Probably Fred's last great musical with the strange "Daddy Long Legs", the irritating (to me anyway.) "Funny Face", the lackluster "Silk Stockings" and the rather bizarre "Finian" to follow.
That Minnelli got any acting performance out of Cyd Charisse is itself a miracle (Both she and Fred were far less effective in "Silk Stockings.) and she proved herself a great dancer in addition. The others were equally wonderful including the flamboyant Jack Buchanan (a hoot as the Jose Ferrer-Orson-Vincente character "Jeffrey Cordova") who nearly stole the film with his hammy acting, his singing, and dancing, the peppy Nannette Fabray and the wonderfully grumpy hypochondriac Oscar Levant, the pianist and friend of George Gershwin. ("That voice!" as Liza Minnelli exclaims in the DVD commentary.) The latter two, in effect, played Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the writers of the film even if they were not a married couple as in the film. Of course, Fred played himself (here under the name of "Tony Hunter".) as in nearly all his musicals.
I don't feel it necessary to comment on the dance numbers as that's been done often enough in these comments and I agree with the favorable ones. Even if some seem to think the story was nothing new, I'd say that's true of most if not all movie plots at this point and it doesn't matter when the show-biz plot is used so well and satirized so effectively.
My only reservation has to do with the rather abrupt show-bizzy ending ("That's Entertainment" reprise.) but that was Vincente's conscious choice.
The two DVD set shows the film beautifully restored with a fine Dolby "sort-of stereo" audio track as well as the original mono recording. The commentary with Liza Minnelli and Michael Feinstein is too "gosh-oh-gee, isn't-everything-wonderful" for my taste but it does tell you a lot about the film. Whether a second DVD is necessary is questionable but the price of the set (usually around $25) doesn't seem excessive.
That Minnelli got any acting performance out of Cyd Charisse is itself a miracle (Both she and Fred were far less effective in "Silk Stockings.) and she proved herself a great dancer in addition. The others were equally wonderful including the flamboyant Jack Buchanan (a hoot as the Jose Ferrer-Orson-Vincente character "Jeffrey Cordova") who nearly stole the film with his hammy acting, his singing, and dancing, the peppy Nannette Fabray and the wonderfully grumpy hypochondriac Oscar Levant, the pianist and friend of George Gershwin. ("That voice!" as Liza Minnelli exclaims in the DVD commentary.) The latter two, in effect, played Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the writers of the film even if they were not a married couple as in the film. Of course, Fred played himself (here under the name of "Tony Hunter".) as in nearly all his musicals.
I don't feel it necessary to comment on the dance numbers as that's been done often enough in these comments and I agree with the favorable ones. Even if some seem to think the story was nothing new, I'd say that's true of most if not all movie plots at this point and it doesn't matter when the show-biz plot is used so well and satirized so effectively.
My only reservation has to do with the rather abrupt show-bizzy ending ("That's Entertainment" reprise.) but that was Vincente's conscious choice.
The two DVD set shows the film beautifully restored with a fine Dolby "sort-of stereo" audio track as well as the original mono recording. The commentary with Liza Minnelli and Michael Feinstein is too "gosh-oh-gee, isn't-everything-wonderful" for my taste but it does tell you a lot about the film. Whether a second DVD is necessary is questionable but the price of the set (usually around $25) doesn't seem excessive.