The Band Wagon

One of the most cited MGM musicals, and its subject is ageing. Tony Hunter is a former film star nobody wants, who decides to go back to Broadway. His friends write him a musical, but the director Jeffrey Cordova turns it into an adaptation of Faust and the show is a disaster. The company rebuilds it from nothing. Fred Astaire plays a part very close to his own position: a man whose stardom has passed and whose dancing has not. Two sequences are remembered for different reasons. Dancing in the Dark, set in Central Park, proceeds without a word spoken; it states two people getting used to each other entirely through movement. The Girl Hunt Ballet is a long dance number built as a parody of film noir. The song That's Entertainment came from this film and was later used as MGM's anthem. Vincente Minnelli directed, from a script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. One of the peaks of the genre for anyone who loves classical Hollywood musicals. For a viewer wanting plot the story is thin; the actual material is the dancing.