Sixteen years ago today, the world lost one of Hollywood’s greatest entertainers, dancers, choreographers, innovators, cinematographers, and genuine stars. What follows is a brief tribute to Gene Kelly including an explanation of his death and the industry’s response(s) thereafter.

In July 1994, Gene Kelly suffered the first of two strokes. Although doctors at UCLA’s Medical Center labeled it “mild,” the stroke kept him in the hospital for nearly seven weeks. Kelly suffered another, much smaller stroke in Feburary 1995. “He was neurologically stable, aware, and conversational,” the Associated Press reported the following day. But sadly, Gene would never fully recover from this one. He died in his sleep on Friday, February 2, 1996.

While Gene Kelly’s death is sad in itself — in that such an energetic man/body was overtaken by such a debilitating condition — it is also fraught with controversy, at least according to Kelly’s first wife, Betsy Blair. For example, in the epilogue of her memoir (about which I’ve written at length here), Blair recalls that a few hours after Gene died, his third wife, Patricia Ward Kelly, phoned Kelly’s children (Bridget, Tim, and Kerry) to discourage them from traveling to Los Angeles; after all, at this point, there was nothing they could do. But the children insisted and flew to California to pay their respects to their father and to visit their childhood home on Rodeo Drive once more.

As Blair tells it, Kelly’s adult children arrived to a somber house, “no friends, no food, no tears, and no embraces. They were given a tour of the flowers from famous people as if they were strangers” (6-7). Moreover, since Kelly’s widow had Gene’s body cremated that morning (apparently a rather fast turnaround), the children never got to say goodbye. From Blair: “Kerry later told me they all felt as if ‘she threw him away — as if he were garbage to be incinerated and thrown away. There aren’t even any ashes’” (6-7). I do not know Patricia Ward Kelly’s side of this story.

But let’s move on to a (somewhat) happier note. Many tributes were put together during the days and week following Gene Kelly’s death. For instance, People published this lengthy photo-heavy tribute [PDF] and The New York Times, this one, which applauded all of the “inventive techniques that enabled Gene Kelly to create unusual and imaginative dance routines.” Similarly, The Independent remembered the many hats Gene wore: “As director and choreographer, dancer and singer, acrobat and actor, Gene Kelly was one of the most vital and indispensable figures in the history of the American film musical.” Finally, Time honored Kelly with their column, “White Socks and Loafers.” Here’s my favorite excerpt as well as the “I Got Rhythm” number that’s mentioned:

For all the effort he and directors like Vincente Minnelli put into balletomanic spectaculars like the 20 minutes that conclude An American in Paris, it is the sweet simple things like “I Got Rhythm” — just Kelly, some cute kids, a cobblestone street on Montmartre, a catchy little Gershwin tune — that lived most affectingly in memory. But this, too, is true: we could not have had the one without the other. Together the complexity of his ambitions and the underlying innocence of his spirit constitute the inextricable weave of this dear man’s singularity.

As well, news stations all over the globe marked Kelly’s death with tributes. Embedded below is one from Headline News as well as another from The 68th Annual Academy Awards, featuring tap-dancer Savion Glover. Finally, on the night of his death, the lights of Broadway were dimmed in his honor. Rest in peace, Eugene Curran Kelly.

* This column was originally written for Gene Kelly Fans: The Basics (a good starter series if you want to learn more about the entertainer). And if your day needs even more Gene (and whose doesn’t?), I’ve plenty more posts on him here.

According to the pamphlet and our tour guide, the Clarke House (right) is “the oldest surviving domestic structure in Chicago” (fancy way of saying “oldest house around these here parts”). Built in 1836 before Chicago was even a city, the Clarke House belonged to Henry and Caroline Clarke and their six or seven children (the reading material says they had six; the tour guide claims seven). The supposedly middle-class home is Greek Revival (does that three-story structure look middle-class to you?), a style popular with young American families from 1820 to 1860. So far, so good; the family fares well on trapping, hunting, and selling dairy products. But in 1849, a cholera epidemic hit Chicago, killing 678 people including poor ol’ Henry Clarke.

By 1872, the Clarke children were in charge of the property, which they ultimately sold to a Mr. John Chrimes, who hired folks to pick up the house and move it down the road away from the noise of the now-booming city. The Clarke House would change hands twice more: in 1941, when the Chrimes family sold it to the St. Paul Church of God in Christ, and in 1977, when the City of Chicago purchased it.

It’s this last move that is especially interesting, for in order to reposition the house where the Clarkes initially erected it (and where it sits now), the city had to lift it over the “L” tracks, which did not exist when the house was moved in the late 1800s. Parts of the roof were dismantled, and the house was picked up, transported to the “L,” and slowly jacked up 27 feet until it stood slightly above the tracks. At 12:01 AM on December 4, 1977, all train service halted, and the Clarke House was pushed over the “L.” There was a slight problem though: the equipment that would lower the house on the other side froze (December in the Midwest, y’all!). As a result, for two weeks the house sat alongside the subway.

Someone put some pants on that house!

All it's been through, that house deserves a two-week rest. Right there.

Gaudiness galore!

Visitors aren’t allowed to take pictures inside the house, so I snagged these from other websites. In the main living area is a double parlor with some ugly faux marble fireplaces (here’s your middle class). On the left side of the parlor, “gentlemen-callers would wait for the Clarke daughters and talk about sea shells.” Paaaar-tay! Next is a photo of a huge floral medallion. Decorative and functional, this thing covers the dirt and grime emitted by gas lighting. Better to repaint a 3-foot medallion than the entire ceiling, they thought. Finally, a piano also sits in the left side of the parlor. Maybe one of those fellas-in-waiting could play a jaunty tune before all of the seashell-talk kicked off…

The third level of the Clarke House featured at least 3 bedrooms, one of which displayed a child’s rope bed similar to the one at right. A mattress filled with goose feathers would likely be placed across the top. Then, an adult would tighten the ropes below so the bed wouldn’t sag. This is apparently where the phrase “Sleep tight” comes from.

As we walked around, we also learned that this bedroom level is the only one on which the family dropped their formal names (Mr. Clarke, Mrs. Clarke, Mother, Father) and called each other by their given names. “Sleep tight, John Boy!”

None of the furnishings in the Clarke House is original, which kinda sucks. A butter churn rests against a basement wall because the Clarkes “certainly would’ve churned their own butter.” The same goes for the candles, chamber pots, and paintings of Benjamin Franklin: none of these things belonged to the families; they’re placed there simply because that’s what other folks in the time period would’ve had. To be fair, some of the carpets and wallpaper have been recreated to match the original prints, so at least there’s that. But again, unlike other historical homes/buildings I’ve visited recently and in the past (e.g., Rutherford B. Hayes’s home, The Motown Museum, the Valentine Theater, Graceland), I didn’t feel a sense of the place as it would’ve been when either the Clarke or Chrimes families lived there. Oh well, since the structure did survive two fires, three moves, and two weeks hanging out on the “L” tracks, I guess I’ll give it a pass.

Check it out, and then go clear out your DVR.

]]> http://www.kellimarshall.net/film/31-days-oscar/feed/ 0 http://www.kellimarshall.net/film/unimpressive-cgi/ http://www.kellimarshall.net/film/unimpressive-cgi/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:00:19 +0000 Kelli http://www.kellimarshall.net/?p=17646

Don't fall, little fella.

The opening pre-title-card sequence in Hugo (Martin Scorsese, 2011) takes us through all the mechanisms of all the clocks in the colossal train station that Hugo, the boy who lives, orphaned, inside the clocks, maintains daily.  It twists and winds its way through in a way that I know that camera actually couldn’t, so I know I’m not watching an actual set and scene presented on celluloid but a CGI construction.  This is thoroughly unimpressive to me.  The more elaborate CGI shots get (this one was reminiscent of the pathways taken by the winding camera that opens Fight Club), the less impressed I am by them.

It’s like this: When I’m watching Broadway Danny Rose (1984), and Danny and Tina and Lou are walking along the hallway towards the camera as they discuss Lou’s career and just before they get to the camera, Lou announces he’s leaving Danny for another agent and Danny freezes right in front of the camera, that hits me hard.  It’s a great, emotional moment that hits the audience in the chest as squarely as it hits Danny.  Later, looking back on it, you can be impressed by how perfectly they timed their conversation with their approach and savor the fact that it was all about a vision that director and cinematographer had about how the scene would play out and look and then, by God, they rehearsed it, prepped it and did it.

With Hugo, CGI animators were given a frame presentation of how and where the “camera” (the monitor screen on the computer designing the scene) would be and began to busily draw and render and create the scene.   And the scene is quite elaborate, which is why, conversely, it is unimpressive. That walk in Broadway Danny Rose, that’s impressive!  It’s simple, not complicated.  It’s not a Rube Goldberg construction designed to wow us beyond belief but an elegant play between actors and camera that performs its task so beautifully and, seemingly, effortlessly, that we cannot help but be moved.  By contrast, at the end of the opening sequence in Hugo, when they finally get to him looking out the glass from behind the clockface and show the title, I thought, “Thank god that’s over.”

– Greg Ferrara, “Five Years, Five Pet Peeves, Five Reasons to Go On“

You set Gene Kelly Fans. What has the response to the site been?

You’ve put an immense amount of work into Gene Kelly Fans and met many people connected to Kelly in the course of your research. Any favourite stories you care to share?
First, thanks, but I don’t feel I’ve put “an immense amount of work into the site.” It always, always takes second-chair to my class preparation, teaching, and researching, so it doesn’t consistently get updated. Favorite stories? Hmm, here are three:

• On Twitter I met a former delivery guy who brought a basket of fruit to Gene Kelly while he was filming That’s Entertainment II (1976).
• Another woman contacted me via email to say she was on a TV special with Gene in the 1960s called Children’s Letters to God (1969); we’re hoping she writes a post for the site.
• But perhaps the most memorable contact is a guy from Los Angeles who wrote to me because he purchased one of Gene Kelly’s vests from an MGM wardrobe sale in the early ‘70s. Sewn into the back of the vest was an MGM tag with Kelly’s name and a six-digit number. None of us could figure out what film it was from, but it was almost definitely a vest that was paired with a tux. Ultimately, the owner contacted someone at Profiles in History, a Hollywood memorabilia dealer, who matched the production number to Singin’ in the Rain (1952). It was the vest Kelly wore under a black tux in the scene in which Jean Hagen’s character gets hit in the face with a pie (below).

When talking to people connected with Gene Kelly, did you discover anything surprising? Anything that changed your view or cemented your opinion of him?
Not really anything surprising. I have learned that even at age 80, Kelly still maintained his star persona of that all-American, proletariat performer: he wore a hat, khakis, and loafters; he disliked wearing tuxes and attending large events; he would rather be dining on hot dogs and beer than lobster and wine (he hated vegetables, particularly asparagus); and had a keen understanding of and love for children. These are all things we would’ve seen in his films, interviews, and in fan magazines.

Can you separate your enjoyment as a fan from your academic perception of his films?
I can, but sometimes it’s difficult. Separating the two was especially hard for me earlier this year as I was constructing an essay on two Volkswagen commercials that feature Gene Kelly. In one ad (found here), Kelly and Donald O’Connor dance in the backseat of a Volkswagen Jetta (right); in the other (found here), Kelly’s face is digitally “pasted” onto the bodies of three different break-dancers so that he’s “performing” steps and gestures that he did not while he was alive. In short, I do care for the ads. I think they’re unethical and poorly done. And as a fan, they make me unhappy with those who own the rights to his image. But I had to put aside these visceral reactions and explain, as an academic, why the commercials are problematic and why they didn’t work for many viewers out there (I was definitely not the only one who disliked them). Ultimately, I realized that while the two spots might succeed within the world of advertising awards and in the eyes of some viewers, they disappoint as homages to Gene Kelly and the classical film musical because they draw attention to their own artifice, something neither Kelly nor the genre would presume to do.

These are the final interview questions that didn’t make it into the BBC Radio 2 documentary on Gene Kelly. All of the previous questions/posts may be found here.

Gene Kelly’s appearance: the rug verses the scar. Why cover one and not the other?

You’ve written fairly extensively about Singin’ in the Rain (1952), but there’s one shot in particularly that you love, can you tell us what it is? And why does it affect you every time?
Yeah, sure. Oddly, it’s a random shot, not part of a musical number and not all that remarkable. It falls about 70 minutes into Singin in the Rain, after the title number. Debbie Reynolds’s character is dubbing the song “Would You?” for Lina Lamont, Donald O’Connor’s character is conducting a full orchestra. Kelly’s character, Don Lockwood, watches the performance. He leans his upper body against a baby grand piano and stares adoringly at Reynolds’s Kathy Selden. Although the shot lasts only 3 seconds or so, the lighting is lovely against Kelly’s olive complexion and the use of shallow focus separates him from the orchestra in the background. And as I write on my blog, “At this point, I don’t think of Kelly’s hairpiece or that less-than-sexy jacket he’s sporting. It’s just me and Gene, with the latter looking affectionately at ME in the manner he’s looking at Kathy.”

Sure, it sounds ridiculous — and sometimes I cannot believe I have an entire essay in the public sphere — devoted to this one shot from the film, but it’s what viewers do with stars and star images: we project our desires/interests onto them; we allow them to act out aspects of life that are important to us. This is why there are tons of people currently devoting Tumblrs, Facebook pages, and Twitter statuses to Ryan Gosling, the male star of the moment (try Feminist Ryan Gosling on Tumblr if you haven’t already). It just so happens that my interest, strangely enough, lies in the qualities of a song-and-dance man who’s been dead for 15 years.

What’s your favourite Gene Kelly number?
Probably the “Broadway Melody number” from Singin’ in the Rain, specifically that section in which Cyd Charisse wears the sequined green flapper dress. I’ve a colleague who cannot stand “Broadway Melody” because, as he says every time we discuss it, the number completely stops the narrative momentum. I cannot disagree with that statement as the number is barely integrated into the film, like by 3 sentences. But I find that all that vivid color, the way Cyd Charisse’s femme fatale character toys with Kelly’s, the force with which he eventually pulls her to him, and all the sexiness that follows supersede the integration issue. For me anyway.

Musicals have changed since Gene Kelly’s day; it’s hard to think of Gene in Rocky Horror stilettos, for example. Could a Gene Kelly musical be successful today?
Ah, but I’d love to see that, Gene doing the Time Warp! Could one be released successfully today? No, I don’t think so; they’re too chaste. Well, they appear too chaste to the casual viewer even though some of the routines are highly erotic. I think, for instance, of Kelly and Cyd Charisse in “Broadway Melody” and the last section of the American in Paris (1951) ballet with all that phallic smoke shooting into the air and the way Kelly and Leslie Caron drape themselves all over each other and those unsuspecting statues. In other words, several of these dances symbolize foreplay and sex. When Hollywood’s censorship guidelines, which had banned any and all displays of sex, began to unravel in the late 1950s, films no longer needed to disguise the act in dance numbers — or by showing an erect tower like in Casablanca or a train entering a tunnel like in Hitchcock’s North By Northwest. They could show explicit representations. Well, if one convention of the dual-focus film musical — as Gene Kelly knew it anyway — was to disguise heterosexual unions within song-and-dance routines, then what’s left?

These are four more interview questions that didn’t make it into the BBC Radio 2 documentary on Gene Kelly. Previous questions/posts may be found here.

What place do song-and-dance men (like Gene Kelly) hold in cinema history?

Around 1932, Busby Berkeley and his showgirl-kaleidoscopes came onto the scene to wow audiences, and shortly thereafter, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were paired in their first musical, Flying Down to Rio (1933). Then, in the 1940s, the Freed unit — under the guidance of MGM producer Arthur Freed (far right) — exploded with musical stars like Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Donald O’Connor, Ann Miller, Cyd Charisse, Frank Sinatra, Jane Powell, Lena Horne, etc.

But such triple threats don’t hold that much of a place in current cinema. In fact, that is one of the biggest complaints I see from musical fans on social sites like Twitter and Tumblr: “Where are the Gene Kellys and Fred Astaires nowadays?,” they ask. And “Why can’t Hollywood come up with anyone like Gene Kelly?”

Gene Kelly’s masculine style — can you sum it up? Did it exist before? Does it exist today?
Most fans and scholars sum up his style as athletic, which is a word Kelly would most certainly approve of (see, for example, Dancing: A Man’s Game). I’ve also read words like masculine, self-confident, energetic, and eternally cocky to describe his style. But Kelly himself describes it as “hybrid” and says that he’s “borrowed from modern dance, classical, tap, and jitterbug.” Similarly, those trained in the art describe his style as “jazz dance” or “full-bodied,” mimicking techniques of African American dancers like the Nicholas brothers for example (above), dancing with a loose torso, lowered center of gravity, strong hoofing style, and a weighted use of the floor (Janice LaPointe-Crump).

However they’re described, Gene Kelly’s numbers, while traditionally masculine, also stand out from others’. Specifically, Kelly is not generally remembered for his dances with women — rather, he dances frequently with

• other men (“Moses Supposes,” “On the Town”)
• children (An American in Paris)
• himself (just pick a film…)
• animated mice (Anchors Aweigh)
• inanimate objects (Thousands Cheer)

One film musical scholar labels Kelly’s atypical onscreen activity “showing off” or “clowning” as opposed to the more characteristic “love-making,” i.e., when heterosexual partners like Astaire/Rogers for example, use musical numbers to symbolize a sexual activity (Rick Altman).

Talk about some of the ground-breaking routines. Did they change how people’s view of dance in the movies?
Well, Kelly’s “alter-ego number” from Cover Girl (1944), embedded below, definitely changed the view of MGM bigwig, Louis B. Mayer.

In the early ‘40s, MGM loaned out Kelly to Columbia Pictures for Cover Girl, co-starring Rita Hayworth. It was for this film that he and his partner, Stanley Donen, created the “alter-ego” number in which Kelly’s character fights and then dances with himself onscreen (two Gene Kellys dancing onscreen simultaneously, no CGI!). Although he’d done five movies prior, Cover Girl made him a star. After this, MGM began to bank on Kelly (as well as Donen), and he was never loaned out again, which is sad when you think about how good he would have been in the film versions of Guys and Dolls (Goldwyn Pictures) and Pal Joey (Columbia), the latter of which is the Broadway play that initially earned Kelly a ticket to Hollywood.

Another ground-breaking routine is from Anchors Aweigh (1945) in which Kelly’s character, a sailor, dances with Jerry the Mouse (he wanted Mickey Mouse, but Walt Disney wouldn’t agree). This is the first film musical to mix animation and live-action. Kelly repeated this technique in his experimental dance film, Invitation to the Dance (1956) in which he dances alongside animated sailors and wraps himself up in a giant animated cobra.

Kelly’s third ground-breaking achievement is the opening of On the Town (1949), the first musical number to be shot on-location. The plot: three sailors are on a day of shore leave in New York City; they want to embark on some fun and romance before their 24 hours are up. Kelly apparently fought Louis B. Mayer tooth and nail for the on-location shoot as the studio mogul did not want to send the cast and crew to from Los Angeles to NYC. Eventually, however, Mayer gave in and granted everyone involved five days in the city. Reportedly, after he ran the cut of the NYC numbers, the film’s producer, Arthur Freed, remarked to Kelly, “they were the greatest and most inspiring works I have seen since I have been making moving pictures.” Enough said.

These are three more interview questions that didn’t make it into the BBC Radio 2 documentary on Gene Kelly. Previous questions/posts may be found here.

I did. I was in the second year of my PhD program, studying Shakespeare actually, and on a whim signed up for a class on the American film musical. In my mind, this course was strictly an Arts elective, not something I thought I’d pursue later in life. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve always loved musicals; I grew up watching The Sound of Music (1965), Annie (1982), Grease (1978), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), even that musical version of Popeye (1980) with Robin Williams. I just never thought they’d be something I could earn a living studying.

The first film our class watched that semester was Singin’ in the Rain (1952). The instructor wanted to screen it for us at the onset since she’d refer to it several times over the next few months. At that point I was hooked. Fortunately, more Gene Kelly films were on the syllabus: we also watched The Pirate (1948), On the Town (1949) and It’s Always Fair Weather (1955).

Do you teach your students about Gene Kelly’s work?
Much to some of their chagrin, yes. Unfortunately, the way my recent classes have been set up — screenings and lectures are combined in one three-hour block of time — we haven’t had much time to discuss Gene Kelly outside of his performance in Singin in the Rain. I do, however, post related videos and links on Twitter and Facebook for those who want more info. And I’m happy to report that I’ve even “converted” a few students, some of whom purchased three or four Gene Kelly movies on DVD after our lecture on the film musical.

How do you rate Gene Kelly as an actor (compared to his dancing)?
I’ll admit that in many scenes he’s a ham. I’ll never forget reading an essay in my PhD program that described his smile as a “Cheshire-cat grin,” an obvious jibe at his exaggerated feature. Kelly also widens his eyes too much on occasion, and sometimes he gesticulates as though he’s onstage rather than onscreen.

But other times, his acting can be subtle. I think of the end of Summer Stock (1950) when Gene’s character has been eavesdropping on Judy Garland’s as she sings “Friendly Star.” He sits in a rocking chair, completely motionless with all of his features relaxed, convincingly playing someone who’s been rejected in love.

If you haven’t figured it out already, these are three more of my interview questions that didn’t make it into the BBC Radio 2 documentary on Gene Kelly. The entire series may be found here.

Is Gene Kelly still a prominent figure in American film?

If you mean within the study of film history, definitely. In fact, in some of my classes, I find it hard to discuss cinema of the ‘40s and ‘50s without referencing Gene Kelly and his creative partner, Stanley Donen, not to mention their many contributions to cinematic dance. For example, rather than creating a number purely for visual spectacle as Busby Berkeley did with his geometric patterns made up of women’s bodies (something Gene found “unacceptable”), he and Donen choreographed dances with three specific purposes in mind. Let me explain by using the title number from Singin’ in the Rain (1952).

First, they choreographed dances to fit the frame and movements of the camera. For example, when Kelly/Lockwood closes his umbrella, not caring if he gets wet, the camera closes in on him. The same thing happens when he sings “Come on with the rain / I’ve a smile on my face.” He opens his arms wide, inviting both the rain and the camera (right). But most noticeably, toward the end of the number, when the music climaxes and Kelly/Lockwood twirls faster in the rain with wide steps, the camera simultaneously cranes wider and upward, fusing both camera and dance.

A second goal for Kelly and Donen as they created dance numbers was to advance the film’s narrative and characters in everyday situations. For instance, “Singin’ in the Rain” takes place after Gene’s character walks Debbie Reynolds’s character to her door; they’ve just come up with the idea to turn their failing talking picture into a successful musical. One dance scholar notes the entire time Kelly splashes about, Reynolds’s character is “always in our imagination [because] the dance sets a vision for how Kathy and Don will shape their lives coequally” (Janice LaPointe-Crump). In other words, the number expounds upon the situation that happens directly before and after it, making it an integral part of the film’s narrative structure.

And finally, a third objective of Kelly’s and Donen’s was to convey emotion through their dances. Most obviously, this number conveys the sheer joy of a new-found love and the excitement that creativity offers. Likewise, earlier in the film “Moses Supposes” exudes a sense of energy while the number “Good Morning” relays a sense of community. (I’ve further explained this concept noted by Richard Dyer in my essay on musical numbers that fall at the closing credits of recent films.)

Is Gene Kelly still prominent today? Well, he’s definitely still admired and referenced even though he’s been dead for 15 years. For instance, he’s mentioned regularly on shows like Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance? as well as occasionally on Glee. As well, in the past four years alone, he’s starred in Family Guy, a sketch on the website Funny or Die, and at least three television commercials. Moreover, The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, Britain’s Got Talent, Usher (right), Jaime Cullum, and Mint Royale recently paid homage to him and Singin’ in the Rain. And regarding the mark of Kelly and Donen, we need only look to the camerawork on Dancing with the Stars, which becomes part of the choreography. And perhaps most obvious, your station is compiling this program, so, yeah, I’d say he’s still important.

At the time of the interview I lived in Toledo, OH, so after much preparation and a little hand-wringing, I drove to WGTE, the local PBS affiliate and where I’d recorded this spot on Twitter in the Classroom a couple of years earlier. I was to interview over the phone with Elizabeth Ann Duffy, a lovely BBC Content Assistant based in Scotland. With the sound check in place and a few notes in hand, we were off and running. The two of us talked for an hour about Gene Kelly as well as his appearance, style of dance, acting skills, and ground-breaking routines. Among other things, we also covered how and when I first learned of the star, whether I incorporated his work in the classroom, if I could separate my enjoyment as a fan from my academic perspective, and why he’s still a prominent figure in American film.

As is often the case with interviews, very little actually makes it into the final product. That’s what happened here. My part in the hour-long broadcast came near the end and lasted about four minutes. So what to do with all the rest of the material, Duffy’s thoughtful questions and my six pages of notes? While my other recorded responses may be used for a subsequent documentary on Kelly, I’m hard-pressed to believe that all of them will, so I thought I’d put some of the information here, spread out over a few posts. Let’s begin with the section actually featured in the program.

Eight months later, I finally have the book in my hands. Lane is correct: it is a “swell read” with plenty of maps, never-before-seen photographs, and loads of information on the ins and outs of running a movie studio during its glory days. It’s a treasure trove for classical film lovers, and as one of my colleagues on Twitter confided, “I wish I could shrink and jump into the pages.” Consequently, I’d like to share a few tidbits from M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot here for two reasons: 1) for my own amusement and record; 2) to encourage classical Hollywood film fans to buy the book when they get a chance. (NOTE: All of this pertains to MGM’s Lot One; I haven’t made it to the sections on Lots Two and Three yet.)

• Along with Edgar Selwyn, Samuel Goldfish purchased the studio facilities in 1918. The studio would be an anagram of the two men’s last names: Goldwyn Pictures, a name Goldfish would ultimately adopt as his own, i.e., Samuel Goldwyn (17).
• Goldwyn’s six magnificent glass stages (for shooting silent pictures) would be demolished and then replaced by 30 concrete ones (for filming “talkies”).
• Irving Thalberg, Mayer’s supervisor of production, proposed to Norma Shearer “by displaying trays of engagement rings and asking her to pick one” (28). Not too shabby.
• Some of MGM’s Lot One structures (the East Gate, Scoring Stage, Little Red Schoolhouse) may be seen in Anchors Aweigh (1945), a Gene Kelly musical which I suppose I need to rewatch promptly (38, 67).
• The Dressing Room Building was called “the bordello” because it contained “open verandahs running along the front in which actors traversed in their dressing gowns to and from the bathrooms.” At least that’s how Myrna Loy remembers it (72).
• Jane Powell recalls her on-set schooling as “merely adequate” since the teacher “didn’t do much teaching” (77).
• Betty Danko, Margaret Hamilton‘s stunt double for The Wizard of Oz (1939), was injured on the third take of the “surrender Dorothy” skywriting sequence when her broomstick (i.e., a smoking pipe) exploded (85). Yikes!
• The Saucer Tank, a 5,250-square-foot iron bowl for shooting water sequences (think Esther Williams and Jaws), lasted on the lot until 2003, when it was replaced by a Coke machine (88). Sigh.
• MGM transported stars around the lots in limousines (96).
• Soundstage 6 was the tallest at 80 feet high; it’s the one with the 15-ton “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer” on the top (image below). Stage 6 is also where the first recorded fatality at MGM occurred; sadly, an electrician plummeted to his death when a lighting platform support broke loose (102-04).

That’s all for now. Some links for “further reading” follow the photos below.

Further Reading

• A preview of the book (pdf) and some excerpts/images from Santa Monica Press’s page.
• The official site for the book.
• Interview with one of the authors.

Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)

There are several reasons readers should familiarize themselves with Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (also known as “The Negro Is Your Brother”). First and most significantly, it was written during “a critical turning point in the struggle for African American civil rights” and is, therefore, generally considered “the most important written document of the modern civil rights movement and a classic text on civil disobedience” (Milestone Documents). But the letter is also a brilliant example of the art of persuasion as it masterfully analyzes its dual audience: the eight clergymen who reacted to King’s nonviolent activities, and King’s fellow demonstrators. And like all well-crafted persuasive writing, it employs all the rhetorical methods of appeal — the appeal to reason, character, emotion, and style (Aims of Argument 116-140).

I’ll address briefly here how a portion of King’s letter appeals to his audience via style, or those choices a writer makes at the level of words, phrases, and sentences. Take this passage, for example.

We have waited for more that 340 years for our constitutional and Godgiven rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking, “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored” when your first name becomes “Nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

First, along with creating in the readers a sense of outrage, King’s concrete examples, personal experiences, metaphors/similes, sharp contrasts/comparsions, and sentence rhythm paint a picture; they appeal to sight. For example, the jailed preacher contrasts the phrase jetlike speed, which with Africa was overcoming colonialism, with the phrase horse-and-buggy pace, the unfortunate rate at which America was attempting to do the same. See also stinging darts of segregation, clouds of inferiority, little mental sky, and the other phrases in blue above.

Second, even when read silently, King’s words here also possess sound, a variation of sentence length, a use of rhythmic patterns, and repetition for emphasis. Regarding the latter, see his use of the phrase when you. Through the repetition of these two words (marked in red above), the writer “piles up examples of racial discrimination” that he and the black community have experienced, driving home his point about the need for racial equality. King also makes use of parallelism in this portion of the letter, employing similar words phrases to reiterate a point: lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim (green above).

Finally, King’s fondness for alliteration is also evident here when he describes the police’s horrific actions: “curse, kick, and kill” (pink above). As the authors of Aims of Argument point out, the repetition of this hard K sound, “especially in words of one syllable, suggest the violence of the acts themselves.” So the the next time you read a piece of Martin Luther King Jr.’s writings — be it his “I Have a Dream” or “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” — I hope you’ll notice the clergyman’s/activist’s/rhetorician’s appeal to style (as well as his art of persuasion) alongside his many other monumental accomplishments for this country.

Further Reading

• Why the MLK Memorial Matters
• The Day MLK Died (images from Life magazine)
• How MLK Might’ve Used Social Media

While I’ve little affection for the movie Liar Liar (Tom Shadyac, 1997), I’ve always been tickled by its outtakes, particularly the one above, which derives from an exchange between the characters of Jim Carrey and Swoosie Kurtz. In the final cut, the two lawyers are at each others’ throats before a judge breaks them up. Carrey’s character begins:

Fletcher: Weight, 105. Yeah, in your bra!
Dana: Your Honor, I object!
Fletcher: You would!
Dana: BASTARD!
Fletcher: HAG!
Judge Stevens: QUIET! Overruled!

In the blooper, Kurtz replaces the word bastard with overactor, a decision that prompts huge laughs not only from Carrey, but also the unseen crew. And why should it not? Jim Carrey does overact, and everyone knows this. However, for the most part, his roles require it; see for example, In Living Color, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. In other words, Carrey’s “scenery chewing” and “camera mugging” and “hamming it up” are intentional, and within the diegesis of the film, such exaggeration (normally) works. The same arguably goes for the following performances.

Intentional Overacting

• John Huston in Chinatown (1974)
  
• Steve Martin in The Jerk (1979)
  
• Tom Hulce in Amadeus (1984)
• Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future (1984)
• Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction (1987)
• Parker Posey in Dazed and Confused (1993)
  
• Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, and co. in the Harry Potter films (2001-11)
• Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush in Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)
  
• Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
• Dean Norris in Breaking Bad (2008– )
  
• Carrie Preston in The Good Wife (2009– )

Each of these performances is relatively big, broad, and memorable — in a good way. For example, Tom Hulce’s giggly and over-the-top Mozart is a perfect foil to F. Murray Abraham’s gloomy and jealous Salieri. Incidentally, I haven’t seen Amadeus in probably 15 years, but I can still hear Hulce’s giddy laughter in my mind. Similarly, Dean Norris’s braggadocio plays well against Bryan Cranston’s more timid — to the public at least — Walter White. There are some screen performances, however, in which the overacting is unintentional and, therefore, unconvincing, embarrassing, and/or just downright grating.

Unintentional Overacting

• Mickey Rooney in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)
  
• Gene Kelly in Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949) and Viva Knievel! (1971) (yeah, I said it…)
• Shelley Duvall in The Shining (1980)
  
• Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest (1981)
  
• Jack Nicholson in Witches of Eastwick (1987)
  
• Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon (1987)
  
• Renee Zellwegger in Cold Mountain (2003)
  
• Paul Dano in There Will Be Blood (2007) (Thanks, Jen!)
• Christian Bale in The Fighter (2010)
  
• Nicholas Cage and Al Pacino in virtually anything after 1992 (thanks, Noel!)

Ugh. In many of these films, I cannot wait for the actor/character to exit the frame. I must admit, however, that I’ve an affection for Dunaway’s Joan Crawford, and I debated putting her in this list. Nonetheless, I won’t show A Midsummer Night’s Dream in its entirety to my Shakespeare in Film students because of Rooney’s overplayed performance as Puck. The same goes for Duvall in The Shining. While I can tolerate Nicholson’s “Heeeeeeere’s Johnny” and all of the rest of his crazy antics, I find it much harder to sit through Duvall’s whining, screaming, and wide-eyed emoting. I much prefer her alongside Robin Williams in Popeye (1980). What, you’ve never seen it? Get thyself to Netflix stat.

There are also huge performances that theoretically fit in both categories. For example, I’m having a helluva time trying to place these folks/characterizations:

Straddling the Fence

• Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950)
• Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men (1992)
• Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman (1992)
• Kenneth Branagh in Hamlet (1996)
• Cuba Gooding Jr. in Jerry Maguire (1996)
  
• John Malkovich in Con Air (1997) and In the Line of Fire (1993)

For the most part, these performances work for me, but I can see why they would not for other viewers. Sure, Branagh hams it up a bit too much in certain soliloquies and when he’s speaking to his mother (Julie Christie) and/or yelling at Ophelia (Kate Winslet), but much of the time his Hamlet is effective, daring even. I could watch his “To be or not to be” on a loop. Those mirrors! That dagger! That blonde mane! The same goes for Pacino in Scent of a Woman. Yes, in recent years Pacino has become a parody of himself and, as such, has been crowned king of the Overacting Hall of Fame, so I can see why some viewers would label his Lt. Colonel Frank Slade as “unintentional” scenery-chewing. But I find that all his hoo-hah’ing and barking in Scent of a Woman convincingly round out his blind, disgruntled, lonely, and emasculated veteran.

One recent screen performance, however, most certainly does not work for me, and although some of my colleagues respectively disagree, I place it firmly in the “unintentional overacting” category: Jeremy Davies’ portrayal of Dickie Bennett in Justified.

Please, Raylan, Take Out Dickie Bennet

Friday night, the husband and I finished season 2 of FX’s western-inspired drama, Justified, this in preparation for season 3, which premieres tomorrow night (set your DVRs!). Overall, I enjoyed the season, especially Raylan Givens’s funeral duds (sweet Jesus, see below), Margo Martindale’s (award-winning) turn as volatile matriarch Mags Bennett, and Boyd Crowder’s crazy-ass hairdo (also below). Ohhhh yeah, I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for Boyd Crowder, his hair, his white teeth, and his love of language. But I cannot say that I enjoyed Davies’ guest spot on the show.

First, I’ve no problem with some of Davies’ contributions to the headstrong character: the limp, the trucker hat, the greasy beard/mustache, and the backwoods Kentucky accent. All of these things are credible. It’s his exaggerated gestures and all the flailing about that burden the performance for me (and one or two of my colleagues at least). As such, it’s easy for me to echo the Daily Beast‘s review of Christian Bale’s overhyped Dickie Eklund when I speak of Davies’ performance, which is “too distracting to be infused with emotional truth.” (Some spoilers ahead…maybe?)

I’ve been able to access online only a handful of scenes in which Davies’s Dickie Bennet is featured, virtually none of which testifies strongly to my issue with his performance. Consequently, I’m aware this argument might be difficult to uphold for those who’ve not seen the show. Still, the third scene featured in this compilation, in which Dickie has tied Raylan to a tree, hints at it some of the character’s excessive jumping around, pointing, and gesturing that I define as overacting. At least the following two scenes fare better.

In this first clip, Dickie (along with one of his ruffians) breaks into the house of Helen (Raylan’s aunt/stepmother) and Arlo (Raylan’s father). Again, there’s just a taste here of my problem with Davies’s performance overall. Specifically, check out the five seconds in which Dickie invites Helen into the kitchen, “Why dontcha just put down the piece (?) there and come on in; come on, make us some eggs or somethin, whaddya say?” His roundabout way of finger pointing, all that head-tilting, and eye-squinting are just too extreme for such an intimate scene.

In the second clip, Raylan holds Dickie at gunpoint. Obviously fearing for his life, Dickie responds to the US marshal unintelligibly throughout. WTF are you saying, Davies?? Note: the scene is pared down significantly here, so the character’s garbled dialogue isn’t nearly as annoying as it is when drawn out over 4-5 minutes. I understand that most people would be incomprehensible with a gun pointed at their head, myself included, so to some viewers, this individual performance may come across as realistic, justified even (ah, see what I did there?). However, when considered in the context of the entire season (this was episode 10 of 12), the indiscernible dialogue seems way overblown — and downright irritating.

This commenter understands where I’m coming from:

“I don’t like Jeremy Davies’ performances of the last few years not because he’s overacting and extravagant, but because they’re ugly performances — full of nervous tics and affectations that just look bad. Realism barely enters into it — it’s just a matter of him making it impossible for the audience to find any pleasure in his movements.”

Yes, full of tics and affections but lacking reality or pleasure, an analysis that nicely echoes theorist Siegfried Kracauer’s thoughts on the matter. In his book Theory of Film, Kracauer explains that when film critics call out an actor for overacting his/her part, “they wish to express the feeling that his/her acting is somehow, too purposeful, that it lacks the fringe of indeterminacy or indefiniteness which is characteristic of photography” (95). That’s it exactly; many of Davies’s performances in Justified are “too purposeful”: too much fidgeting, too many tics, and too distinct. And that is why I totally align with this viewer as well, who wonders about the gun-pointing scene above, “How Raylan kept from blasting a hole in Dickie Bennett’s (Jeremy Davies) head in the woods, I will never know.” Me neither, sir. Me neither.

I was in love with him before I knew him. He was Woody Allen. Our entire family used to gather around the TV set and watch him on Johnny Carson. He was so hip, with his thick glasses and cool suits. But it was his manner that got me, his way of gesturing, his hands, his coughing and looking down in a self-deprecating way while he told jokes like “I couldn’t get a date for New Year’s Eve so I went home and I jumped naked into a vat of Roosevelt dimes. ” Or “I’d rather be a with a beautiful woman than anything else except my stamp collection.” Things like that. He was even better-looking in real life. He had a great body, and he was physically very graceful.

– Diane Keaton, Then Again (2011)

Free tickets to the event (along with free popcorn/soda) were promoted via Twitter and Facebook by Broadway in Chicago (it pays to tweet, y’all). To secure a good seat, audience members lined up two hours before the first-come, first-serve screening. Yeah, I was there early too, using my time wisely to catch up on three weeks’ worth of Entertainment Weekly. The press showed up as well, shining their gigantic lights and cameras in our faces and soliciting canned cheers to accompany their footage.

Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, two of Smash‘s executive producers, spoke briefly before the screening. They informed us that this project, created and helmed by Steven Spielberg (yeah, that one), has been in the works for twelve years. A “huge fan of Broadway musicals,” Spielberg apparently wanted to portray “an upstairs/downstairs look at the theatrical genre” for the small screen. Long story short: more than a decade later, some calls were made, meetings were scheduled, and in the middle of filming War Horse (2011), Smash was born.

Zadan and Meron continued to talk to the audience, first getting the Glee comparisons out of the way — “Yes, we thank God for Ryan Murphy. Without him, we wouldn’t be here. That show broke down the barrier for musicals on TV. But this is really nothing like Glee.” Then, the two proudly explained that Smash is the “first series on television with original music”; well, they mean “original lyrical songs/numbers written for certain scenes/characters.” Finally, we learn that a “theatrical DNA is associated with the show.” Indeed, many people in the Broadway community — writers, lyricists, actors, dancers, etc. — are lending their talents to the program and, moreover, Zaden assured us that Smash will not shoot anywhere but in New York City.

The lights dim, and Karen Cartwright (Katharine McPhee), a midwestern girl who dreams of making it on the Broadway stage, sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (no spoilers; it’s in the trailer). Sure, Judy Garland’s song speaks to youthful aspirations, so it fits nicely here as a cold open. But it’s also the track that arguably garnered McPhee her runner-up position in season five of American Idol and what Simon Cowell labeled “the single best performance in the competition to date.” Nice going, playwright/screenwriter Theresa Rebeck; we’re making meaning already.

Here are some other things I jotted down as I watched. NOTE: There’s some direct quoting as well as a tiny description of mise-en-scene, so if you want to go into Smash all virginal-like, please bypass these bullet points:

• As songwriter Julia Houston (Debra Messing) scans a newspaper for upcoming Broadway musicals, she complains about “all the revivals and remakes out there” and wonders “why doesn’t anyone do originals anymore?” Our audience nods in unity as if to say, “Yeah, girl. Preach.” Contradiction of the night: In the Q&A that followed the screening, Zaden and Meron promote their own musical How To Succeed in Business without Really Trying (featuring Darren Criss and Nick Jonas), which is itself a revival from performances in 1961 and 1995.
• Debra Messing, why so many scarves? Morning, noon, bedtime: nothing but scarves. Is your character that cold?
• Echoing other primetime shows like NBC’s Up All Night and ABC’s Work It, married women are the ones working here; men are jobless househusbands. Sign of the times…
• While I enjoyed watching both actors/characters, I’m not a fan of pitting a blonde woman (Megan Hilty) against a brunette (McPhee); that’s such an old standby.
• Crosscutting full-out performances with try-outs/rehearsals, the numbers for Marilyn (the Musical) are expertly shot, humorously written, and clearly conceived by Broadway professionals (Joshua Bergasse and Marc Shaiman/Scott Wittman from Hairspray and Movin’ Out). The numbers are not forced into the story (as Glee‘s often are), and they carry with them just enough playfulness and innuendo to keep you wanting more. (Read more about the concept of the show and Marilyn here.)
• In Megan Hilty, I was delighted to see such a fit and vivacious dancer with actual curves, legs, and boobs — none of this Natalie Portman/Black Swan emaciated crap (yeah, I know it’s musical theatre, not ballet. Still, it’s nice to see.). Hilty (above) plays Ivy Lynn, a Broadway veteran competing with McPhee’s character for the role of Marilyn.
• The vocals were a little overproduced in spots, but again, not nearly as noticeably as Glee‘s.
• There was one integrated number at the end; the rest were backstage treatments.

After a round of applause and some hoots and hollers, the two producers along with native Chicagoan Brian d’Arcy James, who plays Frank Houston (jobless husband to Messing’s character), returned to the stage for questions. Much of what they covered may be found in press releases about Smash. For example, season one will end with Marilyn (the Musical)‘s opening out of town; if there is a season two, the musical will go to Broadway. The show was cast traditionally, with an audition process, and no, at this time, they are not looking for more cast members. Last, the title of the show derives from Variety‘s term “smash hit” as well as the notion of collision, which is invariable in the world of theatre and life.

Well, that’s it for now. Looking forward to seeing others’ reactions on February 6…

Cute Smash propaganda

TV on the big screen

Producers Zadan and Meron alongside Brian d'Arcy James

The song “Voodoo,” which was to be Garland’s second showcase in the picture, happens in the plotline where Gene Kelly hypnotizes her and she goes into this huge “Voodoo” song and dance. For its time, it was extremely erotic. [...]

She began to writhe around him and drape herself around him; she danced with such an intensity that it was both exciting but also a little unnerving.

Louis B. Mayer went down to the screening room and saw the sensual/erotic Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, and he hit the ceiling. He said, “Burn the negative. If that exhibition gets on the screen, we will be raided by the police!”

– John Fricke and Patricia Ward Kelly

In the late 1920s, some U.S. citizens, churchgoers, and government officials complained copiously about the movies’ depictions of sex and violence. “Motion pictures are too risque! They’re corrupting our children! They’re of the Devil!” To this end, Hollywood studio moguls hired a bunch of white Catholic men to sit in a room and come up with various rules to apply to their films (better the studios do this than the government, they thought). Sure enough, the men finally came up with a doctrine, which they called “The Formula” and later “The Don’ts and the Be Carefuls“; it featured regulations like “no white slavery is allowed onscreen,” “there should be no branding of people or animals, and “the clergy should not be ridiculed.” But here’s the thing: no one working in the industry really paid attention to these laws; they kept churning out the pictures they wanted to. Directors wanted their onscreen sex and violence, dammit.

But in 1934, many believed the industry had now run grossly amuck with its gratuitous depictions of scantily clad women and bloodshed. As a result, a more severe group of rules was created and implemented. This would be named The Production Code or Hays Code after the head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA), Will Hays, a politician hired to “clean up Hollywood” after the Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle scandal among other things.

In short, The Hays Code would reign supreme throughout the studio era (1930s-1960ish), enforcing certain moral standards so audience members would not “be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin.” This means that for virtually 30 years, Hollywood shuns representations of sex, lustful or excessive kissing, nudity, homosexuality (labeled “sexual perversion” in the Code), and adultery or illicit sex. Certainly, these things were implied all the time in film; you’ve seen, for instance, the tower in Casablanca, the train/tunnel at the end of North By Northwest, and Astaire’s/Rogers’s romantic dances like “Night and Day.” All symbols of sexual intercourse. Still, literal representations like those in cinema today were forbidden.

With this in mind, it’s always fun to discover something that gets past those old white men who sat and watched movies in the Hays office all day long, looking for exposed nipples and costumes that revealed too much. So without further ado, I give you this shot/clip from The Pirate (1948), starring Gene Kelly and Judy Garland…

(Our thanks to the lovely Sepia Dreamer for posting the pic on Tumblr.)

Cross-posted over at Gene Kelly Fans…

• Gene Kelly had a most spectacular ass. Watching it is akin to a religious experience. (via @phoenix_emrys)
• Gene Kelly’s ass. Like for real, tho. #favoritethingsinclassicfilm (via @avardvark)
• Gene Kelly should pretty much *always* be in tights. #AnAmericanInParis (via @jillian6475)
• Gene Kelly puts the “ass” in assets! (via @chrissysago)
• GENE KELLY’S ARSE, YOU GUYS. (via @shelikeswaves)
• Chillin’ on the couch knitting while watching Gene Kelly’s ass. Doesn’t get much better than this. (via @phoenix_emrys)

And earlier this week, the heart-bedazzled picture above as well as this animated-gif montage of Gene’s accoutrement emerged on my Tumblr dashboard.

But it’s not just Gene Kelly’s rear-end that fans — women and men, straight and gay — are objectifying on a daily basis (yes, daily). It is also his arms, chest, scar, legs, clothes, and body in general. To accompany the following images, here are some captions, all taken from Twitter over the past month or so:

• “He was the whole package. Arm porn FTW.” (via @gamerchick02)
• “Gene, you put on your shirt far too soon!” (via @kellyakabilly)
• “Gene Kelly’s little scar drives me wild.” (via @bubblegenius)
• “Thank you God for giving us Gene Kelly…in short shorts.” (via @nxlee)
• “Gene Kelly looked damn hot in a vest.” (via @JackieHunter1)
• “Was there ever a male body as perfect as that of Gene Kelly?” #MEOW (via @saratuppen)

Still, the objectification and fetishizing and gazing and fantasizing don’t stop there. In fact, many social media users envision themselves having sex with Gene Kelly. For example, were she alive in the 1940s, The_FilmFatale “thinks [she] would have lost [her] virginity to Gregory Peck, married Jimmy Stewart, and had a brief affair with Gene Kelly.” Similarly, Fat Heffalump professes on Twitter, “Oh Gene Kelly, I do have indecent thoughts about you.” As well, while watching Anchors Aweigh (1945) one night, Bitchy Leia may or may not have “thrown [her] panties at the TV” while another fan, Mrs Friday Next, professed that Gene, the equivalent of “tap-dancing sex,” can “take [her] any time.” Finally and perhaps most directly, Donna Penski admits that she’d “fuck Gene Kelly in a New York minute.”

Men, straight and gay, play the game as well. Take BenLaVegetables and Eh_Young, for instance, who tweet respectively, “Ok, I admit it, I have a man crush on Gene Kelly #SoWhatSueMe” and “Gene Kelly really knows how to swoon anyone of any kind.” The same goes for Grand Hotel, who with “no fucks to give,” informs his followers he has “fantasized about sex with Gene Kelly because [he] imagines him as very versatile and fantastic at it.”

All this and we still haven’t made it to the Gene Kelly artwork and fan fiction currently being disseminated across social networks like Tumblr, livejournal, and deviantART. Some of the drawings like this one here and here from vintagestyledheart are of Kelly explicitly. But most, such as those below which are inspired by Calvin Klein’s black-and-white ad campaign and shots like this one and this from The Pirate (1948), tend to “ship” Kelly and his frequent musical co-star Judy Garland. Further, as the image to the right attests, some fans have even created the name Jugenea, borrowing from other celebrity supercouples and portmanteaux like Brangelina (Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt) and TomKat (Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes).

And then there are the fan-written fictional narratives featuring/objectifying the two stars. For example, in “Gene Is Liza’s Father” readers discover that on the MGM lot in 1943, Kelly and Garland “fornidanced” (i.e., “when two very talented people use their extreme talent to dance and fuck at the same time”) and thereby conceived Liza Minnelli. More graphically, the author of “Do I Love You?” envisions that “Judy slid her hand around to the front of [Gene's] pants and felt the unyielding hardness of his erection. She caressed him and his grasp got stronger. He looked at her as if he was considering taking her right there, but he picked her up and carried her to the bed. Gene liked having room to make love.” The writer of “A Single Touch” and “Weak Will” likewise describes an affair between “Kelly” and “Garland” in detail: “He grasped onto her hips with a surprisingly painful grip, pulling her towards him and pushing into her with the same hunger yet fulfilling tenderness she yearned for.” Finally, I’ve also been directed to pieces of Singin’ in the Rain fan fiction that place Gene Kelly’s Don Lockwood, Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor), and Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) in a ménage à trois.

So what is going on here? Why is the world of social media objectifying and fetishizing Gene Kelly (as well as his co-star) so much and so often? Of course, this is not limited to the song-and-dance man; it occurs hourly on the Internet via shared images, memes, fan fiction, and artwork of other classical stars like Paul Newman and Clark Gable as well as current public figures like Ryan Gosling, Timothy Olyphant, Josh Charles, Colin Firth, and the Old Spice guy. With this in mind, I asked a romance scholar (she reads/researches romance novels) her opinion on the matter and whether this new/inverted gaze was fueled, in part, by the TV series Sex and the City as well as the Internet and our ability to self-publish. She replied that actually, romance novels began heavily objectifying men and grew more erotic in the early 1990s, pre-Carrie Bradshaw and company. Ultimately, she thinks that “the gaze just shifted” and that perhaps (or hopefully) “it’s feminism finally doing its work.”

I’d venture to bet, however, that Sex and the City as well as other shows and pop-culture phenomena that preceded it like Oprah, Madonna, Designing Women, The Golden Girls, Murphy Brown, and Seinfeld (Elaine Benes), all of whom/which (at times) consider men from a female perspective, did play a little part in this shift. I further argue that the steadying decline of religion, an institution that traditionally constrains women’s activity, voice, and sex drive, as well as our society’s growing openness about and/or attention to gender and sexuality contributes to this female gaze as well.

But mostly, I think we can thank (or admonish?) the Internet, smartphones, and social media for this as they have leveled the playing field somewhat. In other words, while much of the entertainment and news media still reinforce a conventional male perspective (e.g., women function as objects, victims, and arm-candy who should maintain impossible body images), social media, which in many instances is currently dominated by women, may promote a modern female perspective. Indeed, popular sites/blogs like Jezebel, The Hairpin, Ms. Magazine, Bitch Media, After Ellen, Healthy Women, Arianna Huffington, Feminist Ryan Gosling, Dooce, and Feministing have put women’s issues, interests, etc. in the forefront on a daily (and sometimes, hourly) basis. The same goes for hundreds of other Twitter accounts and Tumblrs and Facebook Pages, too many to list here.

This is not to say that our objectification of Gene Kelly’s and Ryan Gosling’s lips or eyes or scar or ass is not without controversy or question. After all, should women be doing the same thing to men that they’ve done to us for the past, oh, since time began? Shouldn’t we rise above that? And ultimately, shouldn’t we be teaching our children that it’s wrong to objectify either sex in this way? Those are the sorts of questions tackled recently by bloggers at The Daily Femme, Jezebel, The Good Men Project, and Salon. (See? At the forefront…) Unsurprisingly, most of these posts say no, women should not feel remorse for fetishizing men and that this is not a double standard. Here’s why, according to the authors:

1. Unlike many women, “men do not have trouble being taken seriously based on their looks or perceived sexiness, nor is their worth in society primarily judged by them.” Moreover, men will not be told throughout their lives that “their primary value is based on whether women want to fuck them. They will not be paid less on the dollar, or subject to violence in representation or acts. They will not be treated like meat or chattel.”
2. As well, in the long run, men’s objectification of women is far more harmful than vice-versa. Some proof to this is that “women do not harass men on the street, hire as many prostitutes, or think that a ‘titty bar’ for lunch is an excellent business get-together. Similarly, women don’t typically view men as nothing more than a sexy thing only good for a fuck.”
3. Along these same lines, recent studies have shown that when men objectify women, the latter perform more poorly in school; the reverse did not affect males’ performance. As well, unlike objectified men, objectified women may also undergo mental illnesses and shame, and in some cases, become silent and closed-off from others.
4. Finally, contrary to societal beliefs (and some religious teachings), “women like to look.”

Some of my readers will (perhaps correctly?) interpret these claims as mere justifications for women who want to fetishize male soccer players, take pictures of hot dudes on the London subway, or tweet about the majesty that is Gene Kelly’s ass. And that’s fine. It’s arguably a complicated matter that deserves more room/research than I’ve allowed here. But one thing seems fairly certain: the more widespread social media becomes and the more Gene Kelly (as well as other male stars/figures) keeps finding his way into the spotlight — yes, 15 years after his death, he’s more popular than ever — the more we’re going to see “appreciation” sites and images like these…

For more, see http://genekellysbutt.tumblr.com/

Essay originally posted over at Gene Kelly Fans.

“It has all the characteristics of the classic forties film as I respond to it. It’s in black and white, it has fast badinage, it’s very witty, a story from the classic age. It has Edward G. Robinson, and Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray and the tough voice-over. It has brilliantly written dialogue, and the perfect score by Miklos Rosza. It’s Billy Wilder’s best movie…practically anybody’s best movie.”

– Woody Allen on Double Indemnity (1944)
in Woody Allen by Eric Lax, 1991, 37-8.

Yep, if they haven’t already, your favorite journalists, bloggers, critics, and tweeters are frantically rummaging through Word documents, magazine articles, DVRs, video archives, Diigo favorites, and tumblelogs to compile their Best of 2011 lists. They’re deciding between Louie and Breaking Bad, between Adele and Lady Gaga, between The Tree of Life and Hugo.

Most people, however, have already settled on their favorite or most popular items. For example, my Twitter and RSS feeds recently pointed me to the best and most happenin’ websites, films, fiction, television shows, music, memes, TV tweets, and recipes of the year. With that in mind, I’m putting my name in the hat and offering up Pop-Cultured Prof‘s 11 Top Posts of 2011.

As always, thanks for searching, reading, and commenting (all 79,000 of you)!

My favs =   |  Also a Top Post of 2010 =

The List

11. Bridesmaids and the Critical Hysteria Surrounding It: on the frenzied critical reception of the summer comedy Bridesmaids 

10. Academic Publishing and The Thrill of Repeated Rejection: on my (failed) attempt to publish an essay on Humphrey Bogart’s star image as interpreted via Lauren Bacall

9. Elation, Star Signification, and Singin’ in the Rain; or Why Gene Kelly Gets Me All Hot and Bothered: on my fascination with Gene Kelly’s star image and the lack of complicated masculinity in modern cinema 

8. Casablanca on the Big Screen: on my experience of watching a 35mm print of Casablanca 

7. The Bias of All That: Gene Kelly and His Wives: on the problematic prologue of Betsy Blair’s memoir and the public persona of Kelly’s third wife 

6. Film Students, Do the Right Thing, and Developing a Critical Sense of Race: on the varying ways my minority and white students interpret scenes in Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing 

5. Why I Don’t Take Attendance: on my refusal to take attendance in the college classroom 

4. Los Pollos Hermanos: Chicken and Blue Magic Slushees, Sold Here: on a fake advertisement for Breaking Bad‘s favorite chicken joint

3. Animated GIFs, Cinemagraphs, and Our Return to Early Cinema: on animated gifs and their link to the cinema of attractions 

2. Stars and Scars: on Hollywood stars/characters and their visible scars (e.g., Tina Fey, Padma Lakshmi, Gene Kelly) 

1. True Grit: Give Me A Different Ending and Some Freakin’ Contractions: on the problematic ending of the Coen brothers’ western 

What follows the video is a post I wrote two years ago to inform the kids out there about this great, silly, and poignant TV tradition, which features two stories (one from Schaffer, one from Jay Thomas), some tree-decorating, some tree-destroying, and then Love’s singing what might be the greatest Christmas song ever. Since nothing changes from year to year — seriously, aside from the second guest (after Thomas), Letterman and crew put on the same show every December before Christmas — the post should hold up…well, except for the part about Letterman’s sex scandal in the news. Had you sorta forgotten as well?

Originally posted December 23, 2009…

To put it mildly, David Letterman hasn’t had the best year. Yes, his ratings (finally) surpassed Conan O’Brien’s and Jay Leno’s. And yes, he did land an interview with President Barack Obama. But the host also inadvertently made headlines when he joked that Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter got “knocked up” by baseball player Alex Rodriguez. Then he made the news again when he apologized for the entire misunderstanding (i.e., he was poking fun at the governor’s eldest daughter, not her 14-year old): “It’s not your fault that it was misunderstood, it’s my fault,” Letterman said. “So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke.”

But the big shocker came in October of this year when Letterman admitted on-air to having “sex with women who work with [him] on this show.” And if that wasn’t enough of a surprise, we learn that the host was being blackmailed for $2 million because of his behind-the-scenes activities. Furthermore, while some women supported Letterman during this time (Barbara Walters and Martha Stewart, in particular), others like Today‘s Ann Curry and Kathie Lee Gifford as well as representatives from NOW (the National Organization for Women) loudly criticized Letterman and the alleged “objectification of women in [his] workplace.” And for about a month, on and on it went.

Again, not the best year for Letterman…

But despite all the turmoil, all the shocks and surprises, we can happily count on one bit of stability from David Letterman: The Late Show‘s Christmas show. For those who are newcomers, five traditions occur around Christmastime at The Late Show:

Paul, Cher, and “the Muff”

Paul Shaffer narrates a story about Cher and then impersonates her singing “O Holy Night” as she warms her hands in “a muff.” Yeah, wait for it; the word muff will be mentioned, and Letterman will make a deadpan face resembling Buster Keaton‘s.

The Decorating of the Christmas Tree

Mujibar and Sirajul, former neighbors of the show, walk onstage with a small statue of the Empire State Building, which they place atop The Late Show Christmas tree. Next in line to decorate is Joe G (of Joe G’s pizzeria), who gently lays a large pizza pie atop the tree. Finally, Rupert Gee walks over from the Hello Deli and jabs a softball-sized meatball onto Mujibar and Sirajul’s Empire State Building. Sauce usually accompanies the meatball. (NOTE: Sometimes this occurs earlier in the week.)

Jay Thomas and the Lone Ranger

Now, it’s time for the traditional “Christmas” story, told always by Jay Thomas. It’s an true-life anecdote involving Thomas, a Volvo, some marijuana, and Clayton Moore (aka., the Lone Ranger). Listen to it yourself, and prepare to laugh.

The Throwing of the Footballs

After the Lone Ranger story, Thomas and Letterman rise from their seats, take off their jackets, and throw footballs at the Christmas tree. Their goal: to knock off Rupert’s meatball. Childish, yes. Goofy, yes. But hey, it’s a tradition.

Darlene Love and “Christmas”

Finally, it’s time for Dave’s “favorite part of the Christmas season”: Darlene Love sings/nails the song “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” In recent years, Love has been backed by an orchestra, a full gospel choir, and gobs of snow and confetti. What a performance; after 24 years (yeah, that’s right, 24 years) it never gets old. See below.

That’s it: The Late Show at its finest, silliest, and most memorable. Hope you tune in and make it a tradition too. You won’t regret it.

"I suggest we take the cook's body into the study. I'm the butler, I like to keep the kitchen tidy."

Twenty-six years ago today, Clue (Jonathon Lynn) was released in cinemas. A live-action version of the popular board game, the comedy/mystery movie garnered mixed reviews and grossed just short of its $15 million budget. So all in all, it wasn’t a big success. However, over the years, the movie has received a cult following and a relatively high score on Rotten Tomatoes (eh, not so high on MetaCritic).

What was noteworthy about Clue, aside from its comedic cast and notably silly/punny dialogue (e.g., “Frankly, Scarlet, I don’t give a damn,” “Husbands should be like Kleenex — soft, strong and disposable”), is the manner in which it was released: the movie played in cinemas with three different endings. According to Seattle film critic Tom Keogh, Clue is the first movie in history to have done this. In his review, Roger Ebert elaborates: “The way Paramount [in Chicago] is handling its multiple endings is ingenious. They’re playing each of the endings in a third of the theaters where the movie is booked. [...] That means you’d have to drive all over town and buy three tickets to see all the endings.”

The plot of Clue is simple: Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving) invites six strangers, all given pseudonyms, to a dinner party at his mansion:

• Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan)
• Miss Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren)
• Mr. Green (Michael McKean)
• Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd)
• Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn)
• Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull)

Each guest is greeted at the door by Boddy’s butler, Wadsworth (Tim Curry), who ultimately informs the group that his boss is blackmailing them to hide their secrets (e.g., Scarlet runs an illegal brothel, Green is gay, Peacock accepted bribes for her Senator husband). Just like in the board game, weapons are doled out (the wrench, gun, rope, candlestick, etc.). The room goes dark. A shot is fired. The lights come back on. Mr. Boddy lies dead on the ground, but there’s no gunshot wound. The characters spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out whodunnit. Toward the end, Wadsworth claims he’s figured it out and proceeds to drag the guests from room to room all while manically explaining his theory. At this point, the endings diverge, so depending on which cinema you were attending twenty-six years ago this week, Mr. Boddy could’ve been murdered by three different characters.

My brother and I saw this movie at the theater back in 1985. If I’m not mistaken, we saw it more than once, determined to get a different ending the second and third times. That didn’t happen of course. It was the same theater in a small town in Louisiana: same reel every time. My memory’s hazy, but I think we got “Ending C,” which has now been labeled the “real one,” whatever that means. What both of us do recall, however, are several lines from Clue and one scene in particular that made us laugh for days afterward: when Madeline Kahn delivers the line “Flames…on the side of my face” (the first clip in the video montage below). Looking back at it now, I’m not totally sure why it tickled us so. Those hand motions? That haircut? The prim enunciation of such silly dialogue? Whatever the reason, we weren’t/aren’t alone. This scene still resonates with people today; there are videos, sound clips, and animated gifs (more below) devoted to it. Even Movieline entitled its ode to the film’s 25th anniversary “Flames on the Side of My Face.”

As such, I’ll leave you with Kahn’s “flames” as well as this sad bit of news: evidently, a new adaptation of Clue is in the works, this time directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean). Sigh. Please leave the ’80s alone, Hollywood.

• April-July, 2011: Wait for the conference submission form to become available.
• August 9, 2011: Head to Twitter and announce (alongside the rest of your academic feed) that the conference submission form is now online.
• August 10-11: Rack your brain trying to figure out what you’d like to present on.
• August 12-15: Rack your brain thinking of colleagues whose research would fit nicely alongside a presentation like yours. Contact said colleagues.
• August 16-30, 2011: Email colleagues back and forth about the proposed panel until it looks and sounds presentable.
• September 1, 2011: Submit proposal.
• September 2-November 30, 2011: Wait for your proposal to be accepted or (gasp!) rejected.
• December 1, 2011: Go back to Twitter and announce that the proposal notifications have been emailed. If yours was accepted, politely boast about it on Twitter.
• December 2, 2011: Sit and wait for the tentative schedule to be released, fervently praying your panel isn’t scheduled for 8:00 AM the first day or 5:00 PM on the last.

Our panel this year, Singing Across Places and Spaces: The Temporal and Contextual Fluidity of the Hollywood Musical, is (tentatively) scheduled at a great time: Friday, March 23 at 9:00 AM. Here’s the rundown:

• Blair Davis, “Singing Sci-Fi Cowboys and Genre Amalgamation in The Phantom Empire (1935)
• Kelli Marshall, “Gene Kelly in the Twenty-First Century”
• Laurel Westrup, “Scratching the Past: OutKast’s Idlewild“

Finally, here’s my individual proposal. Should be a great time!

Gene Kelly in the Twenty-First Century

Even though Gene Kelly has been dead 15 years and his most admired films are six decades old, his presence in the twenty-first century is alive and well. For example, in the past four years, the deceased Hollywood song-and-dance man has starred in Family Guy, a Funny or Die sketch, and at least four television commercials (two for Volkswagen alone). In addition, The Simpsons, Glee, Saturday Night Live, Britain’s Got Talent, Usher, Jaime Cullum, and Mint Royale have recently paid homage to Gene Kelly and Singin’ in the Rain (1952). Furthermore, over the past decade, several Gene Kelly-related fansites, tumblelogs, memes, Twitter and Facebook accounts, video mash-ups, and message boards have appeared online, all of which continue to be extremely active. In my spare time, even I (along with several contributors) maintain Gene Kelly Fans and @genekellyfans on Twitter, fansites that publish not only news, videos, images, and brief commentary devoted to the dancer/choreographer/director/entertainer, but also original analyses on Gene Kelly, his star persona, family, place in pop culture, etc.

It is this renewed interest in the musical star and what he represents — the classical film musical, old Hollywood in general, a working star system, a complex representation of masculinity, an authentically nice guy — that my presentation will consider. Specifically, I’ll address reasons that Gene Kelly’s musical numbers, films, television appearances, etc. are currently flourishing in the popular sphere and why those by Kelly’s onscreen counterparts are perhaps not (e.g., the broken economy, Astaire’s elite image versus Kelly’s working-class one, Kelly’s sex appeal). Necessarily, my presentation will also consider some of the expressly twenty-first century technologies and social media trends that allow fans and the media to share Gene Kelly easily and en masse.

THE HORROR!!!!!!

Earlier this week, Inside Higher Ed posted “Teaching Large,” a mini guide for professors who teach classes enrolling 100 students or more. In a nutshell, here’s the advice, which came out of a SACS meeting at Virginia Tech:

• Write a clear syllabus.
• Maintain an engaging pedagogy.
• Know your students.
• Send an email to the class before the semester begins, introducing yourself.
• Move around the room when you teach.
• Always use eye-contact; don’t look 10 rows above the students, lecturing to the exit signs.
• Allow brief student discussions; use clickers if you have them.
• Be excited.

In my large Introduction to Film classrooms, I adhere to virtually all of these suggestions. For example, my syllabi are explicit. Second, I often arrive in the classroom early, remain during a break, and hang out briefly after class has ended so that I can get to know some of my students. Third, I contact the entire class before the semester to introduce myself and the course. Fourth, I constantly move around the huge room when I lecture, walking and sometimes jogging up and down the aisles; on occasion, I move into the middle of an aisle and plop down in a seat alongside a couple of unsuspecting students (Facebook-surfing stops immediately when I do this, lemme tell ya). Fifth, when I lecture — in any size classroom for that matter — I look directly at students and encourage brief discussions between them and me. Finally, I am constantly excited about the material I’m teaching, and based on my evaluations, my students recognize this (I usually earn the highest marks in this category).

But here’s the kicker: I discovered, nay, researched all of this (and more) on my own. I did not have Inside Higher Ed or the delightful ProfHacker to help me navigate these waters. No one instructed me how to wrangle a classroom of 150 undergraduates. No one prepared me for the performance aspect of the job — and, yes, teaching in a lecture hall is a performance; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And no one warned me that typical classroom issues like incessant talking, excuses, cheating/plagiarism, and cell-phone use would be magnified 10x in a large lecture-based class. A PhD student, I was essentially thrown into the auditorium to fend for myself.

Those who know me well likely sense that this situation did not sit well with me (I’m structured! Anal!), and they’re right; it didn’t. The first semester I taught Introduction to Film in a lecture hall, spring 2004, was horrible. I felt out of control and unready during every class period even though I’d actually prepared days in advance. I knew none of the students’ names. I couldn’t detect their progress (or decline) because grades were based only on three exams, two of which fell toward the end of the semester. I had a TA to assist me with the grading and attendance, but even that felt off (she was great, btw). In short, nothing gelled. Fast-forward to May, i.e., the close of the term, start of summer: I now had time to research and thus fix these problems. (See? Anal.) Yes, I spent much of the summer of 2004 reading articles, studies, book chapters, and syllabi related to lecture-hall teaching. Here’s one of the most valuable things I learned and still implement today:

To combat several of these issues — in particular, passive learning, student anonymity, and insufficient assessment — I offer short in-class assignments that ask students to react on the spot to lectures, out-of-class readings, film clips, quotes, or anything that prompts them to think about the material at hand. Easy to create (5 min. or less) and quick to grade (15-30 min. for 125 students), these brief assignments promote active learning and provide me with quick feedback. They also help me learn students’ names and interact with them, even if it’s just via paper. But perhaps most significant, these weekly participation quizzes allow all students — vocal ones, shy ones, ones that do not get to speak because time runs short — to weigh in on the material. (This approach is certainly practical for smaller classrooms, and I use it there as well.) Frequent readers of this blog know that more recently I’ve begun to feature Twitter in the classroom for these same reasons.

Some of these exercises I toss out on the spot: “Hey, take out a piece of paper. Now write down the last movie you saw in a theater and then consider it in the context of our class discussion on gender: does it challenge or conform to traditional representations? Is it progressive? Regressive? A mixture?” Other times, I plan participation assignments before class begins and pass them out at a random time during class; that way, the students never know what’s coming. Here are three examples of the latter, each of which should take no more than five minutes of class time:

In fall 2004, I implemented these participation exercises along with some of the other tips above (move around that room!); I also added a box on the first page of my Intro to Film syllabus called “Succeeding in a Large Classroom” (below). As a result, the semester flowed much more smoothly than before. I felt more at ease with the 150+ students, the TA, and the assessment. What’s more, I actually grew to enjoy the challenge(s) of the lecture hall. So while “stacking them deep and teaching them cheap” may not be the best way to teach undergraduates, it can be done — at least with the right preparation, personality, and production values (and, yes, it is a production; those who deny it aren’t doing it right).

On the evening of October 22, a slew of Gene Kelly fans from across the country tuned in to Turner Classic Movies to watch and live-tweet An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli, 1951), the lavish MGM musical which earned Kelly an honorary Oscar and which Alec Baldwin and Robert Osborne introduced as one of The Essentials. Here’s Osborne on the film: “It’s joyous, it’s fun, it’s Technicolorful. It’s why people went to the movies.” Moreover, the host beamed, “it’s the perfect Gene Kelly movie. All that Kelly had — that smile, attitude, average Joe — he brought to the screen.”

Baldwin went on to discuss the film’s cinematography, in particular the long shots and long takes which Gene Kelly often used to frame his (as well as his co-stars’) body: “When you can do what Kelly can do — a god of contemporary dance — I wouldn’t let them cut the camera from me either,” Baldwin quipped. Yes, An American in Paris is an essential indeed.

And now, to the evening’s events…

Several portions of An American in Paris brought about an onslaught of tweets, especially the ballet dream sequence (you know, because of “dat ass“). But so did a random comment I made as Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) kissed Lise (Leslie Caron) the first time; see tweet at right. My Tweetdeck lit up immediately with responses:

• Whaaaa? He did??
• NO!!!!! He slipped Debbie tongue?!?!!?
• If I were her, I wouldn’t be able to keep quiet if he did.
• Me either. And that was Debbie’s FIRST kiss? Ever? What a first one to have.
• I would melt. Or spontaneously combust or something.

Yes, according to Debbie Reynolds, her “more experienced” co-star unexpectedly French-kissed her while shooting the final shot of Singin’ in the Rain (1952), shown below. Much to the chagrin and sheer dismay of Kelly’s current fans, Reynolds quickly recoiled at the act, ran off the set, and gargled her mouth with Coca-Cola. Excerpts from Reynolds’s interviews, conducted in 2002, 2009, and 2011, are featured below.

Come on, Debbie. Just go with the flow.

“A Very Mature Kiss”

Only 17 — and completely innocent, which was why, when they were shooting the last scene, she ran off to her dressing room in tears after the 40-year-old Kelly gave her a big French kiss. “He gave me a very mature kiss,” she said demurely. “I was a young girl, and I was shocked and stopped the scene and pulled away and wouldn’t go on, you know, and finally he had to kiss me square on the lips or I wouldn’t do it,” she added, laughing — no, guffawing at the memory. “He was a little upset with that, but I was a very inexperienced young girl.” (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

The French Connection

And there’s that fade-out kiss between 40-year-old Kelly and 19-year-old newcomer Debbie Reynolds beneath a movie billboard. The kiss that many moviegoers saw but few know about. The one that Kelly put extra effort into.

“I was taken totally by surprise,” says Reynolds, speaking by phone from California to mark the 50th anniversary of Singin’ in the Rain, which premiered in April 1952. The “surprise” wasn’t the kiss, which was in the script. It was the French connection.

“It was a great shock,” Reynolds says. “I knew he was going to kiss me, but I didn’t know there was anything else involved.”

The French kiss was such a shocker to Reynolds that she had to leave the set to gain her composure. “Filming was held up for about an hour while I drank Coca-Cola and gargled,” Reynolds says. She was eventually persuaded to return and reshoot the scene. This time around, an embarrassed Kelly promised that it would be a “simple kiss.” “I don’t know why he wasn’t aware that I had never had a French kiss. I was such a young girl. . . . I was really upset. Yes, that was an embarrassing moment.” (The Orlando Sentinel)

Gagging, and Shrieking, and Crying, Oh My!

She had never danced before Singing in the Rain, and she had never kissed, either.

She had to be shown how to kiss and be kissed, she recalls, and I won’t tell that entire story, because I don’t want to steal the thunder of the Hollywood legend whose memoir I am currently writing. Instead, that legend gave her a lesson, she said it took just a few minutes, and he claims that it went on for hours in how to kiss. Thus she was ready, or so she thought, for the moment when Gene Kelly would embrace her. To her shock and horror, Kelly not only kissed her once the cameras rolled, but jammed his tongue down her throat, which she had never expected or heard of. Disgusted, and outraged, she backed off, gagged, shrieked, and ran crying all the way to her dressing room.

Production halted until someone could coax her back to the set. She says that if you take a look at the last scene of the film, you’ll see a mightily annoyed Gene Kelly giving her the tiniest of unromantic, closed-mouth smooches at what should have been the happy triumph of a couple over all manner of Hollywood adversity. (Michael Levin)