I hope you don't hate me for having him so low on my list. To be honest, I almost forgot about him entirely. But I don't feel my list would be complete without him on it. The fact is, I've only seen about 3 or 4 of his films and they're all Shirley Temple films, which means he's in there very little. I really should watch more of him but in the meantime, this is my favorite of his dances:
I would also like to apologize for being so foolish as to misquote my own quote of the week. How embarrassing! I've corrected the error.
Dancer #14 on my list of favorite male dancers will be posted tomorrow. Since that's a little soon, I'll post the answer to the quote on Sunday, along with #13. I really hope I'm not bogging anyone down by posting every day for a while!
I had thought to take a brief Sabbatical on my normal segment posts. But, honestly, I'm only highlighting 15 dancers and there are more than 15 days in the month of March. My only concern is that everyone will tire of me posting all the time. But we'll make March a test run and see how it goes. So, on to the spotlight on a musical number!
This musical scene is from Three Little Words. It's such an incredible scene. In case you haven't seen this movie (and you really should - it's a rarity: a happy fictionalized biography! I've never understood why people bother to make fictionalized biographies depressing; they are fictionalized after all!), I'll give a brief run-down of the plot thus far. Bert Kalmar (Fred Astaire) has a great dance team with his girl, Jessie (Vera-Ellen). However, when he bangs his knee backstage, his dancing career takes a backseat until his knee mends. Meanwhile, Jessie goes on to work elsewhere. Bert makes money by writing songs with plugger Harry Ruby (Red Skelton) and the two start writing hit songs. However, when Bert learns that Jessie might team up with a new dance partner... this scene follows.
This little scene is, to my mind, a testimony to the emotion that can be shown through dance - even a solo dance. You see him thinking, you see him feeling successful and the consequent joy. Brilliantly done, in my opinion. And don't be distressed by the ending to the scene - the movie ends very happily!
Okay, first thing I have to do is discuss the poll results: Fred Astaire's hat rack won the contest on better inanimate dance partner with 9 votes (69%). Gene Kelly's mop had 4 votes (30%) (which doesn't seem to add up - I don't understand). Thank you everyone for voting!!
So, you know how in January I said I wanted to make a list every month of various things? Well, I was preparing a post of my 15 favorite male dancers to make that my focus for March. Then, as I was making this list, I realized that I should have videos linked to each one - after all, it's all fine and good to say, "He's such a wonderful dancer" and it's another thing entirely to show what a good dancer he is. So, then I linked videos and then I thought, "People may not want to watch 15+ videos of various dancers." So, then I realized that I should just do a post for each dancer, embed the video and maybe talk a bit about each one. So, that's my plan. In which case, I may end up doing a post a day for a little while. Would that be all right? My later lists won't all be like this, with the exception of a couple more. I kind of like the normal list format. Anyway, I'll do this the proper way, unlike my 100 movies list, and start from the end of the list.
15. Bert May
I have to explain this one a bit. Here's the deal. When I was in high school and watching Guys and Dolls, I noticed a particularly good-looking dancer in the background. Then, I noticed him in The Band Wagon too. Then I saw that he made appearances in Music Man, Hello Dolly!, Summer Stock, and Mary Poppins. It became a real Where's Waldo search for this guy! He's a really good dancer and often gets little bit solos. But it wasn't until a friend showed me The Merry Andrew that I finally discovered his name: Bert May. His filmography on IMDb is very limited. It's a very sad predicament from the Hollywood era. Those background dancers really did not get the credit they deserve. And they really made a huge difference to the musical productions. Just imagine Busby Berkeley's crazy kaleidoscopes without the background dancers. Or Singin' in the Rain without the girls in the colorful flapper dresses. Or, well, any musical. They just wouldn't exist without these talented dancers. And the sad thing is these dancers never got screen credit. They may have been just as good as the leads, or almost as good, but no one knows who they are.
All this to say, Bert May is on the list because I think he is one of many who should have had his name in the credits. #15 is for him, in particular, and for all the dancers like him.
Favorite dance: "Get Happy" from Summer Stock. He's the guy who does the crazy cool leg thing next to Judy at 1:59.
If you want to join me in the "Where's Waldo" search, here are a few of his other scenes. See if you can find him!
Oh, and because I'm a nerd, I made a video of him. Just to prove how much he pops up in movies! I'm not posting it now because I think that might be information overload, which would totally defeat the purpose of separating the list this way. However, if you're interested, let me know, and I'll post it up later.
For March, I'd like to semi-theme my blog around fantastic male dancers. I've changed the header of my page and an exciting post coming up on Sunday (well, I'm excited about it anyway!). So, for today's addition to the list of my top 100 movies, I'd like to talk about one of my favorite movies of one of my all-time favorite dancers (and probably one of your all-time favorite dancers too):
#18 Summer Stock (1950)
Ah, Gene Kelly! And oh! This movie is so great! So funny, fun, full of one-liners and wonderful music and fantastic dancing.
The basic storyline is as follows: Jane Falbury (Judy Garland) is having financial troubles with her farm. Because of this, her workers quit and leave her alone to tend to the property. When her sister, Abigail (Gloria de Haven) comes home from school, she brings an unexpected surprise for Jane - a group of actors looking to put on a show in Jane's barn! Jane grudgingly agrees to let them stay, with the stipulation that they help out around the farm. Things get complicated, however, when Jane falls for the director of the show, Joe Ross (Gene Kelly), who is semi-engaged to Abigail and when Jane's fiancee, Orville (Eddie Bracken) objects to the show.
This movie has some great songs in it. My favorites are Judy's famous "Get Happy" number (the one with the tuxedo top and fedora), a wonderful dance solo with Gene making use of a newspaper and a squeaky floorboard, a fun number, "Dig For Your Dinner" (I really can't think of a good way to describe it, sorry!), and a great scene when all the actors invade a square dance ("Dig! The squares are having a ball!"). There's also a really funny number called "Memory Island" that's supposedly supposed to fit into the show. That's the funny thing about play-within-a-play deals - what exactly could the plot entail with such a strange variety of numbers? Anyway, that scene is very funny.
Side note: I know Hans Conreid did other things in his life than play the voice of Captain Hook in Disney's Peter Pan, but I never cease to be amused by his line, "As we of the theater say, 'Never become dishearted!'" and he sounds just like Hook! hehe. This was the last movie Judy Garland did for MGM, which is interesting and also a little sad. I won't go into the details because a) I don't know them, really and b) most everyone knows about her drug problems, so there's little point in making us all depressed by discussing them further. A couple interesting points I will point out are that Judy was slated to play in Royal Wedding, which would have been her last MGM musical but was replaced by Jane Powell. Also, she was supposed to be in the song, "Heavenly Music" with Gene Kelly and Phil Silvers but didn't show up to work that day so they filmed the song without her. Oh, and here's a cool tidbit I learned from IMDb that I really can't paraphrase so here it is: "On one particular day of fiming, Judy Garland was said to be 'not in a fit state to work' so Gene Kelly feigned a fall so that she would be able to take the day off." How sweet is that? I have heard that this movie sort of brought their relationship to full circle: in their first movie together, For Me and My Gal, Judy Garland acted as a sort of mentor and support system to Gene Kelly as he was new to movies, and here, in their last film, he was her support system.
Anyway, I highly recommend this movie. To whet your appetite a little more and to make up for the fact that I couldn't describe, "Dig For Your Dinner" in adequate terms, I'll embed the video below for your enjoyment.
P.S. I decided, hours after publishing this post, to add a poll. It's going to last for the whole month of March and it asks the big question: Gene or Fred?
First, I'd like to congratulate Millie, KC, Amanda, and Emma for being so clever! They all got the quote of the week correct! The quote was from After the Thin Man, said by Nick Charles. Well done, all of you! I really like the quote segment and I'm so glad people are responding to it!
Second item of business: poll results! In the pirate poll, regarding which is the cooler pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow or Captain Peter Blood, there was a tie!! Woohoo! For your participation, I'm rewarding you all with pictures of the beautiful winners:
There's still a poll going on about which inanimate dance partner is your favorite. Be sure to vote!
Oh, there was one final thing I wanted to mention. I made a new video last week. If you're interested, head on over to my YouTube channel and check it out! Thanks!
I didn't post last night as I'd planned. I'm afraid I've been having a pretty crazy schedule lately - no days off and my hours keep getting extended. The money's going to be nice but it's cutting into my free time something awful. I took a brief break yesterday but next week I'll be back on track with the spotlight on a musical number. In the meantime, guess which movie this quote is from:
"Come on, let's get something to eat... I'm thirsty."
Again, there no prizes and no punishments for this game. Just guess the movie. And there can never be too many guesses. So, even if everyone's already guessed the answer, go right ahead and guess it too! Have fun!
