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Touches You

People are voting emotionally.

Excellent but underrated film

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

For a guy like me who can't dance his way out of a closet, musicals like this are a guilty pleasure. The choreography is great-- flying feet, trash can lids, roller skates—is there any step Kelly can't do. I especially like the boxing gym with its unlikely array of chorus boys. But it's got nothing on Kelly's solo glide over city streets. Nonetheless, Dailey and Charisse appear under-used; this really is a Kelly showcase, which is plenty. Musicals, of course, were right up MGM's alley. Their lavish production budgets could fill up a screen. Here it's a mesmerizing sample of candy-box colors, along with a Cinemascope canvas to color on. But catch the storyline. It's a little on the dark side for a bon-bon like this. Our three musketeers return from WWII great buddies, swearing to meet again after ten years. But the decade passes and they've changed. Now they can hardly stand each other. Trouble is, as civilians, each has compromised himself. That is, Kelly fixes boxing matches, Dailey cheats inside his swanky position, while Kidd gets pretentious with his hotdog stand. What they have to do is rediscover the ex-GI's they really are. Good thing a leggy Charisse is there to help kick in. Especially for oglers like me. And what a send-up of the old TV hit This Is Your Life. An obnoxious Madeline (Gray) of "Midnight With Madeline" may make you turn off your sets at 9pm, and none too soon.Anyway, the 100-minutes is a delightful way to pass a slow evening, and even made me want to give the closet another try.

Everything people say about the world is true. Granted it can be a dark place filled with viciousness and brutality, endless pain and unimaginable suffering. IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER, the little musical that could, makes its point resoundingly with comical numbers of song and dance. Somehow, the one anchor that you can always hold onto amidst all the cynicism and chicanery and corruption, is FRIENDSHIP. Friendship on any level, high or heavy-handed, soft pedaled or sold with Klenzrite, has the power to dispel the darkness and recharge the human condition with the zest it needs to keep on truckin'.That's it. Yes, it should be more involved that this and more complex, but it really isn't. Doug, Angie, and Ted sing their praises to friendship with no intention of keeping in touch in the intervening years, but vow to the doubtful bartender Tim that even ten years from now they will be as good a friends as they are now.This is a great film; not so much for its technical virtues, though the dance numbers are exhilarating; especially the garbage can number and the number Gene Kelly performs on roller skates, but because of its unabashed optimism about life. An optimism that is as quixotic as it is true to life. Right now I can see almost every scene in my mind's eye with the same sense of hilarity I felt when I first saw IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER. I love Cyd Charisse in this movie, taking the initiative away from Gene Kelly in the taxi cab by laying one on him and while he recoils in confusion getting a little work done. Doing her JEOPARDY contestant thing with the pugilists in Stillman's Gym and dancing her way into their hearts. Misquoting Shakespeare and being corrected by Kelly as he strolls coolly away. Manipulating Ted and his buddies onto the television show IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER with Ted's gangster pals in tow.This film has everything going for it and at the same time nothing at all. It is a walk through memory lane in triplicate for three devoted war chums who have nothing in common except when it comes to ducking for cover and standing up for each other in scrapes. It's about dreams that go up in smoke and reappear suddenly in a fist fist and a brawling free for all. It about wearing garbage can lids on your feet and a lampshade on your head while you're toweringly drunk and finding out you can't stand the guy you used to jump into foxholes with and you may need another ten years just to get over his revolting presence.Besides, we all got homes to go to so help Tim put the chairs up so that he can mop the place out one last time while he sings your favorite theme song about friendship to show he's finally got religion. Look around, boys, because it's Deja vu all over again, only this time Ted gets the girl to walk out into the darkness with him where the gangsters are waiting to settle old debts. It's still MIDNIGHT WITH MADELINE, but this city of little gray men really has a heart because IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER somewhere somehow in this crazy old world spinning and dancing to the throb of Manhattan and beyond.

Its Always Fair Weather will go down in history as the film musical which "could have been". If It's Always Fair Weather had been made a few years earlier it could have been in the same leagues as Singin' In the Rain and On the Town but some shortcomings prevent it from being so. The movie was originally conceived as sequel to On the Town, reuniting Gene Kelly with co stars Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin. However by 1955, Munshin no longer had box office and credibility while Sinatra was too big a star that the studio was unwilling to work with him. In their place we get Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd, both of whom get the job done but lack the chemistry Kelly's On the Town co stars possessed. Frank Sinatra in particular I find is sorely missed as I loved his three picture partnership with Kelly in which they made an excellent comedic duo. Although I find It's Always Fair Weather's biggest drawback are the sections of the film which are uneventful. The film could definitely benefit from the trimming or removal of whole scenes; there is a faster paced, snappier film in here.Yet the film does showcase some of the best moments of any MGM musical. The musical numbers themselves are fantastic, all written for the film itself, while majority of MGM musicals took their songs from back catalogues and stage musicals. The five minute opening dance number showcases the then new cinemascope format by having three dancers occupy their own third of the screen. I feel widescreen technology came too late the MGM musicals which could have used it to great advantage but by 1955 musicals had already lost most of their economic viability due to the rise of television. The soundtrack of the movie is great enough that I even bought the soundtrack. 'Once Upon a Time' is one of the most emotional numbers I've heard in any film but the centerpiece of the film is Gene Kelly's number 'I Like Myself', featuring him tap dancing on roller skates, no trickery! This is of my very favourite musical numbers of all time, his title number from 'Singin' In the Rain' may be more iconic but this is friggin' epic and an unbelievable display of talent if I ever saw it. The movie's only crime in the song and dance department is the lack of a dance number between Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, despite one actually being filmed.The movie's other notable aspect is being one of the earliest movies to satires television and its vacuousness. This may seem hypocritical of Hollywood but unlike other Hollywood musicals, Its Always Fair Weather actually has a dark and not very uplifting story of three war buddies who are reunited ten years later to find out they can't stand each other.Despite its shortcomings I do have a lot of love for' It's Always Fair Weather', largely due to its fantastic soundtrack and simply because of its gorgeous aesthetic as seen in MGM musicals, a world of beautiful, bright colours and welcome artificiality. As a musical enthusiast, I am forgiving of the movie's flaws but others may be less patient with its uneven pace.

It's Always Fair Weather directed by Stanley Donen was a phenomenal movie, because not only did he portray a tale of best friends, but also showed as how in our lives we make friends and as we grow older. Either the more we become closer to these friends or after we have not seen each other in years, we realize that a lot has changed and that sometimes ends a friendship that you may have claimed to last forever. In this story, it starts with three guys from war become close friends Ted, Doug, and Angie. These guys while at a bar are all drinking and saying how that they will be friends for life, well the bar tender bets them a dollar each and drinks on him, that they wouldn't remain friends in ten years. As they accept this bet, they all meet up ten years down the road almost not recognizing each other, but during this movie they try to hang out and do things with each other. As the movie pans out Ted has become more of the high classy player who doesn't have wife or kids or show any intentions to try and get some, Doug however has become a married man with no kids, but struggles with a hard relationship with his wife wanting to divorce him while he is gone on trip to reunite with his old time pals. Angie also shows that he is a married man and Angie also had kids. Later on through the movie, a TV program tries to get all three of these men to reunite on television, but as they are starting to talk about how they have changed a group of mobsters that are after Tim, start to go after Tim. During this riot Doug and Angie, join the fight alongside Tim proving that even though time passed and a lot has changed the fighting side by side will always bring friends closer to each other. At the end of this movie you see that the three friends have finally reunited and party at the bar proving that they are still best friends even after many years of not talking or seeing each other. This movie is a great, must see, it shows how the real life gets to you and friends, but shows that even after many years you can still be close to the friends you were at your younger age.