The columnists were not speaking in superlatives. Gene received third billing in Anchors Aweigh, and yet he enjoyed more screen time than his costars and gave a deeper, more varied performance than any thus far in his screen career. Those billed above him, Frank Sinatra and Kathryn Grayson, exceeded him in the singing department, but neither were triple threats. Frank may have been the top crooner in the nation—the idol of thousands of bobbysoxers—but as a relative newcomer to films, his acting was self-conscious and tentative. He was not a dancer, either, until Gene convinced him he could be. Nor was Kathryn Grayson a dancer. Her impressive coloratura was what truly allowed her to stand out. Gene’s sheer personality combined with his threefold talent made him the undisputed star of the picture. From the moment he appears onscreen, wooing an elusive girl named Lola on the phone, he establishes his charisma. “Baby . . . Forgotten you? Aw, honey, with the picture of you I’ve got in my mind, why, even across the phone I can see every . . . ,” he purrs into the receiver.35
Anchors Aweigh seemed a failsafe hit not only because of its cast but also because of its timely patriotic plotline. The story revolves around two sailors on leave in Hollywood. Gene portrays the “wolf of the navy,” Joe Brady, while Frank is cast as Clarence Doolittle, a meek sailor who trails Joe in hopes he will teach him how to be a ladies’ man. Joe allows Clarence to tag along with him only from a sense of duty:
Clarence: Look, I didn’t ask you to save my life [when I fell overboard], but you did. So now I feel you are responsible for me.
Joe: Well, I don’t!
Clarence: Well, what’s the good of having a life saved when you can’t have any fun with it?
A particularly humorous scene ensues in which Joe pretends to be a “dame” and instructs Clarence to practice “picking him up.” A policeman walks by and eyes Joe, who is sashaying down the street, with much suspicion. This was one of many comical female imitations Gene performed throughout his film career.
During their first night on the town, the two sailors find themselves babysitters instead of “wolves.” They meet a little boy, Donald (Dean Stockwell), who has run away from home to join the navy. When they return him home they meet Aunt Suzy (Kathryn Grayson), an aspiring singer, with whom Clarence promptly falls in love. The girl’s great goal is to audition for composer José Iturbi who, Joe declares, is a good friend of Clarence’s. The film follows the sailors as they try to track down Iturbi in hopes of securing a screen test for Suzy. During their struggles, Joe discovers he loves Suzy while Clarence transfers his affections to a waitress (Pamela Britton) who comes from his hometown of Brooklyn. The film concludes with Suzy singing “Anchors Aweigh” with José Iturbi’s orchestra before Joe and Clarence return to their ship.
The film was superior to Gene’s earlier picture with Joe Pasternak and George Sidney, Thousands Cheer, because of its stronger storyline and its better-integrated musical numbers. Gene’s influence in the production of the film prevented it and its dance numbers from being overly (in his words) “hackneyed.” He also relied on the second opinion of Stanley Donen, whom he again enlisted as his assistant on the project. Pasternak began to avoid Gene on the set because the actor “seemed to be constantly at him like a terrier with constant calls for revisions and improvements.”36 Isobel Lennart, the film’s screenwriter, had a similar experience working with Gene. “Gene read the first twenty pages [of the script] and liked them. He had a thousand ideas, a thousand suggestions—and, worst of all—a thousand questions. . . . My answer to all of the questions was ‘I don’t know—and please—I’m busy now—.’ He’d nod and go away. But next day, there he’d be again, tapping at the office door. . . . We never stopped Kelly. He just rapped until we un-locked the office door.” As had been the case on Cover Girl, Gene was concerned with improving the whole production, not only his own role. Lennart recounted that “a number of his suggestions actually cut his own part to build others.”37
Gene was particularly interested in building up the part of Clarence Doolittle. Frank was initially unaware of Gene’s behind-the-scenes work on his behalf; consequently, when he and Gene first met, Frank admitted, Gene intimidated him. According to Frank’s biographer James Kaplan, Gene swiftly eased Frank’s anxiety. He “looked him in the eye, and decided to help him out. . . . [He] maturely decided that if he held Frank Sinatra’s hand rather than kick his ass they would come out the better for it. . . . Sinatra saw his self-assurance and respected it. . . . The two men decided to like each other.”38
Frank performed in only one of the picture’s four major dance numbers. Nevertheless, his routine took eight weeks to perfect, longer than the entire shooting schedule of his previous films. The number takes place in a sailors’ bunk room where Joe and Clarence do a tap dance and then jump in sync over a series of mattresses. Gene assigned Stanley Donen to work on another dance number while he personally took on the task of teaching Frank to hoof. Frank later told his daughter Nancy that he had felt like a child during the process. “I didn’t even know how to walk let alone dance.” Gene spent hours coaching him until Frank finally had to demand an afternoon off from sheer exhaustion. However, Frank appreciated Gene’s help even if his rehearsals and demand for faultlessness were, in Frank’s word, “insane.”39
“We became a team only because he had the patience of Job, and the fortitude not to punch me in the mouth because I was so impatient. . . . He managed to calm me when it was important to calm me,” Frank explained.40 He later reflected: “When I arrived at MGM to do Anchors Aweigh, I was a nobody in movies . . . but after working with Gene . . . I felt I actually had some talent.”41 By helping Frank realize his abilities and potential in motion pictures, Gene was returning the favor Judy Garland and Arthur Freed had done for him when they guided him through For Me and My Gal.
In spite of Gene’s ongoing patience and boosting, he was not always able to calm Frank’s feelings of depression and humiliation. Frank’s lack of confidence extended beyond his acting and dancing abilities to include his appearance. Gene looked and felt wonderful in a sailor suit whereas Frank swam in his wide-legged pants and roomy shirt. “The Navy made the best dance costume ever,” Gene stated. “The proportions, the fit were perfect.”42 “If I thought I looked odd in a gob’s uniform, all I had to do was look at Sinatra and I felt fine again!” He added with a rueful grin, “Just wait till Sinatra sees that in print!”43 In Frank’s future films, he required padding on his bottom and legs to disguise his thinness.
When Frank was depressed and embarrassed, “his first reaction was to bark commands.” Stanley Donen admitted that he and Gene played “mean, nasty” tricks on Frank because he “was always a pain in the neck.” Gene and Donen concocted one practical joke that took place in the commissary where they lunched with Frank each day. All the tables in the room were square shaped and pushed against the walls, cafeteria-style—except one. The single round table in the cafeteria belonged to Louis B. Mayer’s brother, Jerry, who ran the studio’s physical operations.
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have a round table? It’s so much nicer that way because then we could sit closer together,” Donen remarked to Frank.
“You watch. I’ll get us a round table,” Frank replied.
“There was no way Frank was going to get us a round table. We knew that,” Donen later said.
“Just forget it,” Gene told Frank. Gene’s assumption that Frank could not rise to the challenge sent him into a rage: “He steamed and he fumed and threw fits and said he was going to quit.”44
Such pranks stood in contrast to Gene’s usual professionalism and maturity. Researcher Susan Cadman asserted that when Gene and Donen were together, “Donen was the troublemaker who brought out the worst in Gene. I think perhaps they were rather tiresome at times, with their practical jokes and silliness.”45 Despite Gene’s ribbing, he and Frank maintained a fond relationship. Looking back on his experience in Anchors Aweigh three years later, Gene claimed it held a special place for him becaus
e it introduced him to Frank, “who became one of my best friends.”46
Kathryn Grayson did not remain so friendly with her costar. Though she did call Gene her “favorite dancer” in a 2003 interview, this did not mean she liked him on a personal basis.47 During the filming of a scene in which Clarence, Joe, and Suzy are dancing up the front walk of Suzy’s home, Gene continually pushed Kathryn and made her trip, which was not hard considering she was wearing a floor-length gown. Such behavior was confusing coming from a man who was usually generous to his costars and treated women with care. Kathryn, however, was strong willed and not in awe of Gene in any way—perhaps she posed a threat to Gene’s self-appointed role as leader/mentor. Finally, Kathryn had had enough of his shenanigans when she fell to the ground. Gene bent over her and said, “Gee, sorry, Katie, I didn’t mean to make you fall.” Kathryn grabbed the tie of his sailor suit and pulled it tighter and tighter until he screamed for her to stop. After this display of temper, Gene never bothered Kathryn again. “I didn’t know you had it in you,” he told her.48
Throughout his career, Gene pushed people to their limit. Whether he did this out of a need to exert power or to test a person’s character is debatable. Patricia Towers, Kathryn’s daughter, commented, “He was very egotistical. Everything had to be where he was the focus of attention.”49 Kathryn admitted she had no talent for dance, and Gene had little patience with people who had no potential in the art that came so naturally to him. Frank Sinatra, though he initially had little ability, had proved that he had promise and willingness to learn; consequently, he won Gene’s favor.
The routine in Anchors Aweigh that Gene performed with Frank in the soldier’s bunk room may have been the most challenging part of the film for the singer, but for Gene, it was the simplest of the four main dance numbers in the production. “The three major dance numbers Gene devised for himself are brilliantly characteristic of his personality and clearly show the way his mind was working and the progress he was making towards formulating a personal style,” biographer Clive Hirschhorn commented.50 All three numbers he created seemed specifically designed to appeal to children.
Gene’s first solo in the picture shows him wandering about Olvera Street, the Mexican settlement in Los Angeles, after leaving Clarence alone with Suzy. As he contemplates his own feelings for Suzy, he sees a solemn little Mexican girl watching him (she was inspired by the child with long black braids he had met when he and Betsy were honeymooning in Mexico). Joe proceeds to use pots, copper pans, and fluted clay pieces being sold at a street stand as props to aid him in a dance routine to entertain the girl. He and the child then perform the Mexican hat dance and skip rope. The number, like Gene’s iconic “Singin’ in the Rain” routine, shows him engaging in childlike activities as an expression of his discovery that he is in love. The number bears another trademark of Gene’s solos: it ends on a quiet note with him walking introspectively into darkness.
The task of teaching child actress Sharon McManus the dance routine went to Stanley Donen. The young man was pleased to be working with Joe Pasternak, whom he called a “dear man,” but he was less thrilled with the picture itself. “I thought his [Pasternak’s] movies were real crap.” Stronger than his distaste for Pasternak’s pictures was his dislike of young Sharon. Allegedly, Donen spent three hours in the morning and four more in the afternoon going over a single step involving the jump rope. Donen claimed after the experience that he never wanted to see another young girl or jump rope again—“unless the rope was for hanging the little girl.”51 Every half hour, Gene strode into the rehearsal room to inquire whether Sharon had gotten the “rope bit” down yet.
“No,” Donen would reply, grimacing.
Gene took him aside and whispered, “The secret is to make her believe you love her.”
“But I loathe her,” Donen declared.52
In contrast, children on the set found Gene “endlessly funny,” proving that he was as much a Pied Piper as ever.53
Gene had always found pleasure working with children, but it had increased since he had become a husband and father. No matter how hectic his filming schedule, Gene devoted Saturdays to Betsy and Kerry. They could be found at an amusement park on Beverly Boulevard, the Santa Monica beach, or picnicking in their own backyard. “His excitement, his commitment to his work, and his pride in ‘my two girls’ as he called us, was irresistible,” Betsy shared in her memoir.54
The third major dance in Anchors Aweigh, though it did not include children, appealed to their imaginations with its fantasy setting and vibrant use of color. The routine constituted the now obligatory dream sequence found in Gene’s pictures and most musicals of the period. The number comes about after Suzy shows Joe around the MGM lot. Joe then imagines how he would court her if he were in a costume picture. He envisions himself in a Spanish courtyard dressed as a toreador, swinging from vines and rooftops à la Douglas Fairbanks to reach Suzy on the balcony of a villa. They engage in a fandango dance before parting. The sequence shows rather than tells viewers the lengths to which Joe would be willing to go to win Suzy’s affection.
The indefatigable Gene was forced to stop shooting for a few days due to an injury he sustained in the middle of filming the fantasy sequence. At one point during the scene, Kathryn Grayson throws him a rose from her balcony. “There was a little wire in the stem,” explained Gene. “And that punctured my hand. . . . Now I dance all day and soak my hand all night.” Gene minimized his injury; in truth, he had a minor case of blood poisoning and endured shivers and fever for several days before he was able to return to work.55
Gene had little time to recuperate. He and Donen were in the middle of editing the fourth—and most complicated—dance routine in the film. The number topped the intricacy of Gene’s “Alter Ego” sequence in Cover Girl and broke new precedents. Stanley Donen was responsible for the innovative idea behind the number. One morning at three a.m., he called Gene with his brainstorm: blending animation and live action. “How would you like to dance with Mickey Mouse?” Donen asked.
Gene was enthusiastic about the idea. But, MGM executives, like those at Columbia in reaction to the double exposure required for the “Alter Ego” routine, declared that a mix of animation and live action could not be done. Joe Pasternak, however, had complete confidence in Gene and Donen and convinced Mayer that if the two men were able to realize their vision, the studio would gain a great deal of prestige. Gene and Donen initially asked Walt Disney to help them create the sequence, but Disney replied that his cartoon department was occupied making films for the war effort. Disney also felt that having Mickey Mouse in an MGM picture would be a conflict of interest. “He [Mickey] works for me,” Disney said.56 Mayer agreed to commission MGM’s cartoon department to work on the number using Jerry the Mouse instead of Mickey. The resulting number endeared Gene even more to children and is what Clive Hirschhorn called “quintessential Kelly.”57
The sequence occurs when Donald, among his classmates at school, begs Joe to tell them how he won his naval medal. The scene then portrays Donald’s imagination as he sees Joe’s words come to life in a four-minute routine entitled “The King Who Couldn’t Dance.” The king (Jerry the Mouse) of a depressed cartoon kingdom cannot sing or dance, and so he has forbidden all the other animals in his land to do so. Joe enters the castle and serenades Jerry with “The Worry Song,” which convinces the mouse to try dancing and singing. At the end of the routine, Jerry exclaims, “Look at me, I’m dancing!” and pins a medal on Joe’s shirt. “The Worry Song,” a tune penned by Arthur Freed’s brother Ralph and composer Sammy Cahn, was a simplistic way of encouraging anxious wartime audiences. A sampling of the lyrics shows its unsubtle message:
If you worry . . .
If you bother your head,
It won’t help you . . .
It will hurt you instead.
You could laugh and sing and dance
As gaily as an elf, but
Don’t expect to get much help
; If you won’t help yourself.58
With the concept of the cartoon dance worked out in their minds, Gene and Donen were pleased to be granted $100,000 to execute the sequence. “The next job was to photograph Kelly plus space, the space to be filled with animations at a later date,” one visiting reporter from Theatre Arts magazine explained. “When the dance called for the mouse to cross over, run back and then forward through Kelly’s legs, the cameraman was expected to pan sufficiently to allow for these as yet invisible activities.” Ultimately, ten thousand painted frames were required to synchronize with Gene’s movements. The animated figures were then photographically superimposed on the film. The Theatre Arts reporter stated that Disney’s film The Three Caballeros (1944) was one of the only pieces of cinema to date comparable to “The King Who Couldn’t Dance.” However, the Disney film was less advanced in that it did not show the performer interacting with the cartoon characters. “The progress from Three Caballeros to Anchors Aweigh is not merely a measure of time elapsed. It is also an indication of the light that an active imagination can always turn on established forms,” the Theatre Arts critic concluded.59
“The King Who Couldn’t Dance” took two months to complete. Stanley Donen finished the editing and technical details. Gene said, “I get all the credit for this [the number] but it would have been impossible without Stanley. He worked with the cameramen and called the shots in all those intricate timings and movements.”60
Anchors Aweigh, released on July 19, 1945, met with overwhelmingly positive reviews. The film was the fourth-highest grossing film of 1945. Raking in $7,475,000 (it had cost $2,580,000 to produce), the movie beat the record set by Meet Me in St. Louis ($6,566,000) the year before as Metro’s biggest moneymaker. In his review, Howard Barnes of the New York Herald-Tribune praised Gene for “keeping the proceedings spinning around a flimsy central idea. The sequences in which he dominates the screen are altogether the best in the production. . . . The Sinatra voice still makes the bobbysoxers squeal with delight, but the kid himself cannot hold a candle to Kelly as a performer.”61 A critic for Time magazine concurred that Gene’s acting was “rock-solid.”62 Both the Time critic and Bosley Crowther of the New York Times ventured to say that Gene’s dancing had surpassed Fred Astaire. Crowther made special mention of the cartoon sequence, calling it “trickily fanciful.”63
He's Got Rhythm: The Life and Career of Gene Kelly (Screen Classics) Page 20