Seminar: It's Always Fair Weather
Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr leads audiences through his favorite MGM musical, an underrated wide-screen delight.
Long considered a lesser product of Arthur Freed’s legendary musicals unit at MGM, It’s Always Fair Weather (1955) has been reappraised in recent years and now rightly stands as one of the genre’s greatest and most emotionally complex entries.
A satire on such mid-1950s developments as television and the advertising game, It’s Always Fair Weather tells of three ex-GIs, best friends in World War II, who reunite ten years later to find they can’t stand each other. Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey, and choreographer Michael Kidd, making his first screen acting performance, play the vets, and Cyd Charisse is the TV producer who aims to get all three on her the show hosted by her idiot boss (a hilarious Dolores Gray). A rare “cynical musical,” it was received well by critics but failed at the box office, despite astonishing musical numbers that include a Kelly dance solo on roller skates, the three leads tap-dancing with garbage can lids on their feet, and Charisse winning over a boxing gym of pugs to the tune of “Baby, You Knock Me Out.” The world wasn’t ready for It’s Always Fair Weather in 1955, but it’s definitely ready for it now.
About the Speaker
Ty Burr is the Boston Globe’s film critic and cultural columnist. He has been at the paper since 2002. Prior to that, he wrote for Entertainment Weekly and programmed movies for Home Box Office. Burr is the author of Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame (2012), The Best Old Movies for Families (2007), and the e-book The 50 Movie Starter Kit: What You Need to Know if You Want to Know What You’re Talking About (2012). He is a member of the National Society of Film Critics and the Boston Society of Film Critics. In 2017, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. He lives in Newton, MA.
About Coolidge Education Seminars
Want to learn more about some of your favorite classic films? Before select Big Screen Classics events register for the Coolidge Education seminar, which includes a 30 minute lecture before the film from an expert and a reserved seat at the screening of the film.