Freed questioned why Gene would put off such a promising role. The answer? Gene and his family had decided to become expatriates. The author of a 1953 article in Modern Screen explained the motivating forces behind Gene’s decision to leave America: “Gene Kelly’s first contract with MGM was scheduled to expire. . . . Loew’s, Inc. had no intention of letting Kelly go. In seven previous years the studio had paid him relatively little, especially when one realizes that Gene worked not only as an actor but as a director, choreographer, and writer as well. As a matter of fact, he was regarded by the studio as a one-man unit.”54 Gene decided to remain at MGM after an executive of Loew’s informed him of a new tax law Congress had just passed on December 30, 1951. The law mandated that a person could work outside the United States for eighteen months, during which time all his earned income would be tax-free. “Look,” the Loew’s executive explained. “MGM has millions abroad in blocked currency. The only way they can use that money is to make pictures in foreign countries. It is no legal sin to make a film in London or in Paris or in Italy.”55 In Europe, Gene would be earning a healthy $5,000 a week.
Gene was not the only artist to take advantage of working abroad. Soon, Gary Cooper, Ava Gardner, Kirk Douglas, Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, and Lana Turner packed their bags, too. “Because of this Hollywood exodus, Kelly is bearing the brunt of public griping,” the Modern Screen columnist recorded. “The law [is] . . . proper and legal. I would sooner cut off my right arm than do anything shady,” Gene defended himself. “Actors don’t have very lengthy careers; that’s particularly true of dancers. . . . In saving some money for my old age and providing for my family, I don’t see anything morally wrong.”56
Gene and Betsy planned to rent out their Rodeo Drive home while they were in Europe. Accompanying Gene, Betsy, and Kerry were the three women Gene could not live without: Lois McClelland, Carol Haney, and Jeanne Coyne. Betsy embraced the move. “I was enthusiastic . . . and thought it would be good for Kerry. And it was a fine joke on the IRS. . . . The commonly held view of the left was that as long as capitalism is there, we should get as much as we could out of it,” Betsy remarked.57
In truth, the reason behind Gene’s decision to uproot was less pecuniary and more aesthetic. Considering the overwhelmingly positive reception of his ballet in An American in Paris, he saw no reason why he should not make an all-dance picture. The idea, Gene claimed, “almost resulted in a psychiatrist being called . . . to examine me. . . . I was prepared to fight. I had the most important of assets to help me—sheer unadulterated enthusiasm.” He continued that the reason he had “taken up a film career” in the first place was so he could eventually make an all-dance picture. “It was a dream of mine almost since the first day I ever went to a cinema.”58 Arthur Freed, although doubtful about the project, could not resist Gene’s eagerness. He agreed to produce it at MGM’s London studio under the condition that Gene complete two low-budget pictures for Metro overseas. One of the films, The Devil Makes Three, was set to start production in late January 1952 at Bavaria Studios, Geiselgasteig, Germany. The other, Crest of the Wave, was to be filmed in the United Kingdom but would not begin production until 1953.
Doing two less prestigious pictures seemed a small sacrifice given that Gene had the green light on his dance picture and would have the experience of living in Europe. There, he felt, he could truly expand and refine his art and bask “in the respect and recognition that Europe accords artists.”59
If Gene believed that Hollywood and America as a whole did not grant him the recognition he deserved, he was soon to be proven wrong. The honor Hollywood lavished upon Gene after he left for Europe confirmed that his artistry was far from overlooked in his native country. Never in the history of film had a musical ever received as many Oscar nominations as Gene’s An American in Paris. The picture received nods in eight categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Musical Score, Best Art Direction and Set Decoration, Best Color Cinematography, Best Costume Design, and Best Film Editing.
Most significant, Gene was announced as the recipient of the annual Honorary Oscar. The category, created in 1948, acknowledged cinematic achievements not covered by existing Academy Awards. Gene was only the second dancer to receive such recognition (Fred Astaire received one at the 1950 awards ceremony). Though pleased with the award, Gene still voiced regret that he had not been nominated as Best Actor. “The idea that musical [actors] are less worthy of Academy consideration than drama[tic ones] is a form of snobbishness.”60
In truth, the honorary Oscar did pay tribute to Gene’s acting ability as well as his dancing talent. On March 20, 1952, the night of the awards ceremony, the president of the Academy, Charles Brackett, stated that Gene had earned his statuette through his “extreme versatility as an actor-singer, director, and dancer . . . and because of his specific and brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.”61 From Europe, Gene requested that Stanley Donen accept the Oscar for him. Vincente Minnelli admitted that Gene’s decision hurt his feelings, particularly because Donen had had no part in the production of An American in Paris.
Gene was not the only one to receive an honorary Oscar that night. Arthur Freed took home the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award, given to a different producer each year. The Freed Unit was sweeping the Oscars; before Best Picture was announced, An American in Paris had already won two honorary awards plus Best Costume Design, Best Color Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Set Decoration, and Best Screenplay (not to be confused with Best Adapted Screenplay, which went to A Place in the Sun). However, in the Best Picture category, An American in Paris faced heady competition. In a year that sported such prestigious titles as A Streetcar Named Desire, The African Queen, and A Place in the Sun, a musical picture with a thin story line seemed the least likely to win the award. Presenter Jesse Lasky could not conceal his surprise when he opened the envelope. “Oh my!” he exclaimed. “The winner for Best Picture is An American in Paris.” The audience was silent except for a few gasps of shock. But slowly, hearty applause erupted, which only became more vigorous when Freed trotted up to the stage, clearly moved. As he cradled the statuette with the honorary one he had already received, he quipped, “It’s a double header!” He continued on a more serious note: “Thank you. And thank you from my brilliant associates who made this possible: Vincente Minnelli, Gene Kelly, and a great studio with real courage and leadership who supported me. Thank you.”62
For the present, it appeared that everything Gene Kelly and the Freed Unit touched equaled acclaim. The reaction to Singin’ in the Rain upon its premiere on March 27, 1952, was no exception. Metro’s New York boss, Nick Schenck, remarked: “Everyone loved it. I was delighted with every scene and it will bring a pleasant glow to everyone who sees it. Kelly’s singing in the rain number should become a musical classic.”63
However, the formidable Bosley Crowther of the New York Times had a number of complaints about the film, the dominant one being that the title had nothing to do with the plot. He asserted that the picture was mostly nonsense but did concede that the “nonsense is generally good and at times it reaches the level of first-class satiric burlesque.” Crowther deemed the “Broadway Ballet” nothing but a lot “of eye-filling acrobatics against a mammoth production splurge.”64 Though opinions were mixed about the “Broadway Ballet,” its contribution to the art of cinedance was virtually undisputed. A critic for Nation magazine remarked: “His [Gene’s] . . . ballet becomes something more than ballet screened—a dance brilliantly designed for the camera.”65 The title number was, in most reviews, crowned as the high spot of the film. Crowther wrote that it was “by far his [Gene’s] most captivating number . . . a beautifully soggy tap dance performed in the splashing rain.”66
Singin’ in the Rain should have outshone An American in Paris due to its superior cohesive plotline, witty screenplay, strong characterizations, and infectious musical numbers. Though An American in Paris did have a laudable screenplay and inventive
musical numbers, it lacked the comedy, fluid story, and fully developed characters that made Singin’ in the Rain so superb. Singin’ in the Rain did gross $5.6 million at the box office, more than recouping its $2.6 million budget. Still, An American in Paris had grossed $1.2 million more. As Adolph Green aptly put it, the earlier picture was “considered Art” and thus “got so much publicity and so many favorable notices.”67 The reasons behind the lack of buildup for Singin’ in the Rain also had much to do with Dore Schary. Donen’s biographer Stephen M. Silverman explained that Schary, to capitalize on “the windfall” of honors An American in Paris received, decided to re-release it in theaters at the same time Singin’ in the Rain was playing, thus sabotaging the latter picture. In fact, in many movie houses, Singin’ in the Rain was “yanked to accommodate the Oscar winner.”68
An American in Paris had been nominated for eight Oscars; Singin’ in the Rain for only two: Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Music Score. On the night of the ceremony, March 19, 1953, the picture took home neither statuette. Gloria Grahame won over Jean Hagen for her role in Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful and Alfred Newman won over Lennie Hayton for his work on With a Song in My Heart.
However, the picture was not bereft of honors. At the Golden Globes ceremony on February 26, 1953, Donald O’Connor received a Best Actor award and the picture itself was nominated for Best Musical or Comedy, although it lost to the well-executed but somewhat stilted Jane Froman biopic, With a Song in My Heart. Betty Comden and Adolph Green received a Writers Guild of America prize for Best Written American Musical.
“Our picture didn’t seem as important [compared to An American in Paris]. Mainly because it was full of laughter—that sinful, superficial thing called laughter,” Adolph Green said facetiously.69 However, Singin’ in the Rain cannot be said to be less important than An American in Paris because of its lighter mood. Film critic Elvis Mitchell went so far as to say that “Singin’ in the Rain may be the smartest musical comedy ever made.”70 And of course the film has delighted audiences for decades; it is perhaps the most beloved and revered film to come from Hollywood’s golden era.
Singin’ in the Rain appealed to audiences all over the world not only because of its contagious energy and irresistible wit but also because of its timeliness. The film’s script rang especially true to audiences in 1952; the transition from silent to sound was an analogy of the transition from film to television. (Incidentally, the twenty-fifth Academy Awards, at which Singin’ in the Rain was nominated, was the first televised Oscar ceremony. It aired on March 19, 1953.) Reflecting on Singin’ in the Rain decades later, Stanley Donen thought that it hadn’t remained relevant; it looked “creaky.”71 Gene Kelly was of the opposite opinion. “I’ve made a lot of films that were bigger hits and made lots more money, but now they look dated. But this one, out of all my pictures, has a chance to last. The picture was made with love.”72 What keeps the film pertinent is its essential innocence and lack of pretension. As Leonard Bernstein put it, the film is truly “a reaffirmation of life.”73
Singin’ in the Rain should have propelled Gene’s career forward, marking as it did the third in a triumvirate of masterpieces, preceded by On the Town and An American in Paris. Indeed, Singin’ in the Rain came closest to being the perfect picture Gene was forever striving to create. Gene, however, remained dissatisfied. He felt, for the time being, that he had done all he could with the conventional format of the Hollywood musical. Hence his compulsion to pursue his all-dance picture; here was new, unexplored territory to master. The picture could very well mark a new beginning in his career—and his life. Betsy observed that Gene “knew . . . making a plotless film in a balletic form might be overstepping the mark, but he did it from serious artistic ambition, not for any pretension.” Those Gene left behind at MGM—even the steadfast Arthur Freed—may have seen Gene’s dual decision to move overseas and proceed with his experimental film as a sort of death sentence for his career, but in Betsy’s observation, her husband “was altogether happy. . . . He knew what he was doing.”74
16
What a Day This Has Been
For Gene Kelly, living and working in Europe in the early 1950s gave him ample room for exploration in his directorial and choreographic career. For Betsy Blair, living abroad allowed for a different kind of exploration. Indeed, away from the familiar “Gene and the studio will take care of it” environment in Beverly Hills, “the time had come to grow up. . . . I was strong enough to change myself, but I was not strong enough to confront him and make him see me as a woman, not as a little angel.”1
The new opportunities Gene and Betsy found abroad were decidedly not shared ones. Gene’s naysayers in Hollywood had predicted that his move to Europe would sound the death knell for his career; none predicted that it could presage the end of a marriage that so far had been free from conflict.
Betsy began to accept offers of work from fellow expatriates and blacklisted artists. Gene, she said, was often “so busy he [didn’t] notice my absence.” She began to garner many admirers among her mentors and comrades, admitting later, “I can see now that I wanted every man to sort of fall in love with me. . . . I’m sure this behavior was directly related to Gene and his fame. With the whole world admiring him, I had to find my own circle of admirers.”2
Gene’s incessant activity did in truth put emotional distance between him and his wife. He took on as much, if not more, responsibility for his nascent dance picture as Arthur Freed, the titular producer of the film. Far from the scrutiny of MGM executives, Gene felt his power and position. His new picture was completely in his hands and not a collaborative effort, as had been his best films to date.
As he had in Hollywood, Gene did try his best to keep Betsy involved in his work. “Gene asked me to come along when he was running screen tests or to see a set and have lunch,” Betsy recalled. “But I wasn’t part of the action in the way I always felt I was in Beverly Hills.” In Europe, she came to miss members of the Freed Unit coming in and out of the house, playing games in the living room or singing at the piano. Though she had no part in the professional aspects of their meetings, Gene always ushered her and Kerry in to hear new songs by Comden and Green or Roger Edens. “We were never shut out,” she commented. “The study had no door.”3
At the dawn of 1952, Gene and his family did not ring in the New Year together. Gene was in Paris to begin work on The Devil Makes Three while Betsy and Kerry were still in Hollywood; they did not set sail for Europe until March 5, 1952. When the ship docked at Le Havre, Gene was eagerly awaiting his wife and daughter with three cars and a van to accommodate their forty-seven suitcases. They stayed at the chic Hotel Lancaster overnight before traveling to Munich so Gene could complete location work on The Devil Makes Three—a picture for which he felt little but apathy. A thriller, it deals with an air force captain (Gene) in postwar Germany who loves a girl (starlet Pier Angeli) used by neo-Nazis to smuggle gold. Gene had long yearned to do another straight role, but the flat dialogue of the B picture came as a depressing anticlimax to the sharp and witty banter in An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain.
Filming for The Devil Makes Three continued until April 1952. But only four days passed before Betsy decided that she could not stay with Gene, and she and Kerry removed to Paris. Betsy confessed that she had difficulty even pretending to tolerate the Germans, whom she viewed as fascist enemies. Gene did not share his wife’s ill will. On his film sets, Gene brought a spirit of openness and amity. Knowing he was a guest in a foreign country, he went further to show his goodwill. One evening while enjoying a drink in a beer cellar, he overheard two American ex-GIs muttering insults about the Germans. He flew into a rage and engaged in a fight with the men. Kerry later reflected that he “must have been going through a terrible crisis of conscience because, after all, only a few years ago we were at war with the Germans. . . . I remember it was a very painful thing for him to punch an American over a German—but he did.”4
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Gene’s swiftness to anger not only was an example of his lifelong tendency to defend the underdog, but was also prompted by his misgivings regarding his career potential in Europe. Shortly before the fight, he had heard news of his Honorary Academy Award for An American in Paris. Now, halfway across the world, he saw what a disaster of a movie he was making compared to the film that had merited him the Oscar. The Devil Makes Three was certainly an inauspicious beginning to his work in Europe, one he feared would cast “an indelible blot” on his career.5
Fortunately, Gene’s fears were unfounded. The picture premiered, virtually unnoticed, four months later. Upon its New York release on August 29, 1952, a New York Times critic panned the picture as “on the whole, a synthetic, pallid and erratic endeavor,” but spared the film’s players, who emerged “unscathed.” “Mr. Kelly proves once again that dancing shoes don’t necessarily make the actor in a fine, restrained characterization.”6 According to MGM records, the film made $743,000 in the United States and Canada and $742,000 elsewhere, resulting in a loss of $57,000.
With the picture forgotten almost the moment it was released, Gene forged ahead with plans to travel to London and get back in shape for his dance picture. He had put on twelve pounds thanks to his relative inactivity and consumption of rich German food. “I’ll get trim again as soon as I start practicing. Dancing is like boxing. Only you don’t get hit.”7 He elaborated on his goals: “I would like to be twins or quadruplets. Then I could produce and direct films and at the same time could develop film choreography and dancing. . . . I could scour the world to discover new talents. . . . I could be working in Munich and Rome and Paris and London and Hollywood, absorbing all the various techniques.”8
He's Got Rhythm: The Life and Career of Gene Kelly (Screen Classics) Page 37