. It certifies him as a man whom society must respect, or at least accept. It also gives him a certain degree of social integration into the world around him. Later Minnelli films will often depict Minnelli's non-macho heroes as social outsiders, painfully kept outside of all social institutions. Walker's character also anticipates Frank Sinatra's returning serviceman in Some Came Running.
The servicemen throughout the film are also of a certain type. They tend to be good looking, romantic leading men types. Like most of the extras in the film, they seem refined and well mannered, in a sophisticated New York mode. Few if any are the sort of macho roughnecks one often sees in uniform in Hollywood films, such as Robert Mitchum in Edward Dmytryk's Crossfire (1947), or John Wayne in Allan Dwan's The Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). These handsome men are polished to the hilt. Most are wearing dress uniforms. An unusually high percentage are young officers. These wear the high peaked stiff caps along with their spit and polish uniforms. All of these men show tremendous social assurance, plowing their way through crowds in New York City, smiling and confident. Many have doting girl friends, and they look completely successful at romance. All of these men seem more confident than Walker's character. They also out rank Walker's enlisted man, being officers.
Walker sees a young naval officer at the hotel here as a role model. This young man is in the white dress uniform of the Navy, a uniform with a long association with romance in Hollywood pictures. He is played by an actor even less macho looking than Walker, Eddie Hall, a perennial bit player in Hollywood films. This young leading man is completely successful at romance, knowing exactly what to do to please his girl friend, buying her a flower for her hair. Walker will touchingly imitate this, buying a flower for Judy Garland. This is a small romantic stratagem. It reminds one of Judy Garland's attempt to become close to Tom Drake in Meet Me in St. Louis, by having him help her turn off the lights. In both cases, this small gesture leads to romantic intimacy. Minnelli is deeply sympathetic to both protagonists. There is also an element of gentle comedy, watching the protagonist perform such little stratagems in search for closeness with their beloved.
This scene also parallels other aspects of the romantic relationships in Meet Me in St. Louis. In that film, the heroine's brother first develops a male bonding relationship with the romantic hero played by Tom Drake. This male relationship is used as the model and the enabler for the male-female relationship that develops between Garland and Drake. Similarly, here Walker uses another man's behavior as a role model for his own relationship with Garland.
Yolanda and the Thief (1945) is a strange, whimsical film musical. It shows plenty of talent, but the film also has problems. Its leading man is a crook, trying to con the heroine out of her money. This unsympathetic lead character makes the film less entertaining and pleasant. The leads are played by Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer here. They took on similar roles in the "This Heart of Mine" episode of Ziegfeld Follies, where Astaire was society jewel thief Raffles and Bremer was the princess he was trying to rob. However, in that film Astaire was only trying to lift some jewels that the princess would hardly miss; here his swindles seem more serious. Also, he is far more personally exploitative here.
The bar has raised alcoves in back, reached by short staircases: a common architectural feature in Minnelli (they show up again in The Pirate). So does the study at the mansion, where Yolanda signs the papers. That room is overflowing with pictures on the wall, anticipating the many artist's studios in Minnelli. It also has large pillars, another Minnelli favorite.
The garden is full of green foliage and white fixtures such as statues. Green and white gardens run through Minnelli. Unlike other Minnelli gardens, this one is not on a hillside, but it does have a staircase leading down to it, anticipating the garden staircases in Kismet. (White and green also appear in the harp room, where they are combined with gold.) At the end of the film, the wedding reception in a garden adds red to the mix of green and white; the end of the garden scene in Kismet also adds red flowers to the green-white mix.
Other Minnelli imagery runs through the film: statues, fancy uniformed soldiers, candelabra, flowers. There is a car wreck, anticipating Two Weeks in Another Town. Still lifes of drinks show up on the table in the bar.
The scene with the ladies unwinding long cords in a star pattern around Astaire, echoes a similar pattern in the rope dance number that opens I Dood It (1943).
The dancers costumed as racetrack workers and patrons anticipate the chorus boys costumed as hoods in An American in Paris. The green hunting coat of one of the men, anticipates the more traditional scarlet hunting coats at the start of the fashion show in Lovely to Look At.
Eugene Loring, who did the choreography for Yolanda and the Thief, later did some dance numbers for another Latin American film, Fiesta (1947), directed by Richard Thorpe. The most important dance in Fiesta is "La Bamba", done a decade before Richie Valens made it a rock hit in the late 1950's. "La Bamba" shows male and female lines of dancers weaving in and out, just as in "Coffee Time", although it is not quite as complex as the earlier number. Intermixed with the lines are the lead dancers, Ricardo Montalban and Cyd Charisse. The pair later have a beautiful solo number. Montalban's finest moments in the film come later, however, when the young composer he plays hears his music performed for the first time on the radio. His intense expressions during this scene remind one of his great skills as a dramatic performer.
Undercurrent (1946) is a gripping work of cinema. The mystery plot it contains has many holes - no one ever goes to the police, and the authorities never show up and investigate incidents that stretch over many years - but this should not distract us from what a good work of storytelling it is.
Undercurrent reminds one a bit of some other Minnelli films. Like Home From the Hill (1960), it involves two brothers who grew up in the American South, and who have widely varying responses to the crises in their life. Like The Pirate (1948), it concerns a woman who has a relationship with a powerful man who harbors secrets.
Like Gigi (1958), it shows the difficulties women have fitting into male ideals of how they should act and behave: Katherine Hepburn's appearance is completely made over by Taylor here, who knows far more about women's clothes than she does. This reminds one of the demands made on Leslie Caron by Louis Jourdan in Gigi. Both women eventually rebel. Young men in Minnelli also have trouble fitting in to society's norms of masculinity: see Tea and Sympathy and Home From the Hill. Minnelli's characters tend to be more plastic than other director's. Here Robert Taylor has undergone a complete personal transformation shortly before the film opens, and Hepburn undergoes one on screen. Many other Minnelli characters develop new roles and personas. The movie people in The Bad and the Beautiful are transformed by the hero-heel, and the maid in A Matter of Time by the Countess and her philosophy. Van Gogh in Lust for Life tries many different life approaches, and the characters in Cabin in the Sky veer between the church and the night club, getting new clothes and behavior as they move from one to the other. The hero of Some Came Running is torn between respectable life and low life. And the title character in The Pirate is now completely different from his old self.
As in many Minnelli films, it is not at all clear what the characters should do. They are often plunged into perplexing situations without easy answers. This does not mean that they should give up. But they have to struggle and explore to figure out the right alternatives. It often takes Minnelli's characters quite a bit of screen time to figure out what is going on, and to come up with some options. The characters can tell that they need to do something, and urgently. It is clear that there is a moral imperative for action. But it takes them a while to figure out what, with the answers sometimes coming in stages. Nor do they always guess wisely. They have their director's sympathy, none the less.
Undercurrent takes place over a long period of time. This is typical of many Minnelli dramas. Such time is needed for the characters to evolve. In many Minnelli dramas, the characters are not in one single situation that extends over the whole running time of the film. Instead, they are in many constantly changing, evolving situations. They can go through many life stages. Both these charging environments and the struggle of his characters to find constructive actions take up many months or years in their lives.
Hepburn here has trouble blending with Taylor's Washington society social set. The Washington society scenes, and the high powered, socially pretentious characters, recall Society scenes in Bells Are Ringing (1960), with their similar parody of such figures in "The Name Dropping Song". Minnelli suggests such figures have a powerful effect on people's lives. Much of the conflict in Designing Woman (1957) comes not from the man and woman who marry, but from the crowds in which they've typically moved. Each has strong trouble fitting into the other's crowd. Similarly, some of the most powerful scenes in Gerd Oswald's Crime of Passion (1957) deal with new wife Barbara Stanwyck's revulsion at socializing with her policeman husband's mind-numbingly bourgeois crowd of friends. With the social habits of today's Americans, such scenes seem like something out of an ancient past. People are much less likely to hang out with a crowd of people with whom they must fit in. Many crocodile tears have been shed recently about how bad it is that modern Americans do not hang out in groups. But such old films suggest that group living could be overwhelmingly rough.
Undercurrent lacks any obvious political commentary. The presence in the film of the liberal in real life Katherine Hepburn and the conservative Robert Taylor does not align with any political orientation in the film. The Washington setting of part of the tale, and the political prominence of Taylor's character suggests that some political commentary is about to emerge, but it never materializes. The film also resembles somewhat George Cukor's highly political Keeper of the Flame (1945), another serious dramatic film in which Katherine Hepburn marries a politically prominent man with country estates, and in which mysterious situations abound. Cukor's film is as political as Minnelli's is apolitical. The tone of the two films seems similar; the political content does not.
Minnelli's trademark candelabra show up at the dinner party scene, and later in the country house evening with Hepburn playing the piano. Their repeated verticals help form Minnelli's compositions. Minnelli puts the dinner party candles through four stages: first we see the table full of glassware, but no candelabra; then the empty candelabra; then the candelabra full of candles; and finally the candles lighted during the actual party. This helps give visual variety to the scenes.
Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) is a musical, mainly directed by other people. Minnelli directed four lavish musical numbers with Judy Garland.
Look for the Silver Lining. "Look for the Silver Lining" opens with backstage scenes. These are actually better than the musical number that follows. They open with a corridor filled with that Minnelli favorite, statuary. The busts have top hats on them, a nice figure of style. They have been left behind by male visitors, who soon appear in their white tie and tails. These visitors form one of Minnelli's crowd scenes, in which each extra gets their own personality. The busts and cabinets of costumes oddly anticipate the dressmaker's salon in the ballet in The Band Wagon, with its room full of dressmaker's dummies.
The corridor is in Minnelli red, plus white. The dressing room will be one of Minnelli's mauve-pink-and white areas (like Grahame's bedroom in The Cobweb, and backstage in the finale of Designing Woman), contrasted with a green dress and yellow flowers. The pink-and-green colors will be important in Designing Woman.
Later, Minnelli will stage some excellent camera movements through the backstage corridors. One will take us down a path filled with colored lights. These do not shine bright colored light on the set, as will occur in later Minnelli movies. This camera movement is delightfully complex, through a maze of backstage flats.
While the heroine is walking to the stage, she is encouraged by working class stage hands. This anticipates the hero's encounter with numerous working class men throughout The Long, Long Trailer. The heroine is shown being transformed from a glamorous actress, to a stage version of a working class drudge, for her musical number. This recalls middle class Minnelli characters who go to work among the lower classes, such as Van Gogh in Lust for Life and Theron in Home From the Hill.
The actual song color-matches Garland's gray dress and red lipstick, with gray faucets with red handles.
Sunny. "Sunny" opens with more colored lights. Now we have a blinking red light, like the river scene to come in The Cobweb.
"Sunny" is a circus number. The maypole with its cloth strips, recalls the cloth and ropes in other Minnelli dance numbers. The gold body paint here occurs on the elephants, unlike the humans who get face and body paint elsewhere in Minnelli.
The men are in alternating red and green coats. They wear gold pants and top hats. There are also women in gold tutus. This combines Minnelli's red-green color scheme, with gold.
There is also a man in white tie and tails. His tailcoat is a solid white, unlike the usual black tailcoats that are standard both in Minnelli, and the real-life world of men's formal wear. This anticipates the gold tailcoat in Bells Are Ringing.
"Sunny" is full of geometric patterns. It is especially built around the circular circus ring.
Who. "Who" opens on a staircase. It contains a camera movement showing people moving on the stairs: a Minnelli specialty. The staircase also contains a ramp, which propels the performers down. It is an example of the Kinetic Art that runs through Minnelli.
Judy Garland is in a bright yellow dress, like a number of other Minnelli heroines - and like them, she really stands out and looks distinct from the people around her.
The chorus boys are dressed in white tie and tails. This number contains more men in white tie and tails than any other Minnelli movie. It is virtually a dream about Minnelli's favorite costume. It is also a scene in which the men are all dressed alike, a Minnelli tradition. The men are all pursuing the heroine.
The staircase is white. We eventually see that the wall below it is mauve, making one of Minnelli's elegant mauve-and-white locales.
D'Ya Love Me. "D'Ya Love Me" was cut from the release print, but is available as an extra on some DVDs. It has two clowns in startling costumes. The costumes are in that Minnelli favorite, red-and-green. Unlike the "men in identical clothes" in other Minnelli, here the men are in similar costumes, but with reverse color schemes. Items that are red on one clown's suit, are green on the others, and vice versa. The suits sport long, feathered tails, an item that seems effete, perverse, and comic. Women often wore feathers in showgirl numbers, but men rarely do. The clowns' white face paint is both traditional for clowns, and part of Minnelli's interest in face and body paint. One definitely wonders if this number was cut because the clowns seem gay. These guys are perhaps beyond the pale of what homophobic censors and social watchdogs might have tolerated in a 1940's film. One is glad this number has survived, to show a suppressed idea of Minnelli's.
The clowns were seen in the circus procession that opens "Sunny", carrying cymbals. And "D'Ya Love Me" opens in the circus set of "Sunny". One suspects "D'Ya Love Me" was intended originally immediately to follow "Sunny".
Other Judy Garland scenes. Judy Garland appeared in a few brief non-musical scenes in Till the Clouds Roll By, as well. I have no idea if Minnelli directed these non-musical episodes. None of these scenes seem especially Minnellian - unlike the musical numbers, which are full of characteristics that recall Minnelli's other work.
The Pirate (1948) is a musical, set in the Caribbean. Like Yolanda and the Thief, it is rich in the atmosphere of an imaginary Latin American country. Both films are designed by Jack Martin Smith.
Although this film is a musical, it also has strong elements of mystery. In this it resembles Undercurrent, Minnelli's sole pure mystery thriller. There is also the brief murder mystery underlying the ballet in The Band Wagon, and the little mystery element about the French Resistance leader's identity in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
The heroines of both Yolanda and the Thief and The Pirate are naive women, who have been raised in an atmosphere of great respectability. There are similarities and differences in the films in the relationship of the hero and heroine. In both films, the hero deceives the heroine into thinking he is someone different than he is. However, in Yolanda and the Thief, the "hero" is a crook who pretends to be a force for good, while in The Pirate the hero is a good guy who pretends to be the romantic pirate of the title, to win the heroine's love. This gives The Pirate a much more innocent and likable feel.
The hero here takes over the persona and romantic actions of another male, pretending to be the pirate, and carrying his pirate whip. This recalls the way in which the hero of The Clock imitated another man's romantic actions in the hotel scene, and the way in which the heroine uses her brother's male bonding with another man as a model for her own romantic relationship in Meet Me in St. Louis. In both films, a gentle protagonist uses a more romantically successful male as a template for their own romance. This also gives a strange feel, as if the two men were now in a common enterprise.
The scene in which the hero hypnotizes the heroine in front of a large crowd of people, causing her to reveal unexpected feelings, will recur in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970). The women in the jewel robbery sequence in Lovely to Look At (1952) also seem mesmerized into stillness while the thief steals their gems. Such scenes of men hypnotizing women go back at least to Cecil B. De Mille's The Affairs of Anatol (1921), in which Gloria Swanson has to be rescued from a hypnotist's power by her husband Wallace Reid. However, in Minnelli's films, the women rebel during hypnosis, and reveal strong inner feelings that cause them to escape from male control. The scenes become allegories, suggesting male attempts to control women in a sexist society, and women's revolt against such control.
Gene Kelly is such a macho performer, that it is hard to think of him as anything else. He certainly gives his usual dynamic, athletic performance here. But at some level, Minnelli has cast him in the role of one of his non-macho young men, up against a code of nastier macho types. His character, as a traveling actor, is seen in the story as a non-macho male, who is up against macho males such as the murderous pirate of the title. This plays an especial role in the final confrontation in the picture.
Even when no singing is going on, one always feels in The Pirate that one is in the midst of a Minnelli musical number. The elaborate set design, the brilliantly costumed performers, and Minnelli's visual style make every scene here recall the musical numbers in a Minnelli musical.
The scene in which Kelly slides down a pole from a balcony recalls the shot in The Clock, in which Walker moves down from a balcony on a steep spiral staircase. Later, during the same "Nina" number, Kelly dances in a pavilion made up of large poles supporting a roof. Such strong vertical lines are a standard part of Minnelli's compositions. In Meet Me in St. Louis, one could see out through the windows in the home, to deep focus outdoor scenes. The two sides of the windows formed similar tall, vertical lines. In The Pirate, the poles form similar boundaries, and one can see the market square in the background in deep focus through the poles. Just as there are repeated windows in Meet Me in St. Louis, in The Pirate there are repeated poles, forming the boundaries of various deep focus regions of the market square. The poles here also recall the vertical columns on the back of the trolley car in Meet Me in St. Louis, framing the staircase to the top of the trolley.
At the Mayor's house towards the end, Minnelli will build his compositions out of strong, repeated vertical lines, balanced by some horizontals. The first room has woodwork, statuary and door panels, all brown, that create a series of powerful verticals. Together with the verticals formed by the standing Kelly (in black) and Garland (in brown), the frames are a sea of dark brown verticals, set off against the white paint of the room. The doors have horizontal lines through them, that curve, offering some balance. The second room also has many verticals, including a cast-iron railing with many small posts. It has numerous pictures on the walls, in the Minnelli manner. Several of these are in series, creating Minnelli's loved pattern of repeated, similar vertical lines. These also have horizontal lines on their bases, as do the steps in the room, the edge of the balcony, and the sofa. Eventually the steps are outlined in layers of smashed white china, creating strong horizontal stripes. The stripes go: white china fragments, black edge, orange wall, and then white china again, and so on. The many steps are as repeated in their horizontals as the other elements are repeated in their verticals.
Later, numerous members of the militia will flood this room. They are in full dress uniform. Like the well-dressed officers in The Clock, these men are wearing high stiff hats; here the four sided "czapkas" (pronounced "chop-kahs") that are a traditional part of the Lancer uniforms worn by many militia members. These Lancers form vertical lines themselves, their red and blue uniforms being hugely conspicuous. Minnelli arranges them in series, so that their straight, standing bodies form the "repeated verticals" that are a favorite Minnelli composition approach. At one point, seven of the Lancers are stretched across the screen. Many of them have their swords out, pointing them directly at Kelly; these swords are held straight out, and form the contrasting horizontals often used in Minnelli compositions. Many of these Lancers are wearing white sashes across their chests; these sashes form a series of diagonal lines in the composition, further adding to its complexity. These diagonals are repeated, as are the verticals. There is a similar, but simpler shot of Fred Astaire surrounded by a circularly arranged line of soldiers in the background, in Yolanda and the Thief.
Minnelli has a second series of troops, in different, largely white uniforms; these stand in a series on the upper region, looking down over the rail into the room. They too form a set of "repeated vertical lines". Minnelli has them stand so that nearly all the small pictures on the wall behind them, are visible in gaps between their bodies. Such wall pictures are there to help Minnelli make compositions; he does not want to obscure them now, when they help make a beautiful visual pattern. These second troops have their muskets pointed at Kelly, a second set of strong horizontal lines.
One beautiful shot has all these troops filing in, and gradually taking their places up around the room. The effect resembles that of a chorus line entering and filling out a set in a stage revue - something with which Minnelli would have been totally familiar. The principals here also gradually assume their ultimate positions. Watching this motion makes a beautiful image.
Occasionally, their are curved lines in these scenes. The curves stand out, and make accents in compositions that are otherwise constructed out of vertical and horizontal lines. Chair backs in the Mayor's house often have curved, arching tops. An overturned chair shows curved legs sticking out. A map at the top of the image is in a circular frame. The czapkas have complexly curved sides, a most unusual curved surface, and a traditional part of this unique high helmet. The front panels of the Lancers' uniforms also contain curves.
The Lancer uniforms are not all alike; the commanders of the troops have variations in their uniforms, different from their men. Later, the Governor will wear an even fancier version of the uniform. This recalls The Clock, in which great care was taken to make the film's uniforms be as varied as possible.
The red and white dress worn by the heroine here, in the early scene by the sea, recalls Lucille Bremer's red and white outfit in Meet Me in St. Louis. The simple sea side parapet, with its gray color scheme, recall the Seine side area in An American in Paris. Both are lonely regions, without extras, in which the hero and heroine carry on their wooing in private. Both have a melancholy feel, and a moody waterside setting. They also anticipate the riverside setting in Some Came Running, and the ocean shore scenes in The Sandpiper.
The brown dress worn by Judy Garland in the late scene at the Mayor's house, exactly matches the brown of the woodwork. When the Governor shows up, his clothes are in harmony with the wall behind the desk where he eventually stands and sits. Minnelli will later harmonize Frank Sinatra's uniform with the color of the walls in Some Came Running. The purple scarf that Gene Kelly wears around his waist towards the finale also finds echoes in purple trim on the sets. Another harmony: the green of the sofa at the Mayor's matches the green of the picture that Garland drops on Kelly. A shot will balance the sofa on the left with the fallen painting on the right; both will contain large glowing areas of the same unusual shade of green.
The white and green colors of some scenes on Manuela's wedding day recall the white-and-green design of Garland's "The Boy Next Door" in Meet Me in St. Louis.
Gene Kelly's hero leads a whole troupe of performers here. Towards the end, Kelly performs a rousing dance with the Nicholas Brothers, two of the greatest dancers of their time. The Nicholas Brothers were black, and like other black musical performers were usually kept in separate specialty numbers in films, that could be censored out for Southern audiences. This is the only movie I can recall where they dance with white performers. This integrated number is certainly conveying a Civil Rights message. Throughout the film, in fact, we often see black people on the island.
Similarly, the Governor of the island admires Gene Kelly's looks in one scene. The Governor is never shown being attracted to women in the film, and one has to wonder if he is gay. If so, this is one of the most casually presented and sympathetic gay characters in traditional Hollywood films, one completely free from any stereotyping or directorial mockery. The word "gay" is one of Minnelli's favorite words. It recurs in film after film, in which a character will state that being gay is the goal towards which they are striving. It is ambiguous: it can mean either joyful or homosexual.
Madame Bovary (1949) is the first of Minnelli's melodramas.
The couple in Madame Bovary are a doctor living in the provinces, and his wife, who has nothing to do but pursue her social aspirations. The same characters will be at the center of The Cobweb. Both families have kids, and in both, the husband is shown as having a better relationship with the kids than the wife. In both films, the wife takes up relationships with men who are obviously cynical womanizers. Both wives are concerned about "their needs", while their husbands mainly work at their jobs.
The aristocratic boyfriend (Louis Jordan) in Madame Bovary, will return as the patriarch in Home From the Hill. Both men are wealthy, promiscuous, and obsessed with hunting: we see them with their hunting dogs. Both men live in rooms filled with tributes to their own dubious lifestyle. Both men are horrifically self-centered. Their behavior leaves a lot of human wreckage behind them in both films.
Madame Bovary is also one of those Minnelli works which depicts a whole town or city.
Flaubert (James Mason) serves as narrator. And the main film unrolls as his telling the story of his novel on the witness stand. Madame Bovary is an example of a non-noir film, that thus employs tactics familiar in film noir, such as a narrator. Flaubert's narration has something of the same effect as a flashback - although it is not strictly speaking a flashback at all.
A man at the ball is also in Hussar's uniform, one of the two fanciest 19th Century military uniforms - the other being the Lancers that show up in The Pirate.
Father of the Bride (1950) is a comedy of sorts, showing a father's (Spencer Tracy) reaction to his daughter's (Elizabeth Taylor) getting married.
Father of the Bride splits into two drastically different parts. The first part is a disturbing look at how the daughter chooses her husband, and her family's ideas on the subject. The second part is more of a farce about wedding preparations and the actual wedding - although it too has some serious overtones. However, once the wedding preparations are underway in the second part, the choice of marriage partner is now a given, and no longer discussed. All the characters become much more sympathetic: they could be any about-to-be-married couple and their family.
In both families, the husband is the sole breadwinner. The wife stays at home. While in both films the wife is supposedly running the household, much of the actual work seems to be done by a black cook (treated with dignity and in a non-stereotyped fashion, one hastens to add.) Both families move in upper middle class social circles - which seems to be the chief activity of the wife in both films. The chief social roles of men and women in these worlds are simple: men are supposed to make money; women are supposed to embody social position.
We see a series of brief portraits of the earlier suitors of the daughter in Father of the Bride. Virtually all of them look livelier as human beings, and warmer and more human as life companions, than the young businessman the daughter chooses to marry. It is hard not to conclude that the daughter has sold herself for money. She has looked over a large series of young men, found the richest one, and married him. Essentially what we see in this society is marriage as a form of prostitution. The daughter is hardly alone in these values: we see that she has learned them from her parents, and probably from the social class around her, too. Her parents agree that her fiance's financial status is the key element in his suitability as a husband. They also state that they find the fiance better than any of the other young men who were her suitors. We also see them judging their future in-laws on their financial status, and the size of their home.
Other Minnelli films, such as The Pirate, severely criticize folks who sell young women into marriage to wealthy men. Here we have the reverse situation: the daughter in Father of the Bride has complete freedom to choose any man she wishes. And she sells herself.
The above point of view is perhaps a bit harsh. An alternative reading: in a society like the one depicted in Father of the Bride, a man's worth is determined entirely by his success in business or a profession. And it is viewed as a fair test: the best men are the most successful. The fiance is thus simply the best male human being the heroine has ever met. Who can blame a woman for marrying such a man? He's simply the best choice. This point of view is perhaps closer what the characters in Father of the Bride actually think.
This "comic" portrait of a bumbling male is quite different from the fathers to come in the tragic Tea and Sympathy. The fathers in that film are frighteningly efficient. They take one look at a situation, size it up accurately, and make a non-negotiable demand on their sons to take some macho-driven course of action. The father in Father of the Bride has the same ideology as these later fathers. He is simply more bumbling in his approach.
In both films, Father of the Bride and Tea and Sympathy, most teenage males and grown men are in complete ideological accord with each other, valuing the same things. There is no generation gap or gulf. Just a macho ideology and code of practice shared by fathers and teenage sons.
The only difference between generations is a small one: teenage males are supposed to concentrate on sports; grown men on jobs and making money. This is just a division of labor, not an ideological dispute: both fathers and sons agree that these are the correct activities.
When we first see the teenage son in Father of the Bride, we wonder if he is in a small way in some sort of rebellion against social norms: he is wearing an exceptionally shiny black leather jacket (not a costume one often sees in Minnelli). But soon we learn that he is rushing off to basketball practice: hardly an act of non-conformism in this society. Still, the teenager is the only one in the film not to get caught up in wedding hysteria, and who does not make the situation worse. His comic book reading is also an interesting bit of business.
Both films have knowledgeable businesswomen, who know and care a great deal about money and expenses - unlike wives, who dismiss such issues as unimportant. Tracy's secretary, like Lillian Gish to come in The Cobweb, is dressed in a severe tailored suit.
The wedding guest list becomes a subject of negotiation, like the drapes in The Cobweb. Who gets invited affects business relationships of the father, and the garden club election of the mother. As in The Cobweb, there is an emphasis on petty politicking.
Joan Bennett's entrance on the stairs, showing off her fancy clothes for the wedding, anticipates Gloria Grahame's stairway entrance in The Cobweb, displaying her evening gown.
Elizabeth Taylor first shows her wedding gown, in a shot with a three-way mirror. Later, the brunette in the ballet will make her entrance in a three-panel mirror in the ballet in The Band Wagon. And huge mirrors will revolve at the end of the ballet in An American in Paris.
The big camera movement at the reception goes through the wall of the house, from indoors to outside.
Father's Little Dividend (1951) is a sequel to Minnelli's Father of the Bride. Sequels were fairly uncommon in classical Hollywood film. It is Minnelli's last film in black and white.
Father's Little Dividend is far more enjoyable than the nightmarish Father of the Bride. Much of the earlier film revolves around ugly issues of money: finding a well-to-do husband, spending vast sums on an ostentatious wedding. By contrast, Father's Little Dividend deals with human issues that are nobody's fault: the difficulties of pregnancy and having a baby, and learning to get to know a baby after it is born. It is a warm, sweet film, that shows genuinely nice - but not whitewashed - people.
The climax of the quarrel is set to classical music, played on a record player. Classical records on phonograph players return in The Cobweb, as well as Tea and Sympathy and Goodbye Charlie - although the music is not linked to fights in any of these movies. In all these later films, the records are on a portable phonograph player. But in Father's Little Dividend, the player is a more elaborate model.
Also like The Cobweb: the couple's big argument is ultimately triggered by his long hours at work. This too will be a problem with the couple in The Cobweb (Widmark, Grahame).
The frantic search for the missing baby, anticipates the finale of The Cobweb, and its search for young Kerr. The police get involved in both searches. A search for George Hamilton will also form part of the climax of Two Weeks in Another Town.
In Father's Little Dividend, this is played for some comedy and light drama. For a heavier, but no less moving and truthful development of the same insight, one can see Rafe in Home From the Hill. He takes care of the pregnant heroine and her child with similar deep devotion. And once again, this forms the breakthrough in their lives.
The chapel windows, behind Tracy and Bennett, have diamond lozenge shaped panes. This anticipates the walls of the screening room in Two Weeks in Another Town.
The christening forms another Minnelli climax, in which a religious ritual is performed: see the Extreme Unction in Madame Bovary, and the funeral service in Some Came Running. All of these are fairly public rituals, with family members or friends looking on. The service is explicitly Christian, as in many of Minnelli's films.
Tamblyn is in a leather jacket again, but a different one from Father of the Bride. The new jacket might not be as black as the one he wore in the first film: it is difficult to tell in black-and-white movies. Tamblyn in this maternity ward scene, is the only one not caught up in the frenzy over the newborn kid. This recalls his similar non-involvement with wedding hysteria in Father of the Bride.
An American in Paris (1951) is a musical, based on the music of George Gershwin. Many of his songs are sung and danced to throughout the picture. And his instrumental compositions are made the center of two major sequences.
Despite its fame, An American in Paris has problems as a film. An American in Paris is much better in its musical-number-rich second half than its first half, which deals with the sordid romantic problems of its hero. Its central romantic relationships are downbeat, with its protagonist being a jerk who accepts financial favors from women. And Gene Kelly's choreography seems second rate and tedious throughout. By contrast, many of the visuals of the film are fascinating. The peripheral aspects of the film, the supporting players, the visual style, the instrumental numbers, are all interesting and enjoyable.
An American in Paris celebrates America's love affair with France. France is America's oldest ally: the French financed the American Revolution, and we owe our existence as a nation in the US to France. Ever since the Impressionist period, French influence has been central to United States painting. Generations of American painters and composers have gone to France to study. The leads in this picture, the painter played by Gene Kelly and the pianist played by Oscar Levant, are typical of these Americans. Minnelli was a painter himself, and his ideals as an artist were all centered in France: the Impressionists, the Post-Impressionists, the Fauves, the Ballets Russes, the Surrealists. The ballet sequence here draws its inspiration from French artist Raoul Dufy, and Kelly's paintings are in the school of Maurice Utrillo. The narration points out that not just Americans, but painters from all over the world have gone to France for artistic study and inspiration. The film mentions Picasso repeatedly, a Spaniard who painted in France, and Minnelli would go on to direct Lust For Life, about the Dutch painter Van Gogh, and his work in France. The whole film of An American in Paris is a valentine to France. It celebrates the deep ties between the US and France.
An image used throughout to convey the close ties of France and the US is that Minnelli favorite, male bonding. The French singer in the film, "Henri Baurel", bonds with a series of Americans. He is an old friend of Oscar Levant. He sings several duets with Kelly, and dances with him. He has close ties with an American impresario, who comes to his stage show, and who arranges for an American tour for him - something the singer regards as a dream come true. "You'll love the Americans" he tells Leslie Caron.
The French singer Henri Baurel, played by Georges Guétary, is one of the best characters in the movie. Minnelli's films are full of likable, non-threatening young men. Guétary's character suggests what might happen to these young men as they grow older. Guétary has kept his joy in life, and his enthusiasm for the beauties of this world. Wherever he goes he sings, and adds delight to everyone around him.
Guétary is always dressed to the teeth. Throughout the film he is dressed in a series of beautifully tailored double-breasted suits. He is a "dandy", a man who takes great pleasure in being dressed well. The film suggests that this gives great pleasure to everyone around him, too. The dandy has a long tradition in both life and art. He is clearly a figure whom Minnelli celebrates. Many of Minnelli's young men are also dandies, such as those in Meet Me in St. Louis and the reporters in Ziegfeld Follies.
In the "'S Wonderful" number, Guétary's blue-gray suit makes a color harmony with Gene Kelly's sweater. Oscar Levant's light blue clothes also are harmonised with the other men's outfits. During much of this song, Minnelli keeps his camera parallel to the building walls in the back of the image. This gives the "frieze" effect often found in Minnelli.
Guétary's high point is his stage appearance, singing Gershwin's "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise". Guétary is in full white tie and tails here. He wears a tall black top hat, and carries a black cane. This is the