When you start to watch a musical made in 1954, starring Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds, with the same songwriters as Meet Me in St. Louis, you might think you have a pretty solid concept of what’s to come before you’ve even hit play. But that’s not quite the case with Athena, a film that seems to actively avoid many of this era’s favorite …
Royal Wedding has an astoundingly formidable pedigree within the world of classic musicals: it boasts two featured dance numbers in That’s Entertainment, a cast that includes Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, and Peter Lawford, and a director (Stanley Donen) who was smack dab between directing On the Town and Singin’ in the Rain when he worked …
I was delighted to spot this one coming up on my Rare Musicals list for October, as the sailor musical has quickly become one of my shortcuts to making my movie selections. I was particularly interested in Hit the Deck because of the stellar cast, as well as the fact that it’s both a late-stage MGM musical and late-stage for sailor musicals in general–coming nearly 10 years after the end of WWII.
Some interesting stuff this month, partly owing to a “Bob’s Picks” day with some great selections, and partly owing to the fact that I actually read the synopses and cast lists this month. Picking through my DVR I’ve been surprised a few times by something I’d start watching, only to discover that one of my favorite actors or actresses had a bit part in it that I never expected. And I’d let out a grateful sigh, extremely lucky that I hadn’t just deleted it into the ether. Knowledge is power!
One of the loveliest surprises in watching vintage movies is picking something at mostly-random–a poster, or an actor, or a general feeling–and having it turn out to contain something much deeper than your original shallow intentions.
That’s what happened to me and A Date with Judy, a choice I plucked somewhat randomly from the Netflix queue–mostly because I recognized the title from scouring the That’s Entertainment list, and when I saw that it combined the forces of Elizbaeth Taylor and Jane Powell, my subconscious lizard brain took over, and the next thing I knew, I was inserting the disc into my DVD player.