Film critic and historian Arthur Knight thought-about "Cover Girl" the second best musical ever created once "Singing within the Rain". Frankly, he could have a degree. ("The Bandwagon" is, for my cash, the sole alternative serious contender). Though hardly shown on the same old cable suspects (can't imagine why however the Columbia library looks to me quite seriously underplayed), "Cover Girl" remains vivid in my memory for variety of reasons, cheif among them that it's the primary musical during which Kelly was given some inventive management over his material and it shows. The results, of course, were immesurably higher than his 1st few MGM outings and when he came back from this loan-out, Louis B. Mayer has the nice sense to permit Kelly significantly ton of} inventive leeway than the other actor/performer on the lot had ever had.
"Cover GIrl" co-stars Rita Hayworth at her lovliest and a pre-Bilko Phil Silvers. the beautiful songs are by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin ("Long Ago and much Away" was the hit however "Sure Thing" is my favorite) and it had been directed by Charles Vidor, a director who has never stood out from the gang however who, astonishingly, has 3 excellent credits--all of that still foot-dragging fantastically. (The others beside "CG" are "Gilda" and therefore the glorious James Cagney/Doris Day Ruth Etting biopic "Love Me Or Leave Me". There are several a lot of famous administrators than Vidor who cannot quite match that several top quality well-remembered credits.) Having said that, Vidor failed to handle the musical numbers in "Cover Girl"--which puts him to a small degree bit within the William Wyler "Ben-Hur" bin (Wyler shot everything however the chariot race, the sole actual reason to check the image.) For the musical sequences, Kelly brought on the terribly young Stanley Donen, who would later co-direct with Kelly "On The Town", "Singing within the Rain" and therefore the pretty and mournful "It's invariably truthful Weather". Below is that the astonishing "Alter Ego" number--certainly a primary in terms of marrying computer graphics and dance.
I had the nice fortune to be asked to interview Donen for the administrators Guild's Oral History program and naturally I asked him how the hell this variety was done. He embarked on an explaination--and Donen is nothing if not an articulate and interesting speaker--but, as soon as he did, the cameraman recording the interview started creating nervous gestures to a different techie as if to point that one thing was wrong. I kept glancing over to check if we wanted to halt things as Donen kept describing the sophisticated method of designing and filming this variety. In my concern that we have a tendency to weren't obtaining this on tape, I lost focus and nodded absently, pretending to concentrate, all the whereas glancing over to form certain we have a tendency to were obtaining it. In the end, there was no downside and, once Donen was finished, I lied with gusto and said "Fascinating!" or somesuch. For reasons known solely to them, the administrators Guild keeps the Special comes interview tapes locked during a dark vault, inaccessible to simply regarding everyone. So, despite being the official DGA sanctioned interviewer of Stanley Donen, I still cannot tell you ways they accomplished the below little bit of genius. perhaps it ultimately does not very matter.
