Review of The Band Wagon (1953) by Edith N — 07 Apr 2009

What I find interesting is how different the musicals in movie musicals are from the movie musicals themselves. [i]The Band Wagon[/i]-within-[i]The Band Wagon[/i] is supposed to have a plot. I'm quite sure of this, since a plot is described in several places. And I can string most of the musical numbers together into some semblance of one, I guess, but that's about as good as it gets. Even the ones that seem to follow the vaguest semblance of the plot as related by Fred Astaire do not strike me as the sort of thing that would appear in a real musical. Too complicated, for one--the stars play minor book-within-the-play-within-the-movie characters, which would require a lot of quick changes for no real pay-off. This always seems to happen in this kind of movie. "Our show's about an author, so let's put in a musical number about Louisiana!" I mean, what's the thinking there?

Astaire is Tony Hunter, kind of a washed-up movie star returning to his Broadway roots. He hasn't been in a movie in three years, so he's returning to do a big-time musical with a huge director (Jack Buchanan as Jeffrey Cordova), a famous choreographer (James Mitchell as Paul Byrd), and a great ballerina (the actually-great Cyd Charisse as Gabrielle Gerard--sometimes spelled Girard), as all has-beens do. The director somehow gets the idea that the simple story of a children's-book writer who does mystery novels on the sly for the money should now be a ginormous, complicated show based on [i]Faust[/i]. (It should now be noted that the guy actually doesn't see why what's good for [i]Oedipus Rex[/i] may not be good for a chintzy musical.) It bombs hugely, as you'd expect, and the cast hits the road to improve it, blah blah blah, and Astaire falls in love with Cyd Charisse, blah blah blah.

I don't really like Fred Astaire, it turns out. I don't think he's as good to watch as Gene Kelly. Kelly is obviously having fun as he dances. He wants you to have fun watching him. Astaire is more absorbed in his dancing, but it seems rather like a technical exercise. There is not the joy. It's true that many of both their movies seem to use plot as something to hang dance numbers off of, but even so, Kelly puts effort into them. Astaire sort of swans around being debonair, expecting everyone else to do the work for him. When he's opposite Ginger Rogers, they do okay. However, Cyd Charisse also seems more inclined to let her dancing do the work. Well, she's a great dancer, and if it were just a concert movie, that would be enough.

I will agree with one of the movie's premises. All art is not alike. The director's [i]Oedipus Rex[/i] is bad because it's overblown, but the play is not in and of itself bad. However, taking someone only acquainted with the one and letting him turn the other into it probably isn't going to work. Some artists are perfectly capable of shifting from one field into another, but even some great artists cannot. Picture with me [i]The Sound of Music[/i] as staged by David Lynch. The mind rebels, doesn't it? And this director does not seem to be as talented as David Lynch. Besides, I don't trust anyone with five shows directed by him running on Broadway at the same time. No, the director isn't necessarily needed after the first handful of shows, but it's still a good idea to be there just in case.

If you like Fred Astaire, you'll probably like this. I'm just not sure I'm ever going to encounter a movie of his that actually sticks in my head as something that brought me enjoyment. Minor irritation? Complete apathy? A sense of wasted Audrey Hepburn? Sure. All of those. Positive emotions? Not bloody likely, so far as I can tell. Even if you do like Fred Astaire, surely there are better movies of his than this.