The Band Wagon

Fred Astaire was another of the stars honored back in August in Summer Under the Stars. I recorded a couple of his movies that I haven't seen before, and one of them is coming up again on the TCM schedule: The Band Wagon, tomorrow (Dec. 6) at noon. With that in mind, I recently watched the movie in order to be able to do a review on it for the upcoming showing.

The movie starts off with an auction, with the auctioneer informing us that they're selling off props used in the films of movie musical star Tony Hunter (that's Fred Astaire, although we don't see him in the opening scene). Nobody really wants to buy the props, however, which is an indication that Tony's time in Hollywood is past. Tony had gotten his start on Broadway, so he heads back to New York, only to find that the place has changed almost beyond recognition in the time since he's left.

Tony has also changed, to the point that nobody much cares that he's coming back to New York, at least not the sort of people who would have been his fans when he left for New York. The only people who care about him, it seems, are a couple of old friends, Lester (Oscar Levant) and Lily Marton (Nanette Fabray). They're good enough friends, and have enough pity, that they've decided the new stage show they've written would be just perfect for Tony to make his return to Broadway. And they've gotten the best director in town, Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan), except that that's a name Tony doesn't recognize, having been away from New York for so long.

Jeffrey is currently doing an adaptation of Oedipus Rex, and when he finds out that the play the Martons have written is based on the Faust story, he's thrilled with the idea of acting in it, along with Tony. The first problem, however, is that Tony isn't so certain an adaptation of Faust can really work on Broadway. The problems get bigger, however, when Jeffrey does some script doctoring to turn things into a dramatic musical.

Even worse is that turning it into a musical more or less needs bringing in a leading lady, although at least he's able to get the best, in Gabrielle Gerard (Cyd Charisse). Her presence brings more problems, though. She's got a demanding boyfriend/managel, and Gabrielle and Tony are both uncertain whether they'll be able to jell together and whether the other one is better than them. It gets so bad that Tony comes to the conclusion that the show isn't going to work and that perhaps he should withdraw from the troubled production.

Things get even more complicated and nuttier when Tony and Gaby start falling in love with each other despite the age difference and the fact that Gaby already has a boyfriend. But everybody decides that the way to save the show is to turn it into some sort of revue and have a bunch of disconnected musical numbers that sure look nice on the big screen, but make no sense together in terms of plot.

And that's the big problem with The Band Wagon for me. There winds up being too little story, and way too many musical and dance numbers that, like Gene Kelly's cadenza in Singin' in the Rain, don't fit together. Now, to be fair, everybody working on the movie is extremely talented, and in isolation, the muscial numbers are mostly very well done. Fred Astaire even in his mid fifties is a darn talented dancer, helped by the fact that he aged well not having been quite as much a looker when he was making those movies with Ginger Rogers as some other musical stars (Gene Kelly) did in their youth.

The Band Wagon also introduces the song "That's Entertainment", written by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz, while also using a bunch of old songs from the pair. The musical number may not be the most memorable thing, but the song certainly is, and it's unsurprising the song became a standard.

Fans of the Freed Unit musicals from MGM will love The Band Wagon; for those who aren't the biggest fan of musicals, I'd certainly start with Singin' in the Rain instead.