Reviews by JxSxPx

Robert Wise was already a major industry veteran by the time West Side Story came around. Beginning his career as Orson Welles’ editor, getting Oscar nominated for Citizen Kane and working closely to create some of those great special effects shots, before transitioning to a director under Val Lewton’s horror unit, Wise was something of a journeyman, but he learned countless, invaluable lessons in working with Welles about creating iconic shots. Known primarily for tougher stories, West Side Story was a departure and perfect fit for his wheelhouse. He handled the dramatics while Jerome Robbins assisted with the musical numbers and choreography.

This is all to say that Robert Wise’s history of tough-guy, street-level stories in films like The Set-Up and Odds Against Tomorrow laid a solid foundation for this gang warfare spin on Romeo and Juliet. Wise’s eye for arresting visuals found a pop-opera structure to support it, and a movie musical has rarely been as expressionistic and bursting with color-coded symbolism as West Side Story.

Describing West Side Story as pop-opera becomes more apt and apparent as the narrative’s emotions and tension rise to ever higher peaks, with characters preferring to express themselves through song-and-dance with only the barest of dialog-only scenes to connect them. Rabid fury dominates the eternal immigrant struggle between the warring street gangs, and the final scenes are a pilling up of bodies and violent explosions that the story had only prior flirted with.

Red is color that looms large over the proceedings, with the Jets and Sharks frequently standing in front of red buildings, or aural notes that feel like miniature explosions of fury. Look no further than the “Dance at the Gym” sequence, which is set against a violently red wall, the simmering tensions between the rival gangs exploding in small outbursts of aggressive dancing.

If red looms large as the symbol of violence and barely contained racial tensions, then purple is vibrancy of life and love, expressed most consistently through Maria’s virginal romance with Tony. In “Somewhere” Maria and Tony hold each other closely while she’s wearing a purple nightgown, proclaiming their love, and she sings about her hopeful plans for the future in front of a purple wall in the “Tonight Quartet.” Even Anita, easily the best part in the entire film, wears purple and frequently admonishes Bernardo for his gang leadership and violence. Or works to help Maria and Tony’s romantic plans dressed in lilacs, walking in Doc’s shop, bathed in red, to plead for peace, and nearly gets raped for all her trouble.

But let’s talk about the central romance in West Side Story for a bit, because it is the most painful and obvious weakness. Not only is the eventual tragedy that calls for a cease-fire between the gangs questionable as drama, but Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer are both hugely miscast as believable romantic partners. The very Russian-doll looking Wood is all wrong with her terrible attempt as a Puerto Rican, though she makes up for this in being deeply committed to her dancing scenes and trying to make it work. The same can’t be said for Beymer, while incredibly handsome is all blandly toothsome, and completely unbelievable as tough Italian hood trying to go straight.

It’s best when watching West Side Story to focus on a trio of fantastic performances, Robbins’ stellar choreography, and the fantastic score. Rita Moreno’s work as Anita deservedly won her an Oscar, one of my all-time favorite performances and Oscar wins. Her teasing, fiery “America” is a show stopper, and she’s even better during the climatic confrontation in Doc’s store, where she twists a message of love into the machinations that will lead us to the grim finale. Meeting her level of performance is George Chakiris as Bernardo, and you’ll find the heat and passion in Chakiris and Moreno where Wood and Beymer deflate as romantic leads. Finally, Russ Tamblyn is all bratty insouciance as the Jets gang leader, leading them through a rousing “Gee, Officer Krupke.”

The strongest argument for West Side Story’s place within the canon rests within Robbins’ choreography and the score, essentially asking why these gangs are dancing and working out from there. The opening introduces the major players, their various fights about territory and place within American society, and find a mode of expression in which snapping and ballet moves begin to look like street fighting. “The Rumble” and “Cool” are the apex of this. “Cool” in particular is fascinating as their tense body language is at constant war with the message of the song.

Written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, the score for West Side Story is one of the great American songbooks. Not only are classics like “America,” “Cool,” and “Gee, Office Krupke” expressing deeper social problems and character motivations, but they haven’t even taken into account the sweeping romance of “Somewhere” or the confirmation of self-identity in “I Feel Pretty.” Yet still only scratches at the surface, as even the “Prologue,” “Dance at the Gym,” and “Jet Song” have entered the culture in a very deep way. The score for West Side Story is one of the deepest and richest that American theater has produced, and it follows a similar thread through its adaptation into cinema.

An imperfect movie, yes, but still an absolute classic. At least West Side Story does Shakespeare one better by transforming the tragic ending into something far worse. In Romeo and Juliet the lovers both die, but not so here. One of them will have to continue on, having suffered immeasurable losses on the same night. So much of this works so well that we can easily forgive the warping effect that happens when the story pulls focus onto the young lovers. Two-and-a-half hour’s flies by as you watch this solidly made, rough-and-tumble gangland musical.

It’s only when it makes concessions to modernity that The Peanuts Movie really stumbles. Other than these few moments, it’s a sweet, innocent blast of nostalgia, never withholding from the melancholy and defeat that permeates the comic strips. It won’t rival any of the now classic TV specials, but it’s a welcome return from Charlie Brown and the gang.

The plot is a loosely interconnected series of episodes regarding Charlie Brown trying to gain the attention of the Little Red-Haired Girl. The Peanuts Movie reassembles the greatest hits of the comics and specials, mainly that Charlie Brown can’t win at life, and Snoopy has a rich imaginative life. The stakes are demonstrably low, and that’s almost refreshing in a way. There’s no fate of the world in the balance, just trying to survive a year of elementary school.

The trade-off then is that we must now witness Charlie Brown and company in 3D computer animation, which captures the essence of Charles Schulz’s drawings, but forsakes some of the heart and spirit that the hand-drawn animation provided. This becomes a major problem in the extended Red Baron sequences, which play very large and broad in comparison to the smallness of the main story. These Red Baron sequences play like Porco Rosso intruding upon the tender moments of character connection.

Even worse are the presence of modern pop songs from Meghan Trainor and Flo Rida. These pop songs feel like arm-shrugging efforts to appeal to younger audiences of today. The Peanuts gang belong out-of-time, and scored to Vince Guaraldi. Much better is the general music score by Christophe Beck, which finds a way to incorporate pieces of Guaraldi’s famous pieces while expanding off into his own textures and sounds.

Much like the comics, The Peanuts Movie excels when it narrows it focus on the various characters interacting and learning from each other. A talent show performance by Sally is saved by the intervention of Charlie, and it’s uplifting in its depiction of sibling togetherness and love. Or Snoopy helping Charlie Brown learn how to dance in an effort to impress the Little Red-Haired Girl. These moments are sweet, empathetic, and tinged with real expressions of friendship and support.

And many of them are cut down by Charlie Brown’s inevitable defeats, yet he still manages to stay his courageous self. For all of the knocks Charlie takes throughout this, and for all of his neurosis, he still manages to get back up and try again. The climatic meeting between him and the Little Red-Haired Girl is a well-earned and hard fought bit of happy ending fulfillment in which she tells him that she respects him for being selfless, caring, and honest. A credits sequences has Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, but it can’t sour our hero’s innate goodness. The Peanuts Movie may lack for ambition, but it places its emphasis on the heart, character, and bittersweet snapshots of our perennial neurotic Charlie Brown.

Everyone’s quick to claim The Sound of Music as the best of the Rodgers and Hammerstein II film adaptations, but The King and I more than holds its own. Perhaps since this one ends more tragically than happily, it’s not quite afforded the same amount of respect. Shame then, as Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner banter wonderfully in this story of culture clash and changing ideals.

Something of a strange romantic musical-drama, The King and I tells the story of a widowed English schoolteacher taking a job tutoring the numerous children and wives of the King of Siam, a ruler interested in bringing his country into greater prominence on the political and international scene. Brynner makes the king extremely prideful, but still intellectually curious and open to changing customs and attitudes. Kerr is the living embodiment of British gentility, and no less a source of stubborn pride herself. Their clash is as equals, and while I earlier dubbed it a strange romance, it’s more of an acknowledged friendship and mutual admiration/respect that fosters between them.

The story is solid, if prone to one too many needless and dull detours, but remarkable as a connective tissue for the musical numbers. The score is one of the better ones from Rodgers and Hammerstein II, featuring beloved institutions like “Getting to Know You” and “I Whistle a Happy Tune.” The musical sequences reach a high point with an impressionistic ballet that retells Uncle Tom’s Cabin through Jerome Robbins’ controlled choreography. “Shall We Dance?” is simplistic but elegiac in its demonstration of opposites enjoying a moment of connection and levity.

This simplicity actually works in the film’s favor, giving the entire enterprise a confidence within its source material that’s quite nice. The massive, elaborate sets provide more than enough razzle-dazzle, and the costumes are no sumptuous and ornately detailed. These sequences also don’t need elaborate dance routines because they’re built so solidly into the fabric of the narrative that they hit their emotional punches with ease.

In fact, Kerr gets one of the better roles of her career with this English tutor. Her natural lady-like charm and lilting voice lend themselves a bit of subterfuge to Anna’s steel core. For all of her hoop-skirts and gentility, Anna is an emotional firecracker, quick to call out injustices and hold the king accountable. While Brynner brings his infamous role to the screen after originating it on-stage, winning an Oscar for his trouble. His performance is quiet fine, layered with bits of humor and iron pride, but in glancing at his competition that year, perhaps his win is a bit questionable in hindsight. Would anyone argue this was truly better work than Kirk Douglas in Lust for Life or the one-two punch of Rock Hudson and James Dean in Giant? I doubt it.

Yet that doesn’t detract from The King and I’s numerous strengths as a movie musical. It’s one of the best ever, and certainly a high point of the 50s, a decade with no shortage of great musicals. And after spending well over two hours with these characters, that ending is still a deeply moving moment in which we understand that we’re not so different after all, once we learn how to get along with each other. 

I’m on the fence about this one. Stanley Donen’s direction is effervescent, Michael Kidd’s choreography is unique and lively, the score is pleasant if unmemorable, but that story is just so aggressively archaic. I suppose the sexist overtones of the film’s second half could be overcome with more distinct characters, but both the brides and the brothers are largely shades of beige with no discerning traits or personalities to speak of.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers exists more as eminently watchable than as a must-see classic for me. It’s missing a distinct sense of something more that is easily identifiable in more obvious musical classics like Singin’ in the Rain or A Star Is Born. It’s main distinguishing feature is Michael Kidd’s choreography, which is a flurry of high-kicks, spinning torsos, and piston-pumping knees.

It takes the lived-in experiences of frontier and country life and uses them as excuses for exceedingly complicated dance numbers. I suppose a better description for them would be hoedowns. The barn dance is the most famous, and with justifiable reason. It begins simple enough, and keeps expanding and growing. The brothers begin by peacocking for the prospective brides, then engage in macho one-upmanship, before turning into a hand-clapping, foot-stomping flurry of body parts and flouncy skirts. It’s a showstopper of the best kind, but nothing else comes close to matching it in terms of songs or performances.

Despite a lively ensemble, only Howard Keel, Jane Powell, Russ Tamblyn, and Julie Newmar make any lasting impression. Keel and Powell are the leads, so they obviously get the lions-share of screen time to develop their characters, with Powell emerging as the more sympathetic and well-rounded of the two. Tamblyn’s not quite the actor he would blossom into in a few years with much better performances in West Side Story or Peyton Place, but at least his brother gets something more to play. And Newmar’s already in full sex-kitten swagger here, a little over a decade before her career-defining role as Catwoman in Batman ’66. Her memorable performance boils down to one scene in which the kidnapped prospective brides discuss their dreams of being June brides, and she purrs out questions about who’s bed she’s been sleeping in.

Yet it’s that entire kidnapping scenario which my brain can’t quite wrap itself around. Just when I thought Powell and the girls would give the boys a taste of revenge, the girls demure and don’t want to leave. For all of the feisty displays, for all of Powell’s verbal smackdowns and motherly protesting, a happily-ever-after by way of shotgun weddings still happens. It’s ludicrously sexist, to the point where it plays like knowing camp, like a self-mocking acknowledgement that kidnapping your sweethearts like the Ancient Romans did to the Sabines was probably not the best idea.

The arch symmetry of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is probably best viewed as an exceedingly giddy hoedown, with a cast populated mostly by dancers and not actors. A raccoon cap wearing farce, it’s enjoyable but don’t count me in as one of the people proclaiming this one a classic. If we’re basing a musical’s merits entirely on its choreography, this is one for the ages. But dancing alone does not a musical make, and this is substitutes exuberance for craft in far too many places. 

Singin’ in the Rain plants its tongue in both of its cheeks at the same time, offering up a self-aware guffaw, and an eye-roll over how preposterous this whole fame thing is. Typically, Hollywood can’t help but indulge in some deeply self-critical appraisals in films about its own practices and history, but Singin’ in the Rain is a jubilant blast of musical comedy.

Telling the story of the fraught transition between the silent era and the talkies, Singin’ in the Rain plays like A Star Is Born for laughs and a happily-ever-after. Composed as a love letter to not only the industry, but to MGM’s Arthur Freed, the super-producer of the most beloved and well-known musicals of the 30s through 50s. A jukebox musical primarily comprised of various songs written by Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, Singin’ in the Rain is the high-water mark for movie musicals.

Effervescent and easy to embrace, Singin’ in the Rain is a colorful blast of smart, sharp satire. Gene Kelly and Jean Hagen capture some of the more overripe silent film mugging. Kelly in particular rides upon a Douglas Fairbanks-like swashbuckler vibe in these sequences, and his ridiculous mugging never fails to get a laugh out of me. And Hagen’s Lina Lamont is one of the great comedic creations, a completely ditzy, utterly glamorous movie star who opens her mouth to bellow like a gum-snapping gangster’s moll.

And that voice is the main crux of the plot, when the latest vehicle between the two silent stars is reconceived as a talking picture, the production encounters a great deal of trouble in dealing with her screeching. Of course, Singin’ in the Rain also has some fun with popular Hollywood myths about the problems encountered with the sound transition – picking up a heartbeat, the oppressive clacking of a pearl necklace, and the sound falling out of synch resulting in the actors voices switching.

To cover up Lamont’s unique vocal intonations, they decide to dub her voice with that a young starlet (Debbie Reynolds). Reynolds was herself a young starlet at the time, a bit-player being moved to the major leagues, and she’s absolutely dynamite. Perky and energetic, Reynolds is the sneak-attack of the four main players. Hagen was a veteran character actress by this point, and deservedly nabbed an Oscar nomination for her work here, and Donald O’Connor was known as a song-and-dance man, one of the better supporting players who made his rounds around the major studios. Kelly was the big star and main attraction, but it is Reynolds who is the heart and soul of Singin’ in the Rain. She is the young ingénue who must believably sell us on the drama and romance giving a more robust flavor to the comedy.

What gets lost in declaring Singin’ in the Rain the greatest movie musical of all-time is how wonderfully it works as a straight comedy. “Make ‘Em Laugh” isn’t just a memorable song here, but an overriding ethos. The film opens with a big premiere party, packed with jokes for the film buff including Rita Moreno’s cameo as an obvious Clara Bow proxy, or later on when the major producer claims he can’t visualize a big production number that we’ve just witnessed. Or the way Kelly’s Don Lockwood gives us a fabricated back-story, the kind that the celebrity gossip rags would run back in those days, while we witness the true events that led to his stardom and pairing with Lamont. These moments of self-aware comedy are quick witted and memorable.

This isn’t to take away from the wall-to-wall show-stoppers that make-up Singin’ in the Rain. One of my favorite big-screen experiences was seeing this at a revival house during which the audience broke out into rapturous applause and cheering after several of the musical numbers. “Make ‘Em Laugh” is filled with O’Connor’s wild gesticulations and muggings, and it’s a great synthesis of dance, song, and comedy. “Moses Supposes” is a great bit of tap-dancing anarchy between Kelly and O’Connor as they tear apart an elocution teacher’s office space. “Good Morning” is a joyful routine between Kelly, O’Connor, and Reynolds. “Singin’ in the Rain” is the iconic piece, and with good reason. Kelly’s choreography throughout is varied, athletic, graceful, and specific to the moment. His genius here is in knowing when to keep it simple, that sometimes splashing around in puddles is the purest way to express joy and elation in a new love. Never before have an umbrella and lamppost seemed so romantic.

It wouldn’t be a Gene Kelly film without an extended ballet dream sequence, and while the one here can’t quite compete with the prior year’s An American in Paris, it’s still a damn fine number. Cyd Charisse is an erotic vamp complete with a Louise Brooks bob, and Kelly’s dumbstruck expression over her legs is the only logical response. It’s an explosion of neon lights, colorful geometric shapes, and large masses of dancers moving as a utilitarian group.

Widely regarded as the greatest film musical ever produced, and with damn good reason as it works on every conceivable level, Singin’ in the Rain is one of our cinematic treasures. A smart aleck love letter and pop art cinematic history lesson telling us how the movies learned to sing, dance, and talk. This isn’t just a great song-and-dance show, but a glorious film that earns its spot among the canonized greats for sheer joie de vivre and comedic gusto. 

While Singin’ in the Rain is easier to embrace and admire, 1951’s An American in Paris is the more coolly intellectual. It is the pop-sophisticate in comparison to its more extroverted sibling. The two films probably should not be compared too much as their aims are different, but they keep getting compared due to Gene Kelly’s starring in both, and that this one swept the Oscars while Singin’ was ignored.

The eternal comparison is not fair as An American in Paris offers plenty of its own exuberant and giddy thrills. After all, the individual ingredients include the strong songbook by George Gershwin, director Vincente Minnelli’s incandescent work, and Kelly’s wonderful choreography throughout culminating in a seventeen-minute ballet sequence that is among the most beautiful things to come out of any American musical. Hell, it is one of the most wondrous sequences to come out of cinema ever, coming damn close to rivaling the ballet in The Red Shoes.

I suppose it is easier to admire An American in Paris than warmly embrace it because it gives us a complicated ending. Yes, the lovers come together, but there are still several plot strands that are left open-ended. This is not typical of a big-budget musical of the era, which usually wrapped everything up by the final frame, sending our characters off to a happily-ever-after with a song-and-dance. No such satisfaction awaits us here, and I love it even more for it.

Not to say that An American in Paris is a complex narrative, it is not, it just does not play by the formula entirely. There are plenty of songbook musicals from the era, but they typical drape the songs across a thinly plotted, largely phony biography of the composer(s). There is also not a hint of a farm in need of saving, or a backstage drama. No “let’s put on a show” enthusiasm, just a tortured love quadrant in which heartbreak abounds and reunions feel bittersweet.

Post-WWII ennui has never looked so handsome as it does in the visage of Gene Kelly’s expat former veteran who now works as a painter on the Parisian streets. Normally Kelly was something of a glistening ham in scenes that asked him to play straight drama, but he is wonderful here. He believably sells his character’s conflicts, and he makes increasingly taxing and athletic dance moves like as simple as breathing.

The two women in his life are an interesting contrast. Nina Foch’s older, wealthy woman could be easily reduced to a possessive sugar-mama, but there is something sympathetic about her. A desperation to be loved, and a tendency towards looking for it in all the wrong places. Leslie Caron is a little hit-and-miss as an actress here, but her dancing easily places her in the upper pantheon of great cinematic ballerinas, standing easily alongside Cyd Charisse and Vera-Ellen. Caron’s introductory dance is a wonder of versatility as an artist. Watch as she uses her body to express carnality, domesticity, smarts, and playfulness, projecting any of these emotions with just a swivel of the hips or an extension of her leg.

Everything eventually builds up to the extended ballet, which rehashes the central love story as a trip through various art styles and famous French paintings. Minnelli gave the world many glorious Technicolor musical sequences, but this may be the apex of his work. The colors leap out at you, the costumes are flawless, and the production design necessary to recreate these famous works is untouchable. This scene alone is enough to place An American in Paris within the canon of great movies.

As entertaining as it is challenging, An American in Paris finds the Freed unit working at its optimal level. Minnelli and Kelly would make better films, or ones more beloved than this one, but that does not diminish the astounding artistry on display here. In fact, there is a reason this film won Kelly his Honorary Oscar, it has the audacity to dare greatly. And it makes the film that Minnelli would eventually win his directing Oscar for even more anemic in comparison.

Three sailors on 24-hour shore leave look for love and adventure in On the Town, one of the most enthusiastic musicals to come out of Arthur Freed’s unit. This was the first musical to film on location, with the “New York, New York” number racing through all of the infamous sights and locations the city had to offer in 1949. If the film has any flaw, it’s that the central romance between Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen isn’t as fun as the other lusty pairings.

Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin are the three sailors looking for a good time, and Vera-Ellen, Betty Garret, and Ann Miller are very happy to provide one. The stakes are fairly low, but my god is it irresistible. On the Town charms you with its high-energy thrills, and with dance choreography that is both graceful and athletic. There’s an optimism here that’s quite refreshing in contrast to our modern cynicism.

Where On the Town really excels is in presenting a group of characters that we want to spend time with, that we root for, and want to succeed. It’s a bit funny to see Sinatra play the aww-shucks viriginal good boy, but he keeps the wide-eyed wonder believable. Kelly and Munshin are the lady-killers, along with both being huge wiseasses. They’re a fun trio, with each of them working effectively as individuals and a unit.

Even better are Betty Garrett and Ann Miller. They’re working in their primary modes, with Miller being the horny best friend and Garrett as the dominating force. Garrett’s frequently pining Sinatra down while he looks up in erotic fixation and slight terror. “Come Up to My Place” is a back-and-forth between them that ends with Sinatra submitting to Garrett’s romantic aggression. And Miller gets a line about liking bare skin, a pun during her big number “Prehistoric Man,” that causes Sinatra and Kelly to swallow hard and blush in demureness to her sexual prowess.

The only true flaw in the ensemble is Vera-Ellen, who is a beautiful and graceful dancer, one of cinema’s best, but severely limited as an actress. Her “Miss Turnstiles Ballet” is a highlight of her consummate skills, but she can’t sell some of her jokes or big dramatic scenes. It’s best to watch her successfully emote in “A Day in New York,” one of Kelly’s patented dream sequence dance numbers.

A wonderful musical from the Dream Factory, On the Town is an almost-masterpiece. Perhaps another actress in the lead role would have improved matters, but everything else zips and pops with tremendous energy. Maybe not one of their top-tier musicals, but definitely one of their better efforts as it delivers on the promise of gaiety, romance, and solid musical numbers.  

It’s that subtle hint of darkness lurking underneath the sweet, colorful surfaces that makes Meet Me in St. Louis such a classic. Centering on a year-in-the-life of one typical suburban family pre-1903 World’s Fair, the story quietly details the triumphs and travails of the family, forfeiting a complicated narrative for the comfort of nostalgia. It is one of the greatest films ever made, and possibly Vincente Minnelli’s best-known film.

Perhaps the greatest thing about Meet Me in St. Louis is how it forgoes the prior conventions of screen musicals, there’s nary a stage performer putting on a show to be found. No hyper-stylized sets, no dream world of the impossibly rich, famous, and glamorous, just an upper-middle class family in realistic settings slowly breaking out into song to express their highs and lows throughout the year.

It opens in an ingenious way, introducing each of the various members of the family as they sing the title song, flowing throughout the house and revealing the entirety of the unit. From a younger daughter walking past her mother and the maid cooking ketchup in the kitchen, going upstairs and running into her grandfather, before pulling out and introducing the older siblings coming home from their social lives. It’s this combination of leisurely scope and pacing along with ambitious filmmaking that makes the film so unique.

Minnelli’s camera glides like a prima ballerina throughout. A scene in which Judy Garland, tough but tender and free from neurosis, leads Tom Drake through the various rooms in her house after a party, slowly turning down the lights in each, is a quiet bit of eroticism. Or the way it follows Garland’s slow-dance with her grandfather throughout the ballroom, behind a Christmas tree only to emerge in the arms of Drake, yet another bravura bit of directing that swells with romance.

Always a daring auteur with his films, Minnelli infuses much of Meet Me in St. Louis with a modern sensibility, making Garland and Lucille Brimer’s sisters the primary actors in their romantic entanglements and husband hunting. When Brimer warns Garland that men don’t want girls with the bloom taken off, Garland delivers a rejoinder about having too much bloom already. Yet Brimer’s not one for sitting idly by waiting for her prince charming. She hits him where it hurts and knows what the ultimate reaction will be.

At times Minnelli’s obsessive attention to detail could tip into strange, hallucinatory textures, proving that darkness was buried beneath these elaborate dioramas. Look no further than one of the odder detours in an MGM musical: the Halloween scene in which the children of the neighborhood gather to “kill” the adults by throwing flour in their face. Margaret O’Brien, death-obsessed and ever so slightly unhinged here, decides to take on the most-feared grown-ups by herself. Up to this point, the primary conflict had been a potential move away from St. Louis to New York City, or a missed marriage proposal, yet this scene goes full-tilt into the underside of the suburban paradise. After this, Meet Me in St. Louis doesn’t hold back from the various conflicts threatening to erupt the family.

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” has achieved a fame so vast outside of the film that it’s easy to forget how ironic the lyric is. It’s an intimate moment between Garland and O’Brien, an older sister trying to comfort the younger one, yet it throbs with the uncertainty of the future, the intangibility of time, how even holiday cheer can evaporate within an instant. In a film packed with knockout musical moments, there’s only about seven here, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” may be the standout. That’s really saying something considering “The Trolley Song”’s jubilance, “The Boy Next Door”’s sweet yearning, and energetic “Skip to My Lou.”

Is it any wonder that super-producer Arthur Freed, the man responsible for what we think of as the MGM musical treatment, dubbed Meet Me in St. Louis his personal favorite? While the surfaces are all about a nostalgic bit of Americana that may never have existed outside of the imagination, the film finds numerous ways to appear modern. This tension between naivety and progress make the film great.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have Judy Garland, Mary Astor, Leon Ames, Margaret O’Brien, Lucille Brimer, Tom Drake, and Marjorie Main leading your stellar ensemble. Garland and O’Brien are the true leads of the film, with the greatest moments and the best performances. Yet Brimer holds her own, a typically wooden actress under other director’s care, she flowers here. Same goes for Drake as the slightly daft, but very dreamy boy-next-door of Garland’s sexual fixation. Main, Astor, and Ames were old pros by this point, and they deliver their typically solid work as the salty maid, supportive mother, and obtuse father.

Meet Me in St. Louis is a perfect movie, and I say this with no hyperbole. Vincente Minnelli created quite a few masterpieces in his day (An American in Paris, The Bad and the Beautiful, Lust For Life, Some Came Running, and Cabin in the Sky being personal favorites), but Meet Me in St. Louis was the first. Only his third film, this was the first glimpse of what Minnelli was truly capable of as a director. It’s one of the best movie musicals ever produced, and a film to truly cherish. 

Yankee Doodle Dandy is two solid hours of myth-making and grand entertainment, perhaps a little politically simplistic and overripe in its drama, but these things don’t take away any enjoyment for me. Everything – the politics, songs, performance modes – is old-fashioned, almost sweetly naïve, yet that is some of the magic and power of Yankee Doodle Dandy. It’ll make you believe in an America without limits, an America where the dreams are attainable, alive, and well.

Dubious as biography, it’s best to just view this as one of the more wildly entertaining films ever made, propelled by the energy of James Cagney. An odd choice for the role, despite having come up as a song-and-dance man in vaudeville, Cagney gives one of cinema’s grandest performances. Known primarily as the best of cinema’s gangsters, his work in Angels With Dirty Faces is still my personal favorite, Cagney is transformative here, tracing the braggart young pup to twinkly-eyed elder statesman with ease.

Not much of a dancer when compared to Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly, James Cagney still finds a way to make the athletic movements work for him. His upper half and lower seem to be moving in two distinct planes. His torso is ramrod straight, while his legs whirl and spin like the Road Runner in a Looney Tunes short. All of these eccentricities of movement, combined with his strong control of the dramatics and ease with the comedic bits, add up to a spark plug performance. Without Cagney’s for the ages work, Yankee Doodle Dandy may have fallen by the wayside of history, regulated to the same dump that other morale booster from WWII have found themselves thrown in.

Not just Cagney’s work keeps the movie ever moving. Director Michael Curtiz smartly keeps the connective tissue between musical sequences economical, moving quickly to explain what we need to know and interesting enough to keep our attention. Then he populated these scenes with some of the more dynamic and quirky character actors from Warner Brother’s contract players. Curtiz also manages to recreate some of George Cohan’s famous musical numbers with similar choreography, costumes, and scenery. These musical numbers are incredibly strong; rivaling anything MGM was producing around the same time for energy and dynamism.

Providing able support as Cohan’s family are Walter Huston as his father, Rosemary DeCamp as his mother, and Jeanne Cagney as his sister, she just so happened to be Cagney’s real-life sibling. Huston could make an entire meal out of any role, and he makes the mixture of personal pride and professional jealousy in Jerry Cohan feel lived in and authentic. DeCamp doesn’t get as much to play, but she’s warmly nurturing. Jeanne Cagney gets even less to do, but she’s a solid dancer and supporting player.

It wouldn’t be a showbiz biography without a central love story, and the romance here is sweet. Joan Leslie, so dewy and perky, must age her character believably from wide-eyed teenager into distinguished older age. She makes “The Warmest Baby in the Bunch” a flirtatious, winking number, and makes you laugh in a scene where she realizes a song originally written for her has been given to a bigger star.  

Many scenes and passages follow the routine laid out for these types of films, the off-screen deaths of family members, the on-screen death of Huston, who gets one hell of an exit line, a montage of marquees detailing the biggest hits, but it’s done with such energy and confidence that it doesn’t cloy. No, Yankee Doodle Dandy believes in the fantasies it’s selling about patriotism and creativity, about loyalty and family, and by the end you’ll want to believe as well. Perhaps by the time it’s over you’ll want to skip and leap in joyous abandon just like Cagney does down the White House steps. 

There are movies, and then there are movies like The Wizard of Oz. Classics so eternal and reinvigorating that terms like “masterpiece” or “beloved” don’t justify their rarefied space. They sit high upon the top shelf of the canon, projecting the highest artistic heights of which we may achieve. Since 1939, hasn’t The Wizard of Oz been a seminal film in the sparking of our collective imagination? I would argue that it has.

What’s so shocking watching the film is knowing how tumultuous and hazardous the production was. Cast members and directors cycled through, earlier drafts wanted to downplay the magic and fantasy, and it seemed doomed to live its life out as massive creative folly. A zeppelin primed for exploding. Yet, the cinematic gods smiled down upon it, and through this strife emerged a perennial, deeply cherished film.

Free from the clutch of a single auteur, The Wizard of Oz combines the best elements of several creative minds working in pieces to make something beautiful. After Richard Thorpe was dropped as the original director, George Cukor was brought in to fix many of his mistakes. It was to his credit that we got Judy Garland in a more naturalistic performance mode. Thorpe originally wanted her in a blonde wig, complete with baby doll affectations, and Cukor stripped it all away by not only removing the wig, but telling Garland to play it as if it were really happening to her.

After only a few weeks as a creative adviser to the project, during which time he also brought in Jack Haley to replace Buddy Ebsen as the Tin Man, changed Margaret Hamilton’s witch makeup, and put more energy in Ray Bolger’s vocals on “If I Only Had a Brain,” he left the project entirely. Cukor’s influences stayed when new director Victor Fleming was brought in to resume filming. Fleming was the main directing force for the project, although he was replaced at a late stage when he left to takeover Gone With the Wind, another 1939 classic that is more a product of its producer’s creative vision than the numerous directors. King Vidor mainly took part in shooting the Kansas footage.

I bring up these turbulent production notes to simply ask you question: where are the stitches? Do you ever see these fractures in creative types? No, the completed film is a surprisingly sophisticated musical fantasy. If anything, the anchor that keeps The Wizard of Oz’s various twists and turns from tearing the film into any direction is Judy Garland’s touching, essential performance.

Garland was one of cinema’s greatest artists, and her performances in other films like A Star Is Born or Meet Me in St. Louis attest to this. Her most widely seen film is this one, though. She’s utterly magnificent, whether believably expressing terror in the witch’s castle or belting out “Over the Rainbow,” a moment of quiet movie magic that’s indispensable, she find the correct tone to play every scene. Garland was a performer who could bring her personal troubles into any role, and her vulnerability, a certain wistfulness makes lines about troubles melting like lemon drops feel spectacularly real.

While much of the film belongs to Garland, The Wizard of Oz is populated by characters both good and bad that are a joy to revisit. Jack Haley, Ray Bolger, and Bert Lahr make the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Cowardly Lion memorable by finding all the various shades to play in their characters hooks. Haley’s Tin Man is such an open-hearted romantic that it’s impossible to think of him as lacking in that department. Bolger’s Scarecrow may be a scatterbrain, but he still proves to be an Idiot Savant, giving us the eternally quotable line about people without a lot of brains doing an awful lot of talking. And Lahr plays his scaredy cat for comedic heights, and you just want to give him a big hug. Frank Morgan plays all the rest of the supporting players in Oz in various costumes and elaborate make-ups. He finds unique voices for each of them, including the titular Wizard.

Even better is Margaret Hamilton, the equal of Garland here, giving a monstrous performance for the ages. If the fantasy world of Oz is eventually revealed to be a projection of Dorothy’s psyche maturing and facing down problems plaguing her, then the Wicked Witch and Miss Gulch are bullies that must be faced, oppressive forces that threaten our very innocence. Hamilton’s cackle is just as famous as Garland’s rendering of “Over the Rainbow,” and she appears to delight in playing up her wickedness. She’s unrepentantly toxic, and one of the great villains in cinema. Even her death scene is horrific.

Orbiting around these performances and delightful musical numbers are special effects, costumes, and locations that take permanent residence in your imagination. Billie Burke’s Glinda arrives in a bright pink bubble, or is rear-projected upon our heroes in the poppy field while waving her wand to send help; did these scenes pop into your mind just now? More than likely, as they are unforgettable representations of helpful witchery to contrast the wickedness of the other one. The Muchkins are a parade of whimsical clothing and hairstyles, with a certain general look about them but a pronounced individuality in the details. The Emerald City, the tornado that destroys Dorothy’s Kansas farm, the yellow brick road, flying monkeys, the witch’s castle, there’s a veritable artistic feast here.

All of these fantastical elements would amount to nothing if The Wizard of Oz didn’t touch us in some primal, deeply felt mythic part of our brains and hearts. The Wizard of Oz is about growing up, finding our inner strength, and the poignancy of returning to home a changed person. I think this is part of the reason why we continue to return to it and introduce new generations to it. It’s not just that it’s a wonderful movie, or that it’s a point of nostalgia for all of us, but that it profoundly represents something we will all go through. Entering adulthood is tough for all of us, and this bittersweet film tells us that is okay.