He's Got Rhythm: The Life and Career of Gene Kelly (Screen Classics)

by Cynthia Brideson

  Disenchanted though he was, Gene continued to participate in politics. He became an active member of the Screen Actors Guild board of directors and still worked for veterans’ affairs at the Independent Citizens Committee. He managed to do political campaigning as well. “I’m a Democrat and I made speeches for the Democrats in the fall campaign. . . . A good thing too. Imagine an Irishman named Kelly not wanting to make a speech about something or other!”62 he quipped. “I believe in doing anything I can to better the lot of my family—and the other guy’s family. This country is my country, and I intend to keep my mind and my eyes open, and my voice loud, to help make it run smoothly, efficiently and democratically.”63

  Gene’s political activities kept his name in the news more than his comeback film, which was hardly a triumph. Filming completed on Living in a Big Way in January 1947 with re-takes continuing into the spring. The picture was released with no buildup or fanfare on June 10, 1947. Budgeted at $2,839,000, it grossed only $1,513,000. Critics paid little attention to the film; however, one reviewer for the Daytona Beach Morning Journal noted that the pro-veteran storyline “should restore Gene Kelly to the good graces of the House Un-American Activities Committee.”64 What saved the experience of Living in a Big Way from being a total loss for Gene was that a dancer he truly admired, Martha Graham, singled out the “Fido and Me” and construction-site dance numbers as great art. In an interview for the Los Angeles Times, Gene commented: “Let’s face it, it [the film] was a stinker. However, Martha Graham told me, ‘Oh boy, I liked those numbers.’ . . . I don’t care if anybody else saw or liked the picture—it’s enough that she did.”65

  Never in his life had Gene worn so many hats, so to speak, as he had in the last two years. He was a veteran, father, husband, political activist, director, producer, choreographer, dancer, and actor. Considering the lack of enthusiasm he had felt working on his latest film, Gene was uncertain of which hats to discard and which to keep. Dancing, which had always come most naturally to him, began to seem a piece of his past. He once likened the ability to dance to sex: as a young man he was at his best physically but knew little about it. At thirty-five, he knew all there was to know but was not as physically able to do it.

  In a letter to Motion Picture magazine in February 1947, Gene asked his fans to answer his question: should he be a dancer or a dramatic actor? “It’s my contention that perhaps I ought to stick to either one or the other,” he wrote.66 An avalanche of mail came in begging him to choose dancing. In addition to his fans, two highly influential people were unconvinced that Gene’s best dancing days were behind him. For nearly three years, Gene’s close colleagues Vincente Minnelli and Arthur Freed had been toiling over an adaptation of the S. N. Behrman farce The Pirate, which on Broadway had costarred legendary acting couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. They hoped to bring the play to the screen as a musical for Judy Garland. And they could see no one as Serafin—a strolling player masquerading as a roguish pirate—but Gene Kelly. Before Living in a Big Way had even finished shooting, Minnelli and Freed had already persuaded him to take the role.

  The Pirate, a big-budget Technicolor production, carried plenty of prestige and revived any sagging motivation Gene felt toward dancing. In the picture, he sought to prove his ongoing thesis that “dancing is much more than mere exhibition. It’s a complete art in itself [and can be used to] aid the plot . . . by a series of dances which reveal the inner thoughts of the players.”67 He came to the conclusion that one could be both a dramatic actor and a dancer. Never did this hold truer for him than now he had proved himself as a serious actor in Combat Fatigue Irritability as well as reaffirmed his credentials as a song-and-dance man in the Oscar-nominated Anchors Aweigh. The role of Serafin was a “wonderful, multi-faceted role for him” that promised to “rejuvenate his film work and take it in new directions.”68

  11

  A Flaming Trail of Masculinity

  The Pirate—a fantastical and most improbable musical comedy—seemed to cater perfectly to Americans’ tastes in 1947. “Musicals made shortly after World War II that emphasized fantasy and spectacle had a chance of doing very well” if executed correctly, film historians Earl J. Hess and Pratibha Dabholkar explained in their 2014 study of The Pirate. Escapist fare with incredible comedic plots were still popular in “a country just beginning to put itself back together after the war.”1 The film also promised to click with moviegoers due to its showcasing of Gene’s dancing. Audiences clamored to see more of his footwork after Living in a Big Way, which was only a teaser for what Gene had to offer. As Gene’s first major motion picture after the war, The Pirate marked the start of a new era in the thirty-five-year-old dancer’s career. The film allowed him to broaden his acting range, play an active role in developing his onscreen character, refine his choreographic work, and learn camera tricks that furthered the art of cinedance.

  Though The Pirate promised to catapult Gene’s career forward, it went into production at a most inopportune time. The country was experiencing a second Red Scare (the first took place after World War I) that alienated a number of moviegoers and prompted many talented writers and actors to relocate to Europe. More obviously detrimental to the movie industry was the sudden drop-off in attendance. Once servicemen returned home, they and their families relocated from the city to new suburban subdivisions; they focused more on feeding and clothing their children than attending the cinema three times a week.

  The biggest financial blow to Hollywood, however, came in the form of a law passed on December 31, 1946. For over twenty years, the Department of Justice had been battling against a practice known as block booking. Major Hollywood studios, including MGM and Warner Bros., were allowed to control their own theater chains, thus securing the power to produce and distribute their own films. Because the studios controlled their films’ distribution, they were able to force independent theater owners to buy an entire package, or “block” of films. Invariably, the package included some excellent films with mediocre B pictures sprinkled in. Such a system worked in favor of the studios, but the Department of Justice declared the block-booking system a monopoly. Two years later, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Hollywood film studios could still produce but no longer distribute their own films.

  Louis B. Mayer reduced his own salary and MGM staff by 25 percent after the enactment of the new law. He retained only the crème de la crème in his employ—including all members of the Freed Unit. Arthur Freed realized that his unit would have to change along with postwar America. “I wanted a fresh start from what had been before, a combination of new ideas that had been happening on stage and what could be done with film.”2 Freed saw Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, and Vincente Minnelli as indispensable even if they did not signify a “fresh start.” Most of the regulars he had employed before and during the war (including composer Hugh Martin, screenwriter Fred Finklehoffe, and actor Mickey Rooney) were struggling to find their place in modern America. Freed had to face that many of his former go-to talents were producing work that Americans had simply outgrown (the fall of backstage musicals and the Andy Hardy series marked a major downturn in Rooney’s film career). Freed hoped that The Pirate would act as a springboard for the clean start he was seeking.

  Finding the right screenwriters to create an acceptable treatment for The Pirate was a problem. Eleven writers tried and failed, including Anita Loos (famous for writing the book Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) and Joe Mankiewicz (best known for his work on All about Eve, 1950). The scripts they presented were perhaps too fresh. Finally, Freed engaged the husband-wife team Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich. They were not new to Hollywood, but they were versatile and seasoned writers; seldom did they write films that failed. Indeed, they had penned the entire Thin Man series. But even the optimistic Freed had his doubts that the duo could save The Pirate. After all, its exotic and avant-garde flavor bore resemblance to the 1946 MGM film that had sent Fred Astaire into retirement, Minnelli’s Yolanda and the Thief.

 
; The Broadway show on which The Pirate was based tells the story of a young woman named Manuela (Judy Garland) who is married to Don Pedro (Walter Slezak), the staid mayor of the West Indies town in which she lives. Manuela dreams of being romanced by a famous pirate, Estramundo. A strolling player, Serafin (Gene), learns of Manuela’s fantasy and pretends to be Estramundo in hopes of winning her love. Don Pedro, in a shocking twist, reveals that he is actually the pirate. Still, Manuela leaves the real pirate in favor of Serafin and the gypsy life of an actor. The first change Goodrich and Hackett made to the story, mainly to pacify the censors, was to make Manuela engaged rather than married to Don Pedro.

  As Goodrich and Hackett were well on their way to bringing The Pirate to the screen, the film faced a major problem. Its star, Judy Garland, was on the verge of her most severe nervous breakdown to date. Minnelli tried to summon enthusiasm from his wife, promising that the part of Manuela would show her flair for comedy and allow her to break from the wholesome girl-next-door type she had played for so much of her acting career. According to Gene: “MGM bought it [The Pirate] because they needed a picture for Judy Garland very, very badly.”3 To be sure, Judy did need a project. She had not enjoyed a starring role since The Harvey Girls in 1945. Judy, Minnelli, Freed, Gene, and MGM as a whole could not afford for The Pirate to lose.

  In The Pirate, Minnelli wanted to tap previously unexplored areas of Gene’s talent, specifically the ability to carry a story that contained comedy, parody, camp, and farce. Minnelli and Gene wanted to expand on these elements and agreed that the film would have to differ from its Broadway counterpart in more aspects than simply changing Manuela from a married girl to an unmarried one. Gene became focused on molding the character of Serafin to suit his own personality. Gene had seen Lunt and Fontanne in The Pirate and found the play “delightful, but he considered Lunt a bit too old to pretend to be a dashing pirate as Serafin does and he . . . commented that it had been the only Broadway failure in the illustrious career of that acting couple.” Gene thought Serafin should be played with “more youthful vigor.”4 When Serafin was being himself—the actor—Gene decided to play the character in the style of John Barrymore. On the other hand, when Serafin is pretending to be the pirate, Gene would take on the persona of his boyhood hero, Douglas Fairbanks, with all his swashbuckling bravado.

  In further developing his character, Gene explained, he made Serafin “a thoroughly imitative man. . . . [He’s] such a ham and he’s so false.” From the first scene in which audiences see Serafin, he is depicted as an overly theatrical “consummate performer and promoter.” Serafin’s assertive and charismatic personality mirrored Gene’s own tendency to take charge and stand out in any group. “Kelly’s hyper-energetic projection of self . . . so dominated his performance that the perspective shifts to a narcissistic indulgence by a supremely gifted performer who cannot help but love himself,” Hess and Dabholkar asserted.5

  Gene did have confidence in his abilities, but he always viewed his work with a critical eye. Thus, he was eager to have Minnelli’s feedback. Gene and Minnelli’s collaboration on the production became so close that it extended outside the studio. They lived near enough that on many evenings after dinner, Gene would say good night to Betsy and Kerry and stroll across his yard to Judy Garland and Minnelli’s home. There, they worked late into the night. The two men’s talents and insistence on perfection melded together seamlessly. Yet, they were far from identical. Gene saw their divergence as an advantage, allowing for a better-rounded product. According to Minnelli, Gene was “more earthy and romantic and in all of the things that Gene does, he has the same sense of reality that never leaves.” Lela Simone, who worked as music editor and Freed’s assistant on the film, revealed that Gene and Minnelli’s differences were not always convenient. She claimed that they had difficulty working together because, in temperament, they were “very, very contrary. . . . Gene Kelly is wide away from serious arts and Minnelli is so close to serious arts that one has to be careful not to be run over with it.” Simone further stated that she often heard both men “raving” at each other over aesthetic differences.6 Simone is the only colleague of Gene and Minnelli ever to mention any heated arguments between the two men.

  Gene and Minnelli worked especially well together on technical aspects of The Pirate. Minnelli not only taught Gene tricks of the camera but also how to manipulate color on film. Part of the magic in The Pirate is undoubtedly its sophisticated use of color and atmosphere. Minnelli utilized a mix of styles from South America, the Bahamas, and the West Indies to create the film’s provincial Caribbean town. Minnelli even ensured that the extras in the film were of different skin colors. In crowd scenes, black, Hispanic, and white men and women bustle together along the streets. Gene was fascinated with the entire process of Technicolor. He became a constant presence in the editing room. “We could sit down in the lab with the Technicolor people and control the color so it’s almost like a painting.”7 Gene went so far as to cite The Pirate as one of the best examples of color combinations in film history.

  With the help of his friend and fellow choreographer Robert Alton, Gene carefully planned his dances in The Pirate, paying special attention to the use of light and color. Gene was so involved in choreographing that Freed approved adding his name beside Alton’s in the film’s credits. Alton ultimately handled groups of dancers while Gene worked on solos. He created two for the picture, one of which was a ballet.

  The film and its dance routines could not truly take shape until its chosen composer, Cole Porter, completed the original score. Gene was excited to be working with Porter again, fondly recalling their friendship during the run of Gene’s first Broadway show, Leave It to Me! “We have to change the pirate’s name from Estramundo to Macoco. I have a dear friend with the same name who I call Mack the Black. He would be so pleased if I wrote a comic song about him,” Porter explained effusively to Freed when he agreed to pen the score.8 “Mack the Black” became the theme song for the film, though the number accompanying it was primarily designed for Judy Garland. However, Gene personally worked with Porter on what is arguably the best number in the film, a circus-themed routine that he requested be inserted to lighten the mood and quicken the pace of the picture’s concluding scenes. When Porter played Gene his composition, tears of happiness came to the actor’s eyes. The name of the song? “Be a Clown.”

  Gene anticipated designing a dance to accompany the number, but first he worked on another solo routine, “Nina.” According to film historian John Cutts, “Nina” was perfect evidence of Gene’s renaissance as a dancer. The sequence mixed “his own zestful style of humor and fancy . . . with a fantastic gymnastic display . . . [and resulted in dances that were] astonishingly flamboyant, most exciting, beautiful to watch, and extremely difficult to describe.”9 Gene designed “Nina” to utilize an entire plaza as Serafin’s playground. As usual, Gene called for dozens of props, or “toys,” as Arthur Freed called them, to be employed in the routine. Handholds and footholds on the sides of walls, diving boards, and climbing vines hidden on the set allowed him to jump from place to place. Art director Jack Martin Smith marveled, “He [Gene] was like a monkey. . . . He could run up and down it [the set] like a cat.”10

  “Nina” characterizes Serafin as a fancy-free womanizer who uses his body as a means of winning the affections of any female he sees. The suggestive content of the song and its execution (particularly when Serafin transfers a cigarette from his mouth to a woman’s and then dances sensually beside poles in a gazebo) was tasteful enough to get past the censors. More than lyrics or dialogue, Gene’s movements convey his character and carry the story along. Though the number put to rest any thoughts that Gene was more of a balletic artist than a straight hoofer, the dancer himself still felt that his work was not as good as it had been. In an interview with Philip Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times, Gene said self-effacingly, “Two years in the Navy, three years off the screen. . . . No, I’ll never be the dancer I was.” However, G
ene proved himself wrong after the interview, when a gymnastic rehearsal of “Nina” elicited applause from even “hardened studio employees.”11

  Gene put so much into his solos partly because four of the six major musical numbers in the picture were showcases for Judy Garland in which Gene was a bystander rather than an active participant. Judy’s numbers were “Mack the Black,” “Voodoo,” “Love of My Life,” and “You Can Do No Wrong.” The former two take place while Manuela is under Serafin’s spell, the latter two after Manuela discovers that she loves Serafin in spite of the fact that he lied to her about being Macoco. The rendition of “Love of My Life” that appears in the film is subdued in comparison to the original version. The first fell under heavy scrutiny from the film industry censors at the Breen Office. “We were doing a little bit of over groping,” Gene explained. “It was a sensual and sensuous experience . . . but I think it was too long and said too much. I didn’t mind that they cut a piece of that out.”12

  In the “Mack the Black” number, Judy is much livelier, though her energy borders on manic rather than exultant.

  Through all the Carib-be-an or vicinity

  Macoco leads a flaming trail of masculinity

  And suddenly I feel I’ve got a big affinity

  And I’m loco for Mack, Mack, Mack the Black, Macoco!13

  Judy shakes her waist-length hair free and covers her arms in gold costume jewelry bracelets as she falls into the arms of one man after another. At the number’s close, she is swinging her arms about wildly as men leer around her and other townspeople simply gaze, agog. The final version of the song used only three of the nine verses Porter wrote. The other six were strewn with inappropriate violent imagery such as “Mack will wack yuh and he’ll wack yuh in half.” Freed was insistent that even while Serafin pretended to be Macoco, he retain a “comparative innocence.”14