I love this movie so much

Crappy film

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Forget about AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) or GIGI (1958), this is "the" genuine chef d'oeuvre of a Minnelli musical, THE BAND WAGON is a glittering meta-pomp jauntily fights its corner for the middlebrow fluff over the highbrow pretension, not to mention it is where THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT! standard derives from. An over-the-hill screen star, is given an opportunity to headline a Broadway musical to resuscitate his ebbing career, if the protagonist were a woman, the film would be Billy Wilder's downbeat elegy SUNSET BLVD. (1950), but thanks to the showbiz's ingrained double-standard, for a nimble-footed Tony Hunter (a 54-year-old Astaire), everything is rosy and eventually he is able to have his cake and eat it too! (actualizing a consequential comeback and simultaneously winning over the heart of his much younger leading lady.) However, enveloped in his aw-shucks and avuncular bonhomie, he is fortuitously accorded with a laissez-passer.Creative license is put into comical use through the character of an omnipotent triple-threat Jeffrey Cordova (Buchanan, flip but nevertheless, an able hoofer), a very persuasive producer, a conceited director and a grandiloquent luvvie, who has been on a tear in Broadway and idiosyncratically decides to transpose the show's fluffy original material into a boundary breaker, viz. a musical reinterpretation of Faust. Everyone has to humor him on the strength of his clout, only a disastrous tryout can drench him out of his airy-fairy excess. Thankfully he ekes out enough alacrity to let the self-knowledge-savvy Tony resumes the rein henceforward, and the movie's money shots transpire in a string of pluperfect musical numbers, including the ingenious, knee-dancing ditty "Triplets" (Astaire, Buchanan and a sparkling, corn-fed Nanette Febray, who is particularly reminiscent of Astaire's quondam partner Ginger Rogers), and is topped off by the entrancing "GIRL HUNT" ballet pas-de-deux between Astaire and a voluptuous Cyd Charisse in her crimson sheath dress, against a modern noir-ish scenography.Endowed with a game and nimble cast (the monkey wrench in the works is a stooped Oscar Levant, often looks uncooperative and miffed on the sideline), THE BAND WAGON is a passé romance, lukewarm comedy but a sterling musical production, beaming with gems composed by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, choreographed by Michael Kidd, both ocularly and aurally, this first-time reviewer is stock-still bewitched with a waxing smile at the corner of his mouth.

The Band Wagon is one of those films such as "The Maltese Falcon" and "Some Like It Hot", where just about everybody involved does the finest work of their career, both in front of and behind the camera. It is certainly the best collaboration between two legends of the musical genre, hoofer Fred Astaire and director Vincente Minnelli.Astaire plays has-been Hollywood star Tony Hunter who hopes to revive his popularity by returning to Broadway in a new musical written by his friends Lester and Lily Marton (Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray in essence portraying the screenplay's authors, Adolph Green and Betty Comden).The Martons have entrusted the staging of their show to wunderkind actor/director/producer Jeffrey Cordova (a combination caricature of Orson Welles and Jose Ferrer played by British song-and-dance man Jack Buchanan). Two of Cordova's inspirations include casting ballerina Gabrielle Gerard (Charisse) as the female lead (good idea) and turning the show into a pretentious Faust allegory (really bad idea).Tony and Gabrielle rub each other the wrong way - at first, and Cordova's joyless concoction lays an egg. But the cast vows to forge ahead and try again with another musical, this time with no mention of hell or the devil.As clever as the script is, the main attractions are the exquisitely performed musical numbers (written by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz) including "That's Entertainment", "A Shine on Your Shoes","Dancing in the Dark" and the greatest grand finale in the history of movie musicals "The Girl Hunt Ballet", a parody of film noir with Astaire as private eye Rod Riley and Charisse in a dual role as good girl and femme fatale.

In the early part of the twentieth century the divide between the theatrical branch and the cinematic branch of the acting profession was much greater than it is today, and relations between the two branches were not always cordial, with stage actors regarding the cinema as a vulgar pantomime and screen actors regarding theatricals as snobbish and pretentious. To judge by the barbed satire aimed at Broadway in "All about Eve", relations do not appear to have improved much by the early fifties, and "The Band Wagon" is another film from the same period designed to show that anything Broadway could do, Hollywood could do better. Even putting on a stage production.Tony Hunter is a song-and-dance Hollywood star who comes back East to take the lead in "The Band Wagon", a stage musical written by his friends, the husband-and-wife partnership of Lester and Lily Marton. (Tony is not only based upon but also played by Fred Astaire). Unfortunately, the production has fallen into the hands of Jeffrey Cordova, a pretentious, self-obsessed Broadway actor- director who wants to turn the Martons' light-hearted comedy into a portentous modern-day reinterpretation of the Faust legend. Predictably, Cordova's production turns out to be a total flop and its backers pull out, whereupon Mr Hollywood rides to the rescue. Tony offers to sell his personal art collection to refinance the show on condition he is given total artistic control. He ditches Cordova's ideas and restores the Martons' original conception; Cordova is enough of a good sport to recognise the justice of Tony's complaints and continues to act in the show. Equally predictably, Tony's production proves a rip-roaring success.A sub-plot deals with Tony's romance with the show's leading lady, a beautiful prima ballerina named Gaby. The two start off by taking an instant dislike to one another, but in that hoary old rom-com cliché (hoary even in 1953), hatred at first sight is always the prelude to true love. Gaby, in fact, already has a boyfriend, a choreographer named Paul, but as he proves to be a snobbish culture-vulture of the same stamp as Cordova, he can quite safely be discarded. So there we have it. Mr Hollywood proves that that he can direct a theatrical production better than any of those snooty Broadway types, and is rewarded for doing so by winning the heart of a girl young enough to be his daughter.A later Astaire musical, "Funny Face", was famously (and in my view wrongly), attacked by the film critic of "The Times" for its alleged "anti-intellectualism". (The film-makers' offence was to have poked fun at Jean-Paul Sartre, something of a sacred cow in the fifties). I felt, however, that the same charge could have been brought, with greater justice, against "The Band Wagon". I found myself sympathising with Cordova much more than I was supposed to. Certainly, the man has his faults, but at least he has some sort of artistic vision and respect for culture. Tony, by contrast, is all too obviously the sort of man who, when he hears the words "culture" or "artistic vision", reaches for his (metaphorical) revolver. We never get to see very much of what Cordova's "Faust" musical would have been like, but we see quite lengthy excerpts from the original version of the show, and it appears to be less a musical than a revue, a series of miscellaneous sketches with no unifying theme. The "Louisiana Hayride" number looks like a rip-off of "Oklahoma!", "Triplets" is a novelty comic song and the finale is an attempt to turn a Chandleresque hard-boiled detective story into a musical comedy. (Yes, it's just as bizarre as it sounds).According to one legend, the report on Astaire after his first screen test for RKO read "Can't sing. Can't act. Balding. Can dance a little," and (apart from the "balding" part) the same could have been said of his leading lady here, Cyd Charisse. OK, Cyd could dance more than just "a little"; she was a former ballerina who was perhaps the best female dancer in Hollywood at this period. She was also a great beauty who undoubtedly had the best legs in Hollywood, notwithstanding any claims to the contrary made on behalf of Betty Grable. She was not, however, a great singer or actress. The first of these problems could be overcome by dubbing her singing voice, but there was little anyone could do about the second. There is little chemistry between her and Astaire and the scene where they initially quarrel seems particularly contrived and artificial. This lack of chemistry is not necessarily simply due to the age gap; Astaire was to combine rather better with his co- star in "Funny Face", Audrey Hepburn, who was eight years younger even than Charisse.On the positive side, the whole thing is very professionally and slickly produced; Astaire shows that his dancing skills had not been diminished by his advancing years, although to be honest he was never a great singer. (There may be some truth in that RKO legend). There are some decent songs, such as "That's Entertainment!" and "Dancing in the Dark". The story, however, is not a very interesting one and merely serves as a framework on which to hang a very miscellaneous ragbag of song-and-dance numbers. "The Band Wagon", in the sense of the real-life film, has little more coherence than the fictitious stage show with which it shares a name. 6/10

The Band Wagon is directed by Vincente Minnelli and written by Alan Jay Lerner, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Songs are written by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz. It stars Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray and Jack Buchanan. Out of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it's a Technicolor production with cinematography by Harry Jackson.Story tells of ageing musical star Tony Hunter (Astaire) whose cinema glory days appear to be well behind him. Upon the request of his friends Lester (Lavant) & Lily Martin (Fabray), he heads to Broadway to appear in a play they have written with him in mind. He hopes this will restart his career, however, the play's director, Jeffrey Cordova (Buchanan), changes the play into an arty interpretation of the Faust legend. Not only that, but he brings in prima ballerina Gabrielle Gerard (Charisse) to star in it, and Tony and Gabrielle don't exactly hit it off.One of the greatest musicals to come out of MGM, The Band Wagon makes up for what it loses in plot ingenuity, with quality songs, stunning choreography, bustling vitality and heart, big heart! Three parts of the film is made up of character building and said characters attempts to put a show on successfully in spite of behind the scenes worries. Then the final third then switches in mood with a different show and primary characters come to their respective destinies.Along the way we are treated to a series of wonderful song and dance routines, with the stand outs being "Be Myself," "A Shine on My Shoes," "That's Entertainment," "Dancing in the Dark," "I Love Louisa," "I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plan" and the joyously macabre, "Triplets." These are then crowned magnificently by "Girl Hunt," an elongated parody of noir-type crime movies from the golden era, where it's not just Fred and Cyd who sparkle, but the dance troupe around them also dazzle the eyes with some truly amazing moves.Where the big heart comes in to it is with Astaire's take on the role of Tony. It's very touching at times, full of nostalgia pangs for his former glories. He also has good comic timing, whilst readily able to laugh at himself as the (thin) narrative thread reminds him of his ageing years. The latter of which accounts for the not so great chemistry with the divine Charisse, but the film under Minnelli's active direction easily overcomes this tiny flaw. There's also some salt in the story in the observation of what goes on behind the scenes of a Broadway play, specifically the people pulling the strings.Big production for a big movie, all told, it's big entertainment, yes indeed. 9/10