Three penniless Broadway producers are desperate to get their play made, and they suddenly find their plans realized when one of them inherits a Paris dress shop.
A remake of the 1935 musical Roberta, Lovely to Look At should be good but is isn't. The cast is great, but being a huge Fred Astaire fan, I was naturally going to be a little hard on the dance scenes in the remake.
They added a bunch of songs from the original Broadway production (which were absent from the 1935 film) for Howard Keel to sing, and it's easy to see why they were dropped from the '35 film as they're all pretty forgettable. The best dance sequence is probably the Champion's "I Won't Dance", but even that pales in comparison to Astaire's performance of it. Ann Miller amazingly only gets one dance number, a rather mediocre version of "I'll Be Hard to Handle". There's a horrible comedy sequence with Red Skelton too.
The love square between Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, Red Skelton and Ann Miller is silly, and the addition of Marge and Gower Champion's characters to the plot makes an already convoluted plot even more convoluted. After the film ended, I felt like Red Skelton, Howard Keel and Ann Miller all didn't have enough screen time, but then I realized that there were just too many characters.
The Vincente Minnelli-directed fashion show sequence is probably the best part of the film. MGM's top costume designer Adrian created some nice costumes which look beautiful; it was his last film.
Overall, unless you're a diehard musical fan, I'd avoid this.
A remake of the 1935 musical Roberta, Lovely to Look At should be good but is isn't. The cast is great, but being a huge Fred Astaire fan, I was naturally going to be a little hard on the dance scenes in the remake.
They added a bunch of songs from the original Broadway production (which were absent from the 1935 film) for Howard Keel to sing, and it's easy to see why they were dropped from the '35 film as they're all pretty forgettable. The best dance sequence is probably the Champion's "I Won't Dance", but even that pales in comparison to Astaire's performance of it. Ann Miller amazingly only gets one dance number, a rather mediocre version of "I'll Be Hard to Handle". There's a horrible comedy sequence with Red Skelton too.
The love square between Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, Red Skelton and Ann Miller is silly, and the addition of Marge and Gower Champion's characters to the plot makes an already convoluted plot even more convoluted. After the film ended, I felt like Red Skelton, Howard Keel and Ann Miller all didn't have enough screen time, but then I realized that there were just too many characters.
The Vincente Minnelli-directed fashion show sequence is probably the best part of the film. MGM's top costume designer Adrian created some nice costumes which look beautiful; it was his last film.
Overall, unless you're a diehard musical fan, I'd avoid this.