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The third collaboration between Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly,
It's Always Fair Weather falls short of the classics
On the Town and
Singin' in the Rain, mostly due to a slow plot and middling songs by Andre Previn, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green. In a story reminiscent of
On the Town, Kelly, Dan Dailey, and Michael Kidd play three GIs who return from the war vowing to stay buddies forever. When they reunite 10 years later, however, they find they have little in common, other than having given up on their dreams. Best known as the choreographer of such MGM evergreens as
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the diminutive Kidd proves adept at kicking up his heels in front of the camera. Cyd Charisse plays a scheming television producer (an unusually down-home character) and Delores Gray is the toothy TV show host. (Gray gets to sing and Charisse dances a little, though not with Kelly.) The best moments, of course, are the dance numbers Kelly choreographed, including the three GIs' trash-can-lid dance, Charisse's solo supported by a crew of boxers, and Kelly's number on roller skates, "I Like Myself," which combines some of the free spirit of "Singin' in the Rain" with the stunt footwear made famous by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in 1937's
Shall We Dance. Unfortunately, the pan-and-scan format spoils the film's wide CinemaScope presentation, often fitting only two of the three characters on the screen. Enjoyable, but not quite a classic.
--David Horiuchi