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TECHNICOLOR DREAMS: MUSICALS BY MINNELLI presents
preservation prints of some of America's best-loved musicals, created by Vincente Minnelli, master of
movies, musicals and dreams.
All films are double-featured: one ticket admits you to any two consecutive films.
calendar
program notes and times
MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS
(1944; 113 minutes)
Cast: Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien,
Lucille Bremer, Leon Ames, Mary Astor,
Tom Drake, June Lockhart, Marjorie Main
Songs: "The Trolley Song," "Meet Me in St. Louis," "The Boy Next Door," "Have Yourself a
Merry Little Christmas," and many more
Beautiful, 22-year-old Judy Garland shines under the direction of Minnelli, her future husband, in this
richly nostalgic evocation of a way of life from an American past that may never have existed but should
have. MEET ME takes place during 1903, just one year in the life of a closeknit family--parents, four
daughters, a son, grandpa and the Smiths' maid. Everything that happens, as seasons change, falls under
the shadow of Mr. Smith's decision to take a promotion in New York, and move his family East. At
film's end, the Smith clan celebrates their reinstated roots in St. Louis at the World's Fair.
Thursday, December 26: 2 and 6:30 pm
Friday, December 27: 4:15 and 8:45 pm
YOLANDA AND THE THIEF
(1945; 108 minutes)
Cast: Fred Astaire, Lucille Bremer
An incredibly baroque South American phantasmagoria in which con-man Astaire goes about trying to
swindle an heiress (Lucille Bremer). As the lady believes she's got a guardian angel, he spies the perfect
part for him to play to get hold of her gold. Pauline Kael notes some of the mind-boggling excesses of this
big-budget musical: "Yolanda's bathroom has cascading fountains, and the ballets, staged by Eugene
Loring and costumed by Irene Sharaff at her maddest, include such decorator delights as laundresses
washing linen in a pool of gold coins."
Thursday, December 26: 4:15 and 8:45 pm
Friday, December 27: 2 and 6:30 pm
ZIEGFELD FOLLIES
(1946; 110 minutes)
Cast: William Powell, Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Esther Williams, Red
Skelton, Gene Kelly, Fanny Brice, Edward Arnold, Lucille Bremer. Various segments directed by George
Sidney, Roy Del Ruth, Norman Taurog, Lemuel Ayers, Robert Lewis, Merril Pye
William Powell had incarnated showman Flo Ziegfeld in the Oscar-winning The Great Ziegfeld in 1936.
In Minnelli's film, Ziegfeld has gone to heaven, where he whiles away his time by dreaming up a
smashing, star-studded revue, featuring the first and only pas de deux between Astaire and Kelly ("The
Babbit and the Bromide"), Judy Garland's dance-and-patter routine ("The Great Lady Has an Interview"),
Red Skelton doing a TV booze commercial ("Guzzler's Gin"), a Lena Horne solo, a Fanny Brice-Hume
Cronyn sketch, Fred Astaire dancing "Lime-house Blues"--and, oh yes, "Kathryn Grayson singing
'There's Beauty Everywhere' against magenta foam skies," in Pauline Kael's words.
Saturday, December 28: 4 and 8:15 pm
Sunday, December 29: 6:15 pm
THE PIRATE
(1948; 102 minutes)
Cast: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Walter Slezak, Gladys Cooper, Reginald Owen, George Zucco,
The Nicholas Brothers
In yet another fabulous--and perhaps Freudian--fantasy, Judy Garland, playing a pretty Victorian who
lives on an island in the Caribbean, dreams up a famous pirate. An actor on tour, Gene Kelly does a
Douglas Fairbanks, pretending to be the notorious buccaneer. This sumptuously costumed and
choreographed circus of Cole Porter numbers ("Be a Clown," for one) was based on an S.N. Bherman play
performed by the Lunts.
Saturday, December 28: 6:15 pm
Sunday, December 29: 4 and 8:30 pm
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
(1951; 115 minutes)
Cast: Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant
Academy Awards: Best Picture, Writing--Story and Screenplay, Art Direction/Set Decoration,
Cinematography, Costume Design, Scoring of a Musical Picture
Songs: "I Got Rhythm," "Embraceable You," "'S Wonderful"
An American painter (Kelly) falls in love with a French girl (Caron) and must find a way to break off
with his rich, older mistress (Foch). A George Gershwin musical that hits on all cylinders and spreads
delight on every front: songs, dances, decor. Cinemania 97 reports that "according to Turner
Entertainment experts, this is a 'true' restoration print: the job they did on An American compares to the
salvage work on Gone with the Wind (1939) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Because two reels of the
original negative were destroyed by fire, painstaking lab work was necessary to match those reels to the
rest of the film. The result is a bright and fresh-looking print...."
Monday, December 30: 2 and 6:30 pm
Tuesday, December 31: 4:15 and 8:45 pm
BRIGADOON
(1954; 108 minutes)
Cast: Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, Cyd Charisse, Elaine Stewart.
A charming CinemaScope musical set in Scotland, shot in an MGM studio, choreographed by Kelly,
adapted from the Lerner & Loewe Broadway hit. Americans Kelly and Johnson, on safari in the Scottish
Highlands, happen upon an 18th-century village entranced for 200 years, that awakens annually for only
one day. Naturally, Kelly falls for lovely lass Cyd Charisse--but what to do about the enchantment?
Monday, December 30: 4:15 and 8:45 pm
Tuesday, December 31: 2 and 6:30 pm
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