Parky at the Pictures (DVD 15/11/2012)

However, help is at hand in the form of a boxed set entitled Must See Musicals, which gathers 15 features produced by Warner Bros and MGM between 1933 and 1962. Sadly, Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers did their best work at RKO, while Deanna Durbin was based at Universal, Bing Crosby at Paramount, Rita Hayworth at Columbia and Shirley Temple, Alice Faye and Betty Grable were at Twentieth Century-Fox. But this collection still contains 10 bona fide masterpieces and if the Doris Day quartet and Rosalind Russell biopic that make up the numbers (and are discussed at the end of this column) might have been replaced by the superior fare like Gold Diggers of 1933, Yolanda and the Thief, On the Town, An American in Paris and Gigi, this still represents an excellent introduction to the movies that had toes tapping around the world.

The musical was still considered box-office poison when Warners production chief Darryl F. Zanuck embarked on 42nd Street (1933). According to legend, Zanuck had two scripts prepared and he showed the Front Office the one without songs, while Busby Berkeley was secretly installed in the Vitagraph Studio on Sunset Boulevard to supervise the musical numbers. The action was only finally merged in the cutting room and Harry Warner was forced to concede that `this is the greatest picture you've sent over in five years'.

Although it was based on a novel by Bradford Ropes, the story of an understudy becoming an eleventh-hour star was already an old chestnut. Indeed, Warners had exploited it in 1929 for the first all-colour sound feature, On With the Show. Yet, it actually had an historical precedent, as Pauline Frederick had replaced Blanche Ring to sensational effect in Victor Herbert's operetta It Happened in Nordland in 1905.

This is essentially a film about getting a job and making money in tough times. Consequently, it reeked of seedy authenticity.

Sugar daddy Guy Kibbee bankrolls producer Warner Baxter's Broadway swan song, Pretty Lady, in order to ogle the chorines, as well as keep his chanteuse mistress Bebe Daniels happy. The chorus boys and stage-door Johnnies were also on the make with showgirls like Anytime Annie (Ginger Rogers) - who wears a monocle and carries a Pekingese in stellar affectation. Indeed, one beau is even seen kissing his sweetheart in the digs corridor, as the landlady informs innocent wannabe Ruby Keeler about men being barred from the rooms.

But this is also a political parable, which showed Americans how they could extricate themselves from the Depression by uniting behind a strong leader and pulling for a common cause. It was no coincidence that the cast was invited to President Roosevelt's inauguration, as this was a New Deal musical, whose famous line, `You've got to go on and you've got to give, and give and give...You're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!', chimed in with FDR's panacea for the nation's malaise.

It was also a realist picture, which refused to sanitise either the sweat and toil of rehearsals or the stark fact that a flop would mean hardship for everyone, from the chorines to the sparks. The backstage milieu was populated, therefore, with hardened professionals, made cynical by the ruthless business of transient fame, envy and treachery. Yet, the success of the show was linked directly to the romantic fate of juveniles Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler, thus, establishing a convention that would continue throughout the genre's heyday.

Berkeley's dance routines were New Deal models in themselves, as he kept dozens of girls gainfully employed for weeks as he worked his magic on the Al Dubin and Harry Warren numbers, `Shuffle Off to Buffalo', `Young and Healthy' and `42nd Street', which also provided structural tension, as there was no polished perfection during the dramatic sequences, only in the glorious finale.

Yet, while it seemed to hint at a happy ending, the shot of Baxter looking exhausted as the theatre empties reiterates the idea that while it may be entertainment and escapism for some, for others showbiz is about enthusiasm, energy and effort and that elusive success is as much down to the unpredictable reaction of the critics and punters as to the quality of the show. Indeed, no guarantees were even given that Ruby would sustain her instant celebrity and there was even an implication that she wouldn't truly have made it until she became a movie star.

However, such uncompromising honesty appealed to contemporary audiences, who relaunched the musical by turning this $379,000 risk into the year's third-biggest grosser ($2.5 million). No wonder Warners billed it as `The Entertainment Miracle of 1933'. However, much was to change over the next decade, as Berkeley's regimented routines fell from favour and the monochrome majesty of Fred and Ginger was replaced by the garish Technicolor entertainments churned out to raise wartime morale. An exception to this pattern, however, was Vincente Minnelli's Meet Me in St Louis (1944), which finally showed that Judy Garland was ready to move on from juvenile roles like Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939) and heralded MGM's entry into a genre it had previously considered a little lowbrow.

Frustrated at missing out on the stage hit Life With Father, producer Arthur Freed found a ready-made replacement in the `Kensington' stories that Sally Benson had published in the New Yorker. Charmed by the sweetness of autobiographical vignettes that were `like a Valentine in the palm of your hand', Freed originally conceived the project as a musical with period songs for director George Cukor. However, the MGM board had doubts about a film with a non-linear structure, despite Freed's assurance, `I'll make a plot with song and dance and music. That's the way my characters will come to life - that'll be my plot.'

But Louis B. Mayer saw the venture as a costume equivalent to his long-running Andy Hardy series and backed the screenplay that Fred Finklehoffe and Irving Brecher had written for Vincente Minnelli. He also sanctioned Freed's recruitment of Broadway art director Lemuel Ayers (who had designed Oklahoma!) and the construction of a 1903 St Louis street at a cost of $208,275. Moreover, Mayer also helped coax a reluctant Judy Garland into accepting the part of Esther Smith and surrounded her with such dependable character players as Mary Astor (mother, Anne), Leon Ames (father, Lon), Harry Davenport (Grandpa Prophater) and Marjorie Main (Katie the maid), as well as newcomers like Lucille Bremer, Joan Carroll and Margaret O'Brien, as her sisters, Ruth, Agnes and Tootie.

Freed and Mayer were so committed to Meet Me in St Louis as it reaffirmed The Wizard of Oz's key message: `There's no place like home'. This was more relevant than ever with so many military personnel overseas and Minnelli's `sentimental mood piece' revisited Oz's contrasting concepts of youth/adulthood, fantasy/reality and faraway/home, while also placing patriotic faith in the rituals, inventions and values that America was fighting to uphold. Yet for all its seemingly simple positivity, this is also a film of contradiction and complexity.

The spirited Smith women are determined to seize life. But they are also cheerfully subservient and domesticated. Conversely, the chauvinistic Lon despises the telephone, yet so aspires to the social mobility it symbolises that he accepts a promotion that will uproot his entrenched family to New York. Equally ironic is the fact that this nostalgic saga is so firmly rooted in modernity. Great store is set by technological advance and the comforts and conveniences of consumerism, while the World Fair finale celebrates the future with an optimism that would have cheered contemporary audiences, who were already beginning to anticipate the peace. Even the score blends 1900s standards like Bob Cole's `Under the Bamboo Tree' and Kerry Mills's title ditty with such Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane pop tunes as `The Trolley Song', `The Boy Next Door' and `Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas'.

Shot in lustrous Technicolor, the décor similarly combines authentic period details gleaned from Benson's stories and the paintings of Thomas Eakins with the inspired use of light, colour and composition that Minnelli had learned as a window dresser. This conscious theatricality also applies to choreographer Charles Walters's staging of the musical numbers, which, despite Minnelli's agile camera, largely remain within confined spaces - although `The Trolley Song' has more of a traditional production feel.

Yet it wasn't all cosy artifice, as Tootie imparts a sense of mischief and melancholy that turns disconcertingly dark during the Halloween and Christmas sequences. The latter even sees her launch a furious assault (on learning of her father's decision to quit St Louis) on the snow people that she had built so lovingly in the garden and such self-possessed shifts between innocence and experience earned O'Brien a special Oscar.

Meet Me in St Louis grossed $7,566,000 on its $1,707,561 budget. But, more significantly, by integrating the songtrack to emphasise the emotional aspect of the everyday, it had an even greater impact on the Hollywood musical than Oklahoma! had exerted on Broadway. Furthermore, Garland had found in Minnelli a director (and husband) who she hoped would protect her from a growing  predilection for insecurity and caprice. Yet it was Charles Walters who guided her through her next gem, Easter Paradie (1948).

According to the cynics, the pre-production for this perennial favourite was more interesting than the picture itself. Set in 1912 and following the fortunes of a vaudevillian who vows to turn a barroom chorine into a star after he's dumped by his Broadway-bound partner, it may not have been the Freed Unit's most sophisticated offering. But it's certainly its most polished piece of escapist entertainment and it's doubtful whether Vincente Minnelli could have done a better job than Charles Walters had he not been forced to quit after five days, on the advice of his troubled wife Judy Garland's psychiatrist.

When MGM first announced the project in 1947, its stars were to be Gene Kelly, Kathryn Grayson, Frank Sinatra and Red Skelton. But Judy Garland, Peter Lawford and Jules Munshin were soon drafted in alongside Ann Miller, who replaced Cyd Charisse after she broke her leg. However, Kelly then fractured his ankle playing touch football (although he told the studio that the accident happened during rehearsals) and Freed briefly considered casting Gene Nelson before persuading the 48 year-old Fred Astaire to come out of retirement. Having been reassured that filming couldn't be delayed and that Kelly would be incapacitated for several months, Astaire signed up for his fifth collaboration with Irving Berlin - the last being Paramount's Blue Skies (1946), the success of which had persuaded Freed to offer the composer an unprecedented $500,000 fee and a percentage of the profits in return for access to the 800+ tunes in his songbook.

While associate producer Roger Edens selected the standards, Berlin produced a raft of new tunes, including `It Only Happens When I Dance With You', `A Fella With an Umbrella' and `Steppin' Out With My Baby'. However, `I Love You - You Love Him' and `Mister Monotony' were cut from the final print, while Freed took exception to the proposed speciality number `Let's Take an Old-Fashioned Walk' and Berlin replaced it within the hour with `A Couple of Swells'.

Berlin was also invited to share his memories of 1910s showbiz with screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. But Walters (who was directing only his second feature after 1947's Good News) disliked the script's over-reliance on the Pygmalion myth and persuaded Freed to hire Sidney Sheldon to tone down its misanthropy. Ultimately, the storyline bore echoes of For Me and My Gal (1942), but it admirably captured the backstage mood and accommodated the Berlin numbers with seamless ease.

Despite the fact that she had to rejoin Minnelli 17 times for retakes on The Pirate, Garland revelled in the project and made a delightful job of such solos as `Better Luck Next Time' and oldies like `I Love a Piano', `Snooky Ookums' and `When That Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam' in the marvellous montage sequence with Astaire. He also excelled in his duets with Garland (`A Couple of Swells' and `Easter Parade') and Miller (`It Only Happens When I Dance With You'), while his spotlights on `Drum Crazy' and `Steppin' Out With My Baby' showed no signs of his 13-month absence from the screen. Indeed, in the latter routine (which referenced Top Hat, 1935 and Carefree, 1938) he danced a pseudo-ballet, a sultry blues and a zesty jitterbug with three different female partners before launching into tap solo that culminated in a slo-mo sequence that took four weeks to edit. Yet, for once, Astaire was upstaged by Miller's explosive rendition of `Shaking the Blues Away', which demonstrated why MGM had recruited her as a replacement for Eleanor Powell.

Easter Parade cost $2,503,654 and grossed $6,803,000. It earned Edens and conductor Johnny Green Academy Awards for the Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. But, most significantly, it relaunced Fred Astaire's career and established the character of the teacher-initiator who falls for his protégé that he would also play in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), Daddy Long Legs (1955), Funny Face and Silk Stockings (both 1957).

Garland, meanwhile, moved on to take the title role in Charles Walter's production of Annie Get Your Gun. But things didn't go according to plan. Indeed, the capriciousness of the movie business can be admirably summed up by the contrasting fates of Annie Get Your Gun (1950) and David Butler's Calamity Jane (1953). Respectively fictionalising the feats of 19th-century sharpshooters Phoebe Anne Oakley Moses and Martha Jane Burke, they each featured an anachronistically vivacious blonde in the title role, had Howard Keel as the leading man and romanticised the harsh realities of Wild Western life. Yet Warner's highly derivative screen original is much more fondly remembered than MGM's adaptation of Irving Berlin's Broadway hit - even though the latter boasts an infinitely superior score, a stronger supporting ensemble and considerably more wit and charm.

The received wisdom is that Betty Hutton hammed her way through Annie Oakley's love-hate relationship with Frank Butler, while Day exhibited adorable élan in portraying Calam's determination to prise Wild Bill Hickok away from maid-turned-chanteuse, Katie Brown. Yet, Day is every bit as guilty of gnawing the scenery as Hutton. However, she hadn't committed the cardinal sin of replacing Judy Garland.

A 1,147-show run had persuaded MGM to spend a record $650,000 in acquiring Annie Get Your Gun as Garland's next big showcase. But, having spent most of 1948 on suspension battling her addictions and mental problems, the 26 year-old was in no stage to tackle her first radical departure from the patented Garland persona. Musical director Roger Edens first noticed that she was struggling to connect with the material when she came to record her nine songs. But it was the stress of working with the aggressive Busby Berkeley that prompted the breakdown that led to six bouts of electro-shock therapy. However, Garland returned to work, only to lose her nerve again after viewing some disastrous rushes. Berkeley was dismissed the following day and Garland rallied briefly under the more solicitous supervision of Charles Walters. But she knew she was wrong for the role and, after enduring six days filming `I'm an Indian, Too', she was fired for her unprofessional attitude to a picture that had already cost  $1,877,528.

Producer Arthur Freed initially considered Betty Garrett as Garland's replacement, as she possessed something of the gusto that Ethel Merman had brought to the 1946 stage production. However, Garrett's agent botched the negotiations and Freed opted to loan `Incendiary Blonde' Betty Hutton from Paramount, even though many MGM insiders were sceptical, especially as Doris Day, Judy Canova, June Allyson and Ginger Rogers all supposedly coveted the part.

Unsurprisingly, morale on set was morbidly low, as not only had Walters been callously replaced by George Sidney, but Walter Plunkett's costumes been discarded, Sidney Sheldon's script had been revised to accommodate the comic routines that Hutton had insisted replaced Robert Alton's more complex dance numbers and the entire score had been recast in Hutton's range. Yet, Sidney and Hutton approached their tasks with vigour, as they felt they had something to prove to their detractors. Moreover, Howard Keel (who had avoided much of the chaos, having broken his ankle in falling from his horse on the second day of filming) was keen to make a good impression in his first Hollywood musical. Thus, they threw themselves into the project, with Hutton bursting through the screen during such Berlin showstoppers as `You Can't Get a Man With a Gun', `Doin' What Comes Natur'lly' and `I'm an Indian Too', while also more than holding her own against Keel on `Anything You Can Do' and the anthemic `There's No Business Like Show Business'.

Costing $3,768,785, Annie Get Your Gun grossed $8,010,000 on its initial release and its 1956 revival. It also earned Edens and Oscar Deutsch Academy Awards for their scoring. But, while audiences warmed to Hutton's courageously exhilarating efforts, the critics detected a desperation in her performance that was exacerbated by Keel's Eddyesque stiffness. However, this unfairly disparaged gem is long overdue reappraisal, as it not only remained true to its source, but it also added plenty of cinematic spectacle, most notably during the rousing finale. Yet Garland's plight served to emphasis how short MGM was of genuine vocal talent and, while this eventually proved to be one of the Freed Unit's most profitable pictures, it also exposed the first inklings of the crisis that, within a decade, would decimate the movie musical.

Warner Bros produced Calamity Jane to compensate for Doris Day missing out on Annie Get Your Gun. It even borrowed Keel from MGM to be her co-star and had Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster write `I Can Do Without You' as a challenge song riposte to the magnificent `Anything You Can Do'. But while there was plenty of vim in `The Deadwood Stage' and `Just Blew in From the Windy City', the remainder of the score couldn't compete with Berlin's seemingly endless string of hit tunes. `Secret Love' might have been a worthy Oscar winner and afforded Day her third million-selling single. But it was the only truly standout song in film that exposed her shortcomings as an all-rounder as often as it showcased her melodic sweetness.

One critic opined that Day's performance placed her `within hailing distance of Ginger Rogers and Judy Garland'. However, the chance to make a direct comparison was lost when Garland was suspended. There's no denying that Calamity Jane provides rousing and hugely enjoyable entertainment. But Day's enduring appeal is largely responsible for it being considered a classic, while Annie Get Your Gun is deemed merely an interesting misfire. It's about time, therefore, that Betty Hutton's courageously exhilarating efforts were accorded the acclaim they deserve.

We stay in the backwoods for Stanley Donen's Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). In these supposedly politically correct times, it's hard to imagine that a story centred around the abduction and incarceration of six virginal women by a sextet of uncouth youths could still be considered family entertainment. Yet Seven Brides has retained an innocent appeal that has overcome its blatant chauvinism. Even its cinematic shortcomings have been overlooked and it has consistently outperformed musicals with greater artistic sensibility, more melodic scores and more accomplished performances. But that's popular taste for you.

Joshua Logan had spent five years trying to devise a stage musical based on Stephen Vincent Benet's short story, `The Sobbin' Women', before he sold the rights to MGM for $40,000. With a new title provided by Howard Dietz, the project was offered to Donen in the hope of persuading him to sign a new contract and he collaborated with Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett in toning down a plotline that translated Plutarch's account of the Rape of the Sabine Women to 1850s Oregon.

Producer Jack Cummings was keen to interpolate a score of folk standards. But Donen failed to find any that would integrate satisfactorily and promptly hired Gene De Paul and Johnny Mercer, who produced songs with lyrics full of natural imagery, earthily prudish euphemisms and crude grammar and melodies that were ingeniously orchestrated with banjos, accordions and harmonicas by the Oscar-winning duo of Saul Chaplin and Adolph Deutsch.

Baritone Howard Keel and soprano Jane Powell were reunited after Rose Marie (1954). But the stiff and frequently undemonstrative Keel soon came to resent being goaded into giving a performance and tried to have Donen replaced with his Show Boat (1951) director, George Sidney. However, Keel's temperament was the least of Donen's problems, as MGM had little faith in the picture and accorded it a meagre budget that confined the shoot to Culver City. As with Brigadoon (1954), the decision to mount an essentially outdoor story on archly stylised soundstages backfired and while it might have saved a few dollars, it proved a false economy.
The use of actual locations under the opening credits only exacerbates the artificiality of what follows. The plasticity of the scenery is shriekingly evident during `Wonderful, Wonderful Day' and `Lament', while the back projection used both as the brothers sneak out of town and as the newlyweds depart after their shotgun weddings is shoddy in the extreme. Moreover, Donen bitterly regretted the parsimony that prevented him from turning `Spring, Spring, Spring' into a production number filled with natural images of the changing seasons.

However, the penny-pinching did heighten the authenticity of Willis and Hugh Hunt's interiors and Walter Plunkett's costumes (with the brides' dresses being made from quilts found in a Salvation Army thrift shop). Even George Folsey's Ansco Color photography had an unrefined austerity that suited the period and the backwater setting. Yet funding was found to film in both CinemaScope and Hollywood ratio, as not all cinemas could accommodate the widescreen format and it's intriguing to compare the compositions in each version, as Donen used the additional space more intuitively than many of his contemporaries. Moreover, he also defied editing restrictions (because of the costs involved in multiple set-ups) and the frequency of the cuts increased the picture's pace without disrupting the balance of the mise-en-scène.

The `Barn-Raising' ballet epitomises Donen's approach. Choreographed as frontier reality not dream interlude by Michael Kidd, this pioneering segment didn't recapitulate past events or explore the character's psychology through symbolic action. Instead, it showed the local girls becoming attracted to the strapping Pontipees as they not only demonstrate their Prostestant work ethic, but also the ability to take care of themselves in a donnybrook. The eight-minute sequence was also intricately structured to establish the innocent thrill of the picnic, the percussive rhythms of labour and the knockabout machismo of the fist fight. Consequently, there was no room for the prettified escapism of previous ballets, just the careful colour coding of the future lovers and the dazzling combination of jazz, ballet, acrobatics, slapstick and Wild West posturing that both anticipates the gangland strutting of the Sharks and the Jets in West Side Story (1961) and harks back to the collapsing building in Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928).

The success of Seven Brides (it grossed $6.3 million) took the studio by surprise, as it demonstrated  the popularity of original musicals at a time when the genre was becoming increasingly dependent on remakes and Broadway transfers. But while it established Donen as a major talent, it failed to  turn Keel and Powell into the new Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, as their controlled, sub-operatic styles were already slipping out of fashion as crooners, swingers and rockers began to dominate the airwaves.

Flashing back two years, Donen had demonstrated he had talent to burn as Gene Kelly's co-director on Singin' in the Rain. In 1982, this came second only to Citizen Kane in Sight and Sound's decennial poll of the best films of all time - although sadly, three decades later, it has slumped to No20 and Kane itself has been deposed by Alfred Hitchcock's deeply flawed Vertigo (1958). But Singin' remains the ultimate self-reflexive mythologising genre picture that chronicles the history of the MGM musical and lyricist-producer Arthur Freed's part in its evolution. Consequently, it's anything but original.

Indeed, it's essentially a Stateside variation on An American in Paris (1951), with Hollywood replacing the City of Light, movies supplanting paintings, and the songbook of Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown superseding that of the Gershwins. Moreover, the emphasis was on performance rather than psychology and on representation rather than evocation and, thus, it was seen as studio prose instead of auteur poetry and as musical entertainment not screen art.

Yet its enduring appeal lies precisely in its derivative reconstruction of a bygone age of cinematic  innocence. Most of the incidents relating to the problem of sound recording were based on fact and several of the characters were modelled on Hollywood legends. The songs were similarly lifted from past MGM hits, while dance routines like `Beautiful Girl' borrowed from other studios in paying homage to both Busby Berkeley's kaleidoscopic patterns and the fashion shows mounted in Roberta (1935) and Cover Girl (1944). Even the supposedly original `Make `Em Laugh' unintentionally plagiarising Cole Porter's `Be a Clown' from The Pirate (1948). Many of the props were recycled, too, although much of the primitive sound equipment had to be researched and recreated, as it had become obsolete in the quarter-century since Talkies had terrorised Tinseltown.

However, the coming of sound wasn't the first topic to strike screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Indeed, they had been contemplating a Howard Keel vehicle about a 1930s singing cowboy before Gene Kelly came on board and the concept shifted to a dance picture set in the wake of The Jazz Singer (1927). This backdrop enabled Kelly and Donen to play lots of audiovisual games, in which sound and image were frequently out of sync. The opening montage chronicling Don Lockwood's early career, for example, bears no resemblance to the story he spins for the listening radio audience. But the slyest in-joke lay in the dual deceit of having Jean Hagen (Lina Lamont) actually deliver some of the dialogue that was supposedly being dubbed by Debbie Reynolds (Kathy Selden), whose singing voice was provided by Betty Royce.

Indeed, the 19 year-old starlet had a tough time throughout the shoot, as Kelly rehearsed her hard to atone for the deficiencies in her dance technique. He had no such problems with Donald O'Connor, however, whose knockabout performance on `Make `Em Laugh' ranks as highly as Kelly's own on `Singin' in the Rain', which not only celebrated Don's new love, but also the realisation that the Talkie atrocity, The Duelling Cavalier, could be saved by transforming it into a musical comedy.

This exhilarating routine recalled the old backstager tactic of linking courtship to the success of the show and vaunting the triumph of entertainment over art. Yet it also alluded to the fairytale tradition of having a footloose character find stability in emancipating a timid lover (see page 00). But, most significantly, the number typified the feature's bold exploitation of the confines of the soundstage and the frame, and its use of film iconography, the unique elision of time and space, and the benefits of technical magic to tell its story in a fluent and wholly cinematic manner.

But the dream ballet exposes Kelly's limitations as a director, as his use of light, colour and design during its 12 minutes and 57 seconds is markedly less innovative than Vincente Minnelli's in either The Pirate or An American in Paris. Moreover, it's less narratively taut than the `Slaughter on Tenth Avenue' routine that Kelly had produced for Words and Music (1946). However, it did provide a nostalgic summation of MGM's Broadway Melody series and made a star of Cyd Charisse, as the vamp who dumps Kelly's wannabe hoofer for a diamond-toting mobster.

Singin' in the Rain has lost little of its popularity since returning a gross of $7,665,000 on its $2,540,800 budget. But it proved to be the peak of Kelly's creativity and his career rather tailed off before he left MGM five years later. However, its success piqued Fred Astaire and he sought a similar property and found it in Vincente Minnelli's The Band Wagon (1953). Both films showcase a catalogue of popular standards and feature a song-and-dance man, who not only emerges from a potential career crisis with his reputation enhanced, but who also finds love with his leading lady. But whereas Kelly's confident classic was an optimistic paean to talking pictures, Astaire's underrated homage to the stage was shrouded in a pessimism that implied that the days of old-time show business were numbered.

One reason for this shift in tone was the imposition of draconian economies on the Freed Unit by the new MGM regime. With costs rising, attendances falling and tastes changing, the post-Meyer studio could no longer afford to bankroll musicals studded with spectacular set-pieces - even though Freed was the only consistently profitable producer on the Culver City lot. But the end-of-era malaise was intensified by the fact that Astaire's contract was about to lapse and that this backstage throwback was evidently his valedictory swan song. Indeed, this sense of finality inspired Betty Comden and Adolph Green to lace their screenplay with biographical details and satirical allusions, much as they had done in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), another showbiz comedy with Astairean overtones that examined the clash between art and entertainment.

Thus, Tony Hunter is Astaire à clef, while Lily and Lester Marton (Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant) are based on the scenarists themselves. However, the origins of Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan) are more obscure and he is either an amalgam of Orson Welles, José Ferrer and stage designer Norman Bel Geddes or a parody of a condescending British stage knight or Vincente Minnelli, depending on which anecdote you believe.

Despite its ready sources, the shooting script took some contriving, however, as Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz had written the majority of their 400+ songs for revues. So, while they were supremely sentimental summations of yesteryear, they were less useful in developing character or plot. However, five songs were retained from Astaire's 1931 Broadway original, while eight more were imported from other Schwartz-Dietz shows and given diegetic purposes. `By Myself' and `A Shine on Your Shoes' were used, for example, to establish Tony's mindset as he returns washed-up from Hollywood, while `Dancing in the Dark' suggests his growing affection for ballerina Gabrielle Gerard (Cyd Charisse), after their initial antipathy at rehearsals.

But the majority of the showstoppers were held back for the grand finale, which Minnelli staged with typical ingenuity so that obviously theatrical settings became irresistibly cinematic, thanks to his intuitive use of light, colour, space and design. In `New Sun in the Sky', the moving camera gloriously framed Charisse against a blaze of red and gold swirls, while subtle specks of light were employed to enervate Fabray's rendition of `Louisiana Hayride'. The distortion of perspective that allows Astaire, Buchanan and Fabray to play babies in `Triplets' is equally dexterous, while Astaire and Buchanan's pairing on `I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan' genially evolves into the soft-shoe equivalent of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton's nostalgic masterclass in Limelight (1952).

Yet, Minnelli surpassed himself with the `Girl Hunt' ballet. Devised by Alan Jay Lerner after a Life magazine article on Mickey Spillane and choreographed by Michael Kidd (who had just done Guys and Dolls on Broadway), this pulp reverie recalled Astaire's persona in Yolanda and the Thief (1945) and became his favourite routine. But its noirish atmosphere also chimed in with the  picture's recurring references to Germanic culture (particularly Freud, operetta and Expressionism).

Yet this mix of high- and lowbrow culture is also crucial to the dualism at The Band Wagon's core. By championing tradition and collaboration over modernity and megalomania, it laid itself open to accusations of anti-elitism, as Cordova's latterday Faust is exposed as pretentious tosh, while Hunter's triumph proves that nothing can beat good old-fashioned entertainment.

But even though Comden and Green were intent on gently lampooning Minnelli's stylistic preoccupations and Rodgers and Hammerstein's predilection for social message, the picture's rousing climax epitomises the lyrics of `That's Entertainment' by demonstrating that whether it's old or new, classical or popular, every form of art and performance is valid, providing it pleases the public. Moreover, it also confirms that class never goes out of style and that as Cordova suggests there really is `no difference between the magic rhythms of Bill Shakespeare's immortal verse and the magic rhythms of Bill Robinson's immortal feet'.

However, The Band Wagon's intelligent intimacy and formal, thematic and emotional richness failed either to lure lapsed patrons away from their new television sets or to impress younger cinemagoers eager for widescreen extravaganza. Consequently, it grossed only $5,655,505 on its $2,169,120 budget and convinced Front Offices around Hollywood that the musical's future lay primarily in the transfer of proven hits from Broadway.

Completing this `end of an era' trilogy is George Cukor's A Star Is Born (1954), which has the distinction of being the finest MGM musical the studio never made. Produced by Warners, it's a veritable film à clef, as Frances Gumm had become Judy Garland in much the same manner that Esther Blodgett becomes Vicki Lester. Moreover, Garland would have found its depiction of addiction, unprofessionalism and the stresses placed upon showbiz marriages all-too-familiar. But while this was a courageous and deeply personal study of stellar burnout, it was also a sour riposte to the celebratory nostalgia of Singin' in the Rain.

Judy may well have stomped through puddles to `Lose That Long Face', but Gene Kelly's Golden Age optimism had begun to evaporate and Norman Maine's decline and fall evoked The Band Wagon's melancholic end-of-era aura. Indeed, his death dissipated the spirit of 42nd Street and shattered the backstager truism that the romantic union of the stars guarantees the success of the show. Consequently, Hollywood's vision of itself would never be the same again, with cynical exposés like Pal Joey and The Joker Is Wild (both 1957) becoming the norm.

No wonder Louis B. Mayer had refused Garland's request to reprise the role that she had played for Cecil B. De Mille in a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast in 1942. However, after MGM had discarded her, third husband Sid Luft thought that a remake of William Wellman's 1937 drama would be the ideal follow-up to her comeback triumphs at the Palace Theatre in New York and the Palladium in London. But while the part of Esther/Vicki almost wrote itself, scenarist Moss Hart had to borrow from Cukor's 1932 saga, What Price Hollywood? for Norman Maine, who bore traces of everyone from John Bowers, John McCormick and Marshall Neilan to John Barrymore and Al Jolson. Consequently, despite Garland's entreaties, Cary Grant rejected the role of the monstrous,  drunken has-been, which was also linked with Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Frank Sinatra, Ray Milland and Laurence Olivier before James Mason finally accepted it.

However, Grant may also have been reluctant to play second-string to Garland, who was given the confidence to dominate proceedings by the ever-empathetic Cukor and summoned up a performance that would have been unthinkable during her later years at Metro. She delivered the anthemic `The Man That Got Away' in a single take and demonstrated her gift for mimicry and genius for feel-good in `Somewhere There's a Someone', in which she created an entire production number simply with the props to hand in her sitting-room.

But while Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin played to her strengths with the likes of `Gotta Have Me Go With You', `It's a New World' and `Here's What I'm Here For', it was Leonard Gershe and Roger Edens's arrangement of the 18-minute `Born in a Trunk' that stopped the show, as Garland rattled through a medley of standards that gave a foretaste of the camper, more theatrical style that she would adopt for her legendary cabaret performances.

Yet the role gave also Garland the chance to prove she was a dramatic actress, as well as an all-round entertainer, and plenty of raw emotional power went into the tour de force performance that Time correctly identified as `the greatest one-woman show in modern movie history'. Aware of Garland's off-screen problems, contemporary audiences must have known that they were witnessing the passing of the old Judy. But Cukor also used the state-of-the-art CinemaScope frame to suggest that the movies themselves were at the crossroads.

The opening shots present Hollywood as a glamorous distant dream that becomes a pressurised nightmare when viewed in close-up and Cukor utilised similar matches and contrasts to show Norman and Esther working towards a common goal. But once Vicki becomes famous, this duality hives off into parallel sequences designed to reveal that stars are ordinary people whose heightened sense of ego makes their highs higher and their lows unendurable.

Cukor further demythologised Tinseltown by including shots of television sets in the pivotal scenes in which Norman is fired and then humiliates himself at the Oscarcast, in order to imply that cinema had not only lost its battle with the small screen, but was now increasingly dependent upon it for publicity. This despondent message may well have counted against the picture at the Academy Awards. But Garland's loss to Grace Kelly in The Country Girl - which Groucho Marx dubbed `the biggest robbery since Brinks' - probably owed more to Jack Warner's philistinic decision to cut 27 minutes of her performance, in spite of a successful round of previews and premieres.

Ronald Haver completed a miraculous restoration in 1983 and the film was reclaimed as a masterpiece. But, back in the mid-50s, its meagre $1 million profit after an expensive 10-month shoot and exaggerated rumours of Garland's unreliability ensured that she didn't make another film for six years. With the first raucous riffs of rhythm`n'blues sounding in the near distance, it seemed as though the movie musical was doomed. But Hollywood had one more ace up its sleeve: Charles Walters's High Society (1956).

Transferring from its triumph on Broadway, The Philadelphia Story (1940) had restored Katharine Hepburn to the Hollywood hierarchy and finally quashed the reputation for being `box-office poison' that had dogged her since an article in Picturegoer in 1938. Ironically, the MGM musical was also in the commercial doldrums when it produced this variation on Philip Barry's class satire in a bid to stem the tide of rock`n'roll. But the story of blueblood Tracy Lord's inability to choose between fiancé George Kittredge, ex-husband C.K Dexter-Haven and Spy magazine reporter Mike Connor couldn't work the oracle twice. Teenagers were more interested in Elvis Presley's debut, Love Me Tender, while not even the first teaming of those former bobbysoxer icons, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, could prise their parents away from the television.

Yet producer Sol C. Siegel's went all out to impress with his first outing for MGM since his move from Fox. He induced Cole Porter to compose his first original screen songs in eight years with an advance of $250,000 and offered similar fees to Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra (who nicknamed each other `Nembutal' and `Dexedrine'), with the latter consenting to a supporting role in order to work with his idol. Indeed, he even roused himself from the cocky lethargy that otherwise stifled his performance for their duet on `Well, Did You Evah?' - which had first been performed by Betty Grable in the 1939 stage version of DuBarry Was a Lady - and Crosby proved equally animated on `Now You Has Jazz', on which he was reunited with Louis Armstrong for the first time since Pennies from Heaven (1939).

But Crosby was most eager to renew acquaintance with Grace Kelly, with whom he'd begun an affair in 1952, while his wife Dixie was dying of cancer. The fling had continued during the making of The Country Girl (1954), but any hopes of rekindling the flames were doused by her announcement, a month before shooting began, that she was to marry Prince Rainier of Monaco. Indeed, the picture became something of a grotesque parody of their situation, particularly as Rainier was invited to the set on the day that Crosby and Kelly had to do a little smooching. No wonder he later banned the film from the Principality, claiming it `wasn't quite the thing'.

Under Charles Walters's expert stewardship, the five-week shoot was enjoyably relaxed. But the casual atmosphere encouraged a dramatic slackness that was exacerbated by John Patrick's screenplay, which lacked the wit and bite of the source. Porter's score also missed the causticity of yore. But he produced pleasing ballads for Crosby (`I Love You, Samantha') and Sinatra (`Mind If I Make Love to You') and a catchy catalogue song for Sinatra and Holm (`Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'). But the highlight was `True Love', which he had written for his wife, Linda Lee Thomas, who had died in 1952. Walters had planned to dub Kelly's vocals, but Crosby insisted on a proper duet and it  became Porter's first million-selling recording. It spent 28 weeks on the Billboard chart and 22 on Your Hit Parade. But even though it earned Crosby his 20th gold disc, the rock revolution meant that it failed to reach No1.

While most critics commended Porter's contribution, they were less than enthusiastic about the picture itself, which confirmed MGM's shift away from dance to more song-centric fare. Many shared Hollis Alpert's Saturday Review contention that the cast exhibited a `glum cheeriness' that only confirmed unflattering comparisons with the zestful charm of The Philadelphia Story, which had easily exceeded its $5.8 million gross (on a $1.5 million budget). Yet, High Society has gradually acquired classic status, thanks to repeated TV screenings. But while it certainly has an air of effortless polish, it remains short on real style.

Completing this splendid set are five lesser films, which we shall content ourselves with covering in passing.

Roy Del Ruth's period charmer On Moonlight Bay (1951) was adapted from Booth Tarkington's Penrod stories and saw Doris Day abandoning her tomboy ways after falling for hunk neighbour Gordon MacRae. However, her efforts are scarcely helped by father Leon Ames and housekeeper Mary Wickes. While ably performed, the songs are essentially ornamentation, but this is as agreeable as David Butler's sequel, By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953), in which the newlyweds have to cope with Ames's supposed dalliance with French schoolmistress Maria Palmer before settling their temporary differences at the local ice rink.

Butler also directed Day in April in Paris (1952), in which she plays a Broadway chorus girl who finds herself being invited in error to a chic arts festival in the French capital because of a bureaucratic bungle. Typically, Ray Bolger, the diplomat responsible for the faux pas, falls for Day. But he seems set to lose her, as he is already engaged to Eve Miller, the daughter of his boss Paul Harvey. Fortunately, another clerical error saves the situation, but this is only moderately entertaining and pales beside Charles Vidor's Love Me or Leave Me (1955). James Cagney excels as Martin `The Gimp' Snyder in this biopic of Ruth Etting, which continued Day's graduation from girl-next-door roles. Despite the film's determined bid to scuff the showbiz veneer, Day's interpretation owed little to life. But she handled such Jazz Age standards as `Mean to Me' and `Ten Cents a Dance' as well as Nicholas Brodszky and Sammy Cahn's Oscar-nominated, 'I'll Never Stop Loving You'.

The spin-off album spent 17 weeks at No1 in the American charts and the soundtrack was also the strong point of Mervyn Le Roy's Gypsy (1962). Broadway legend Ethel Merman had a history of seeing stage tours de force overlooked by Hollywood and Rosalind Russell was hired in her stead to give a game, but over-arching display as the 1920s stage mother driving the careers of the young Gypsy Rose Lee and June Havoc. Natalie Wood was even more miscast in the title role. But Robert Tucker's choreography has an cheeky charm and the Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim score contains such durable hits as `Let Me Entertain You', `Small World' and `Everything's Coming Up Roses'.