Our Love is Here to Stay

As a birthday gift when I turned 15, I received the book, The Films of Gene Kelly.  A few years earlier, I had already begun a life-long love affair with, yes, I’m just gonna’ go ahead and say it - the greatest dancer on film.  I know, I know, I’m going to get rebuttal after rebuttal, but hey! this is my blog, and my turn to say what I think. 

I love dancing.  I wanted to take tap dancing lessons as a child, but I was given 6 years of piano instead. I am grateful, however; but unless you’re Oscar Levant, there isn’t a real great need for on-screen piano players!  I not only love dancing, I love the dancers - Eleanor Powell, Fred Astaire, the Nicholas Brothers, Cyd Charisse, Leslie Caron, Bobby Van, Donald O'Connor and the list goes on. I even love the actors who weren’t technically considered dancers, but danced with Gene and anyone else: Dan Dailey, Phil Silvers, Van Johnson, Frank Sinatra, and even Debbie Reynolds. Why, because I cannot dance (like that) and I so appreciate that gift and talent.

Some of my Gene Kelly memorabilia & ephemera

Biographies on stars are a dime-a-dozen, and if you have been reading my blog with any consistency, you know that is not what this blog is about.  It’s my little corner of passion for 'all things cinema.'  Today marks the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Gene Kelly.  (Did I already mention he’s my favorite dancer of all time?) I got to thinking about why this was true for me, because I do love this craft, and all that it requires and releases, and I don’t even have time to begin to mention my favorite films.  For most people who discuss this, it’s that question of “Fred or Gene?” I love Fred, please don't misunderstand me; he is the foundation for every dancer that has come out of Hollywood.  Always striving for perfection and new ideas for film, I agree, but there’s an aristocratic air that goes with the package.  For me, Gene is everyman.  He’s a guy you’d meet on the street and would be himself to you.  It’s the build - true and athletic in nature. No one could wear a pair of trousers or loafers like Gene.  The polo shirt was tight across the chest and the bands on the sleeves fit snugly around his biceps.  Now, ‘everyman’ doesn’t always look like this, but he does in my dreams.  He’s the guy who cares about himself, but doesn’t.  He’s just being who he is.  The sweater goes across the shoulders, ties over his chest. He slaps on a cap, and he’s good to go.

He’s a sailor, a pirate, hunter, stuntman, artist. He’s someone you might know. And, when he meets the girl, he’s always a gentleman.  She may not think so, but he has the right words to say, and the right ways to say them.  Gene didn’t like his voice, but the world did.  When he spoke in that slight-rasp and lilt, I melted like butter.  I still do. 

Let’s not forget about the scar. “I’m not a glamour boy. If they don’t like me with it, they’re not going to like me without it.”[1] When he was around 6 years old, he fell off his tricycle onto open cast iron, which cut his face over his lip. He never got to attribute it to anything ‘heroic,’ but it adds character to eyes that twinkled and a smile that sent girl reeling.  It’s the way he slowly puts his arm around Leslie Caron in the “Our Love is Here to Stay” number that makes this 50-year old woman feel young again.

Gene’s creativity was ground-breaking: dancing with animated characters, breaking newspaper in halves and quarters, performing gymnastic tricks high in the air on ladders, trading shoes for shoe skates, taking a George Gershwin masterwork and turning it into the best picture for 1951.  These are the actualities of a visionary of the likes of Gene Kelly.  I believe his best work was his vision.  He was able to take the concept and turn it into reality, and although this ‘reality’ was and still is imaginary, we believe every moment of it and want to be there, too.

Hear Gene Kelly's first wife, Betsy Blair talk about Gene in her words:

PBS's "American Masters: Gene Kelly"

In 1985, the American Film Institute (finally) recognized Gene Kelly for his contribution to film. (He was the 13^th recipient).  He won an honorary Academy Award in 1952 “In appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.”  He was a director for film and television, and even made an appearance with the Muppets on The Muppet Show in 1980.

His body of work goes on and on.  Years could be spent on just discussing his dancing on film. Add another year for directing and choreographing and another for just television work.  With a recent surge of discussions on "where are the ‘real men'?," I believe those of us who love the work of Gene Kelly know where they are and what to look for.  Perhaps if we spent more time discussing his films and bringing his style to the forefront of conversations, those 'real men' might just re-emerge.

In the Pyramid book series on the history of the movies, Jeanine Basinger writes, “Kelly’s home studio, MGM, tackled this criticism head on by having Kelly allegedly issue such statements (on his lack of fan magazine appeal) as, “I’m just Joe Average.  I’ve got a wife, a kid, a car and a house.  There’s a million guys like me.”” [2] I dare disagree.  There is and never will be anyone like Gene Kelly again.

And now for your enjoyment:

                                                   Summer Stock (1950)

                                           It's Always Fair Weather (1955)

In a few weeks, I will reveal my favorite dance sequences captured on film. I hope you will tune-in for that.

Oh, I finally took those tap dancing lessons a couple of years ago…

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[1] Jeanine Basinger, Gene Kelly – Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies, (Pyramid Communications, 1976) 18.

[2] Ibid. 10.