Today,
we’re going to
salute Gene
Kelly:
with a look at
him in the
1940’s ("DuBarry
Was A Lady),
1950’s ("Singin'
In the Rain"),
and 1960’s
("What A Way to
Go").
Enjoy!
“DuBarry Was a
Lady” (from
1943) was only
Kelly’s second
feature at
M-G-M.
That they put
him in
white-tie-and-tails
indicates they
hadn’t quite
figured out what
his screen image
should be.
Gene Kelly had
gone on record
saying the best
hoofer he’d ever
seen was Donald
O’Connor:
Which
would have been
balm to
O’Connor, who
had a very hard
time learning
this
number. He
had been a
vaudeville
performer in his
childhood,
but
had no formal
tap training and
had to learn all
of the steps and
combinations in
this challenging
routine from
scratch.
Kelly, on the
other hand, had
taught dance in
his family’s
dance school in
the 1930’s and
was much more
dance-educated.
You would never
know the
difference in
backgrounds
watching them
identically
demolish the
floor in this
tapping
extravaganza,
choreographed by
Kelly.
(FYI
-- “Moses
Supposes …” is
the start of a
real
Victorian-era
tongue-twister
from the 19th
Century.)
We have a third
Gene Kelly
number to show
you -- this one
a musical
extravaganza
from the 1960s
featuring
Shirley MacLaine
-- but, first,
here are the
items from our
website that
we’re featuring
today:
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