Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Monday, April 24, 2006



It's Always Fair Weather
It’s Always Fair Weather is best enjoyed by middle-aged viewers who can identify with the malaise and disillusionment of the three principal characters, and since this has never been the primary demographic among moviegoers, it was probably inevitable this movie would fail. That plus the fact MGM musicals were beginning to pall at the wickets --- for every Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, there were six like Brigadoon, Hit The Deck, Athena, Deep In My Heart --- such a reservoir of red ink raises the question as to why they kept doing them at all. Here’s a surprising factoid for Gene Kelly’s fans --- every single feature he did for Metro after Singin’ In The Rain lost money. A few of the specific losses, in millions --- Brigadoon ($1.4) --- It’s Always Fair Weather ($1.5) --- Invitation To The Dance ($2.4) --- and Les Girls ($1.5). You begin to wonder how he even got a pass to drive on the lot. I’m awfully glad he did though, because It’s Always Fair Weather is one terrific MGM musical, the Little Big Horn of valiant song and dancers staging one more big show as their fickle audience retreats home to their televisions and rock ‘n roll platters. Its domestic rental was a woeful $1.4 million. Within a year, a black and white piece of cheese called Love Me Tender would take home $4.2. Times and tastes, they were a-changin’.


A lot of people like this musical because of its "dark" aspects --- that’s probably gotten it through a lot of revival house and university doors where it might otherwise have been snubbed. It’s mostly Dan Dailey’s character hauling that baggage, and all because he’s been "reduced" to designing animated commercials for television! Now maybe I’m misinformed as to the definition of success on Madison Avenue in the fifties, but I would think any guy who’d developed a nationwide ad campaign, in any media, would have to be considered an up-and-comer, if not an already-got-there. Greg Peck’s Man In The Grey Flannel Suit could have fixed up that shabby old house and gotten Jennifer Jones
off his back had he pulled off such a coup. I suspect poor Dan’s despair lay in the fact that he’d whored himself out to television, and that in itself was enough to bring on (well deserved) alcoholism and ulcers for any character in an MGM feature. Every depiction of TV here is a withering putdown, whether it be Dolores Gray’s hostess gorgon, or a barroom cutaway to those inane cartoon ads Dailey’s Doug Hallerton has inflicted upon a nationwide audience. It’s even implied that Doug’s marriage might become a direct casualty of his misdirected creative energies. His whole "life of degradation" speech at the end is really Doug’s confession of having degraded himself through an association with television. In fact, all three principals react to their video debuts as though they’d been tossed head-first into the ninth ring of hell. Only a questionably motivated donnybrook and full-scale disruption of this vulgar broadcast can redeem their integrity.



Michael Kidd had to feel some resentment after four day’s rehearsal and a day and a half shooting on his solo number, "Jack and The Space Giants" (shown here), only to see the number excised at Kelly’s insistence. The footage is included as an extra on the DVD, and Kidd’s dexterity with kitchen utensils is a sight to behold --- he actually reminded me of those acrobatic routines Roscoe Arbuckle
used to execute when playing a cook and/or waiter in the silent days. They say Kelly nixed the act because Kidd employed little kids as an appreciative on-screen audience, and Gene couldn’t abide the notion of anyone else using moppets for props. That was his specialty. Dan Dailey’s big lampshade routine nearly went into Gene's dustbin as well, but co-director Stanley Donen fought to keep it. He described the job with Kelly thus: It was an absolute, one-hundred percent nightmare, and this within twenty years after the 1955 experience, when both men were still active in the business and would presumably encounter one another (at least socially) from time to time. You’d have to assume Kelly was a real pill on this show, but that roller-skate number sure redeems him for me. It’s got to be among the top three of any dances the man ever performed. Even if It’s Always Fair Weather were an otherwise lousy movie (which it certainly is not), this segment would place it among the immortals.


The expansive ad you see here was actually a fold-out herald inserted into newspapers, grocery bags, mailboxes --- you name it --- and the cost to exhibitors was $5.25 per one thousand. A price increase went into effect on July 1, 1955 --- from that date they'd be $9.25 per K. The stars with outstretched hands around the title were a less than inspired marketing image used for virtually all the poster art, even making its way to the recent DVD cover. Overrall a pretty anemic campaign, and that probably had something to do with resulting weak attendance. One remarkable exception are the fantastic door panels illustrated here. Each of these six in the set were full color and stood sixty inches high, by twenty inches across. They are gorgeous and almost impossible to find today. Metro provided these on most of its big pictures between 1950 and 1955. None of them were cheap, so exhibitors used door panels sparingly. I found a bunch scrounging an old theatre some thirty years ago, and believe me, they’re incredible. This Wonderbread tie-in with Cyd Charisse
makes me wonder --- was Cyd informed as to each ad bearing her image? I suppose she signed a release. Maybe not. Probably sitting at home reading Woman’s Home Companion, and there it was. The "Weather Bally" was inevitable, I suppose, but would it have lured patrons? Doubt it. If anything drove off business, it was probably the fact George Murphy was giving away the movie on TV’s MGM Parade, an 1955-56 ABC series operating on the assumption home audiences would happily sit through old theatrical shorts, heavily abridged features, and random clips just to get a glimpse of Metro’s forthcoming releases. Two of the episodes featured the best songs from It’s Always Fair Weather in their virtual entirety (that’s George Murphy and Cyd Charrise setting one up for the viewers). Schizophrenic Metro was feeding the video monster even as they tried so desperately to resist the erosion it was causing for their boxoffice. Yet another number was a gratuity for audiences in an MGM Cinemascope short made the same year, Salute To The Theatres, in which Murphy visits the set (shown here) and persuades Gene Kelly to make with a free song and dance. Poor George was like the tent show barker that gives up the whole show on the outside before anyone has a chance to pay for the privilege of coming inside.

3 Comments:

Blogger J.C. Loophole said...

Your comment about imagining Cyd Charisse one day seeing herself selling bread in an ad whilst reading a magazine made me wonder- that probably had to happen quite a bit during the heyday of the Studio system. So many stars today seem to shun doing commercials (not serious or whatever reason), and yet some of them do commercials overseas. With that and product placement I guess Madison Ave. will have its way- one way or another.
By the way, John- consider this a formal request for a Glamour Starter for the lovely Ms. Cyd Charisse! A heartfelt request from a fan!
And how about one for fellow North Carolinian Ava Gardner?

8:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm agreein' with mr. Loophole's taste in glamour starters--and I'm a woman!

Logic-wise, everything you say about the TV-slamming in this movie is accurate, but I still think it's an underrated gem. Four terrific dancers (incl. Dan Dailey--there's another underrated entity), the hilarious "Thanks a Lot, But No Thanks" from Dolores Gray, the best dancing on roller skates ever (though Astaire and O'Connor each gave it a good shot), and satirical cynicism--in the fifties!

btw, I believe Ginger Rogers sued a bread company in the 1930s after they used her image and claimed she ate their product, when in reality it was the first she'd heard of it.

10:03 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I seem to remember seeing an advertisement that Joan Crawford did for refrigerators. I think that was on this wonderful site.

11:28 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024