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Since picking up The Clock (released on DVD earlier this year), I've grown interested in studying Vincente Minnelli and his works since I think he's among the most fascinating American directors. It's possible that I'm not looking in the right places but there's not much written about him except this rundown of Minnelli's films with some personal observations and tidbits. Be warned that he doesn't care for The Band Wagon, the film I've been warming up to these days but I agree with him that Meet Me in St. Louis is one of the most beautiful films ever made. I enjoyed reading his interpretation of Minnelli's use of colors and details (red, green, etc). Reading it, I was reminded of Sirk. On Christmas of last year, when I was watching Meet Me in St. Louis, Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (filmed 11 years after St. Louis and my #1 favorite American film) came to my mind instantly - the ever-rich color palette, the way characters are framed (trapped between window/door frames) and so forth.

However, there has to be some better, more thorough studies somewhere.. if someone can point me out to one, then all my thanks to you.

I just spinned Meet Me in St. Louis this morning just to watch grandpa singing la la la laaaa and dancing from the bathroom to his bedroom and nothing could put me on the most joyous high for the rest of the day as much as this beautiful, beautiful little scene..it just makes me feel happy to be still living another day.

There's always this

From the few films I have seen I'd say that he's a quite phenomenal and wonderful technician but I seriously query his interest in 'storytelling'...

Michael, there's a useful book by James Naremore that covers a handful of Minnellis in significant detail (if I remember rightly, the chapter on Louis is excellent). Hugh Fordin's The World of Entertainment! and Rick Altman's The American Film Musical also contain some good production information and scholarly analysis on his films too. The Band Wagon also took a couple of viewings to get under my skin, and if you haven't seen The Pirate yet you're in for a treat!

foggy eyes, thanks for the book recommendations. I will hunt for them today. When watching a Minnelli film the first time (especially the ones I've seen - St. Louis and Band Wagon), the incredible beauty overwhelms not only the screen but the viewers, like myself that is nearly impossible to detect the breathtaking complex emotions simmering subtly underneath the visually lush membrane. In other words, I find his films deceivedly but magnificently multi-layered and they just keep giving and giving.... and getting richer and richer upon repeated viewing. For instance, I didn't notice (till the fourth viewing) that the Girl Hunt number contains all types of dancing (tap, ballet, waltz, etc) each focused in the individual manner previously in the film

I hope I'm not the only one here who loves Oscar Levant in Band Wagon. Did Minnelli personally cast him?

Michael wrote:I hope I'm not the only one here who loves Oscar Levant in Band Wagon.

What's not to love? I think he's even funnier in Humoresque though. There's a fun (if your idea of fun is examining sordid, drug-addled, crushed lives) short story by James Ellroy featuring Levant and 50's crooner/actor/accordion player Dick Contino busting out of rehab called, I believe, Dick Contino's Blues. Oscar's even charming in that.

Hugh Fordin has another book that might be even more on point for you, called MGM's Greatest Musicals - The Arthur Freed Unit. I have it but have never read it cover to cover, just the sections on films that might be in my mind at a given time. It might even answer your question about how Levant came to Band Wagon. I'll try and check tonight.

Two other works of criticism are: The Death of Classical Cinema: Hitchcock, Lang, Minnelli by Joe McElhaney and American Film Melodrama: Griffith, Vidor, Minnelli by Robert Lang. In my opinion, though, nothing written on Minnelli has done full justice to the richness of his films, which are often among the most interesting I've seen in terms of gender, family, and so on.

Aside from Meet Me in St. Louis (which is wonderful and fascinating if one can get past its false reputation as a nostalgic portrayal of family and home life) and some of the other canonized works, I recommend Father of the Bride, The Pirate (coming out in a month) and the newly-released Undercurrent (in the Warner 100th Anniversary Hepburn Collection).

Oscar Levant is an axiom of the cinema.

In speaking of his role in Singin' in the Rain, Donald O'Connor observed "Basically I'm playing Oscar Levant."

Any opinions on Madame Bovary? Worth the time?

starmanof51 wrote:Any opinions on Madame Bovary? Worth the time?

Yes! The ballroom scene is one of the most impressive sequences ever filmed.

As a literary adaptation, it's only mediocre. As much as I like James Mason, they should have jettisoned the framing story with Mason as Flaubert on trial. That would have tightened and improved it significantly, in my opinion. As is, Minnelli's direction is very strong and makes it of interest, but it's not the masterpiece it should/could have been.

The Bad And The Beautiful (1952) is another great Minnelli film, it's not a technicolor extravaganza like St. Louis as it's in black & white, but don't let that deter you, his black & white films can be just as beautiful as his color films. Next to Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, this is probably my favorite love/hate song to Hollywood and features a great performance from Kirk Douglas.

I have just watched The Bad and the Beautiful tonight for the first time in a very long time and it is sublime! (Why had I ever thought differently...?)

Minelli does Citizen Kane! I managed to identify the sex obsessed von Stroheim (they didn't make much effort to disguise him!) and Alfred "I will not cheat the shot" Hitchcock... who were the others? Presumably, Shields is Selznick or Hughes...

The Bad And The Beautiful (1952) is another great Minnelli film, it's not a technicolor extravaganza like St. Louis as it's in black & white, but don't let that deter you, his black & white films can be just as beautiful as his color films. Next to Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, this is probably my favorite love/hate song to Hollywood and features a great performance from Kirk Douglas.

I have just watched The Bad and the Beautiful tonight for the first time in a very long time and it is sublime! (Why had I ever thought differently...?)

Hate to be a party pooper but I can't think of anything sublime about The Bad and the Beautiful except for Lana Turner's wonderful performance and Kirk Douglas is pretty good too. But other than that, it's stale flat like an opened bottle of Tab being left out in the desert sun for weeks.

It's nowhere close to the piercing beauty and freshness of Sunset Blvd, a film that still refuses to depend on mothballs. The first image of Norma - her dark eyeglasses glistening through her bedroom blinds - evokes such a tremendous sense of loss and loneliness and imagination and mystery...none of Minnelli's love/hate letter to Hollywood captures this boundless measure of power and poetry and it crumbles into dust instantly if standing next to its 1950s cousins, Sunset Blvd and A Star Is Born.

Michael wrote:Hate to be a party pooper but I can't think of anything sublime about The Bad and the Beautiful except for Lana Turner's wonderful performance and Kirk Douglas is pretty good too. But other than that, it's stale flat like an opened bottle of Tab being left out in the desert sun for weeks.

Gloria Grahame is very good also. She's not in the film enough, but she steals every scene she has. Of course, it won her the Oscar, even though she was better in In a Lonely Place and The Big Heat. I like the film for her, Douglas, and the ending.

I thought it was strange that Minnelli's The Men Who Made the Movies didn't discuss this movie.

I thought it was strange that Minnelli's The Men Who Made the Movies didn't discuss this movie.

Maybe it's because The Bad and the Beautiful is not as memorable as the rest. Not meaning to dissing or disrespecting Minnelli in any way (hey, he's the one who made one of the most perfect and beautiful films ever made in my opinion), am I the only one who can't stand Gigi? Such an awful film.

I'm interested in opinions of The Cobweb. It's getting a few showings at the Anthology Film Archives soon and I'm considering going.

souvenir wrote:I'm interested in opinions of The Cobweb. It's getting a few showings at the Anthology Film Archives soon and I'm considering going.

Well I know it gets a page or two in the book "Bad Movies We Love". Not entirely helpful, I know, but indicative of the kind of mood I'd put myself in to watch it.