It's Always Fair Weather

The last musical Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly made together. Three soldiers meet in a New York bar when the war ends and promise to gather in the same place ten years later. Ten years pass. All three have changed, none is where he imagined, and when they meet they realise they no longer like each other. The idea is unusual for the genre: this is not a celebration but a narrative built on disappointment. We hear the three men's inner voices and see that they think the opposite of what they say. Its best-known passage is Gene Kelly dancing in the street with dustbin lids strapped to his feet. Another is a sequence in which the three dance separately at the same time; the widescreen format is used to divide the frame in three. One of the narrative's targets is television, then spreading fast: advertising and falseness are satirised directly through a game show. Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd lead; Cyd Charisse is also in the cast. A valuable example for anyone who likes classical Hollywood musicals and work that stands apart within the genre. For a viewer expecting a cheerful musical, the film is rueful throughout and the ending offers no full reconciliation.