Vincente Minnelli | Panama Hattie | Cabin in the Sky | I Dood It | Meet Me in St. Louis | Ziegfeld Follies | The Clock | Yolanda and the Thief | Undercurrent | Till the Clouds Roll By | The Pirate | Madame Bovary | Father of the Bride | Father's Little Dividend | An American in Paris | Lovely to Look At | The Bad and the Beautiful | Mademoiselle | The Band Wagon | The Long, Long Trailer | Brigadoon | The Cobweb | Kismet | Lust for Life | Tea and Sympathy | Designing Woman | Gigi | The Reluctant Debutante | Some Came Running | Home From the Hill | Bells Are Ringing | The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse | Two Weeks in Another Town | The Courtship of Eddie's Father | Goodbye Charlie | The Sandpiper | On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Classic Film and Television Home Page

Vincente Minnelli

Some common subjects in Minnelli's films:

Art and Artists:

• An attempt to bring high culture to a mass film audience (Hazel Scott jazz sequence: I Dood It, Flaubert: Madame Bovary, ballet: An American in Paris, atonal music: The Cobweb, Van Gogh: Lust for Life)
• A love of France, especially as a place to paint or design (An American in Paris, Lovely to Look At, Lust for Life, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Goodbye Charlie)
• Creative artists as heroes (The Pirate, An American in Paris, Lovely to Look At, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Band Wagon, The Cobweb, Lust for Life, Tea and Sympathy, Designing Woman, The Reluctant Debutante, Some Came Running, Bells Are Ringing, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Two Weeks in Another Town, Goodbye Charlie, The Sandpiper)
• Artists who get commissions from institutions (The Cobweb, The Sandpiper)
• Artists with religious beliefs (Lust for Life, The Sandpiper)
• Sensitive artists with mental breakdowns (The Cobweb, Lust for Life, Two Weeks in Another Town)
• Infighting among intellectuals and creative types (The Band Wagon, The Cobweb, Two Weeks in Another Town)
• Rich art-buyers depicted negatively (An American in Paris, Lust for Life, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse)
• References to Venetian art and architecture (The Cobweb, Some Came Running, Goodbye Charlie)
• Art training classrooms (The Cobweb, The Sandpiper)
• Music rooms (sermon: Lust for Life, discussions: Tea and Sympathy)
• Characters reading comic books (Tamblyn: Father of the Bride, Maxie: Designing Woman)
• Satires on popular fiction (paperbacks: The Bad and the Beautiful, Mickey Spillane: The Band Wagon)
• Naive-looking young men who unexpectedly recite poetry (Meet Me in St. Louis, Mademoiselle, Goodbye Charlie, The Sandpiper)
• Drummers ("The Sping": Panama Hattie, The Reluctant Debutante, The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
• Young men with instruments (ukulele: Meet Me in St. Louis, guitar: Tea and Sympathy, sitar: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Harps (Yolanda and the Thief, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Portable phonographs, with classical records (The Cobweb, Tea and Sympathy, Goodbye Charlie) other records (The Bad and the Beautiful, Two Weeks in Another Town, The Courtship of Eddie's Father) tape recorder (On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Morning radio broadcasts (The Courtship of Eddie's Father, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)

• Problems with group living, and fitting into social crowds - sometimes linked to gender issues (Undercurrent, The Cobweb, Tea and Sympathy, Designing Woman, the party: Bells Are Ringing, fiance: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Characters who are pathetically lacking in social skills (Poor Grace: The Long, Long Trailer, Van Gogh: Lust for Life, Maxie: Designing Woman)
• Characters who undergo personal transformations or makeovers (Undercurrent, "Look for the Silver Lining": Till the Clouds Roll By, The Pirate, The Bad and the Beautiful, Tea and Sympathy, Gigi, A Matter of Time)
• Spendthrift wives (Madame Bovary, Father of the Bride, The Long, Long Trailer)
• Businesswomen who are concerned about costs, unlike wives (secretary: Father of the Bride, Gish: The Cobweb)
• Male workers fighting film costs (Pidgeon: The Bad and the Beautiful, Two Weeks in Another Town)
• Negotiations and fights over issues (wedding list: Father of the Bride, furnishings and baby name: Father's Little Dividend, curtains: The Cobweb)
• Climactic, often frightening searches for a missing person (baby: Father's Little Dividend, actress: The Bad and the Beautiful, wife: The Long, Long Trailer, Harry Beaton: Brigadoon, Kerr: The Cobweb, Hamilton: Two Weeks in Another Town, Eddie: The Courtship of Eddie's Father) related searches (husband missing from church: Cabin in the Sky, "Come Back To Me": On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Men who work among the lower classes (Lust for Life, Home From the Hill, discussed at end: The Sandpiper) character made up on stage as working class ("Look for the Silver Lining": Till the Clouds Roll By) shiftless man who joins the working class (Cabin in the Sky)
• Characters caught between two worlds, entertainment low life vs respectability (Cabin in the Sky, The Pirate, The Reluctant Debutante, Some Came Running)
• Strict, ideological schools (Yolanda and the Thief, Madame Bovary, Tea and Sympathy, The Sandpiper, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) A strict, separated community (Brigadoon)
• Boards of trustees (asylum: The Cobweb, school: The Sandpiper, university: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Comedy scenes with nervous characters (Levant in cafe: An American in Paris, hero at fashion show: Designing Woman)

• Feminist themes, and women in oppressive patriarchal societies (Meet Me in St. Louis, Designing Woman, Gigi, The Sandpiper)
• Feminist conversations about male-female relationships, between a woman and a man (Hyer-Sinatra: Some Came Running, Merrill-Ford: The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Taylor-Burton: The Sandpiper)
• Men who take care of pregnant women - and who achieve success by this (Father's Little Dividend, Home From the Hill)
• Apparently conventional, socially accepted men, who use their positions to help gender outsiders - and who may be gender outsiders themselves (the brother in Meet Me in St. Louis, the Caliph in Kismet, the roommate in Tea and Sympathy, Rex Harrison in The Reluctant Debutante, Rafe in Home From the Hill, the hero of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Bruce in Goodbye Charlie)
• Gentle young men (Meet Me in St. Louis, The Clock, The Cobweb, Kismet, Tea and Sympathy, The Reluctant Debutante, Goodbye Charlie) groups of nice young men in background (movie theater: The Cobweb, streets: Some Came Running)
• Brothers (Meet Me in St. Louis, Undercurrent, Lust for Life, Some Came Running, Home From the Hill) Male cousins (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse)
• Male bonding (Meet Me in St. Louis, An American in Paris, Tea and Sympathy)
• Heroes who mentor younger men (The Bad and the Beautiful, The Cobweb, Home From the Hill, Two Weeks in Another Town)
• Twins, seen briefly (Cabin in the Sky, The Long, Long Trailer)
• Gay, transgendered, and male characters outside gender norms (Clowns, "D'Ye Love Me": Till the Clouds Roll By, Governor: The Pirate, hero: Tea and Sympathy, choreographer: Designing Woman, Charlie: Goodbye Charlie).
• Androgynous figures (Lovely to Look At)
• Cross-dressing characters (Halloween: Meet Me in St. Louis, Kelly in shawl: An American in Paris, Mr. Big: The Band Wagon, school play: Tea and Sympathy) Kilts (Brigadoon)
• Young widows, mourning their husbands (The Cobweb, Lust for Life, Tea and Sympathy)
• Adultery (Cabin in the Sky, Madame Bovary, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Cobweb, Tea and Sympathy, Some Came Running, Home From the Hill, Goodbye Charlie, The Sandpiper, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• False accusations of affairs (Cabin in the Sky, Designing Woman, Home From the Hill)
• The downside of kept men and women (The Pirate, An American in Paris, Gigi, Home From the Hill, The Sandpiper)
• Sedated or unconscious women (I Dood It, The Long, Long Trailer, Goodbye Charlie) a woman who refuses to be sedated during childbirth (Father's Little Dividend)
• Hypnotized women who rebel from hypnotic control (The Pirate, Lovely to Look At, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) Georgia Brown and infernal thought control (Cabin in the Sky)
• Parents who coerce their children (Meet Me in St. Louis, The Pirate, Home From the Hill)
• Hunting scenes, viewed negatively as a macho ritual (Madame Bovary, Brigadoon, Home From the Hill, The Sandpiper)
• Sports, as part of a sinister macho system (Tea and Sympathy, Designing Woman) sports as normal (Meet Me in St. Louis, Father's Little Dividend, The Courtship of Eddie's Father) in between (Father of the Bride)
• Men judged as potential marriage partners, based on their finances (The Pirate, Father of the Bride, Lust for Life, The Reluctant Debutante, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Characters who get married, in the course of the film (The Clock, Undercurrent, Madame Bovary, Father of the Bride, The Long, Long Trailer, Brigadoon, Designing Woman, Some Came Running, Home From the Hill, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) a wedding in the film within the film (The Bad and the Beautiful)

• Brief mystery subplots, contained in non-mystery films - usually mysteries of identity, often about the head of an organization (The Pirate, The Band Wagon, Designing Woman, Bells Are Ringing, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Fantasy, often religion-based (Cabin in the Sky, Yolanda and the Thief, Mademoiselle, Brigadoon, Goodbye Charlie, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Large crowds of extras, each given their own detailed bits of business (Cabin in the Sky, The Clock, Yolanda and the Thief, Father of the Bride, shower: Father's Little Dividend, Hollywood mansion party: The Bad and the Beautiful, trailer party, family visit: The Long, Long Trailer, bar: Brigadoon, The Reluctant Debutante, the party: Bells Are Ringing, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, kids' birthday party: The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
• Characters introduced as extras, who develop into speaking parts (Carleton Carpenter: Father of the Bride, Chuck Connors: Designing Woman, hood in brown suit: Bells Are Ringing)
• Dreams (Cabin in the Sky, Yolanda and the Thief, Father of the Bride)
• Mental imagery (boyfriends: Father of the Bride, Caron's introductory dance, Levant's concert: An American in Paris)
• Plots that develop over long periods of time, and which involve life changes for the characters (Cabin in the Sky, Meet Me in St. Louis, Undercurrent, Madame Bovary, Lust for Life, Gigi, Some Came Running, Home From the Hill, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse)
• Portraits of cities and their inhabitants ("Limehouse Blues" in Ziegfeld Follies, The Clock, Madame Bovary, Raoul Dufy dance in An American in Paris, The Band Wagon, Some Came Running, Bells Are Ringing, "Come Back To Me": On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Narrators (Madame Bovary, Father of the Bride, Father's Little Dividend, An American in Paris, The Bad and the Beautiful, ballet in The Band Wagon, letters: Lust for Life, multiple narrators: Designing Woman, Gigi, opening commercial: Bells Are Ringing)
• Recurring elements, that keep turning up (Carleton Carpenter: Father of the Bride, curtains: The Cobweb)

• Pioneer racial integration in films (early dignified black film: Cabin in the Sky, black servicemen in uniform: The Clock, blacks and whites in common dance numbers: The Pirate, black jazz musicians in Paris: An American in Paris, black artist: The Sandpiper)
• Christian themes and rituals, often at climax of film (Cabin in the Sky, Meet Me in St. Louis, Yolanda and the Thief, Madame Bovary, Father of the Bride, Father's Little Dividend, The Bad and the Beautiful, Brigadoon, Lust for Life, Some Came Running, Home From the Hill, Goodbye Charlie, The Sandpiper)
• Gambling - viewed negatively (Cabin in the Sky, The Bad and the Beautiful, ballet in The Band Wagon, Some Came Running, Bells Are Ringing, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Apocalyptic finales (Cabin in the Sky, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse)
• Satire of Old South melodramas (I Dood It, The Bad and the Beautiful)
• Deep South poverty (Cabin in the Sky, Home From the Hill)
• People who eat when things are going well (printmaker: The Cobweb, Bacall in love: Designing Woman)
• Kicks used by dancers, to defeat bad guys (Astaire, ballet: The Band Wagon, finale: Designing Woman) kicks in saloon fight (Cabin in the Sky)
• Jewel thieves in dance numbers ("This Heart of Mine" in Ziegfeld Follies, Lovely to Look At)
• High tech sound communication (early long distance phone call: Meet Me in St. Louis, radio monitoring: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, radio station: The Courtship of Eddie's Father) switchboards (The Cobweb, Designing Woman, Bells Are Ringing)

• Glowing lights inside the decorations, often moveable objects that resemble Kinetic Art (World's Fair lights: Meet Me in St. Louis, the hypnotic revolving mirrors which flash light in The Pirate, the lighted staircase in An American in Paris, the moving pillars glowing internally with light in Lovely to Look At, arcade solitaire game that lights up cards, another game that lights up regions of a heart: The Band Wagon, the neon lights in Some Came Running, the blue lantern on the carriage side in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, elevator: Goodbye Charlie)
• Blinking red lights ("Sunny": Till the Clouds Roll By, river: The Cobweb)
• Other moving objects (drummer in "The Sping": Panama Hattie, wash, ironing board, chair: Cabin in the Sky, revolving stage in "Star Eyes", set on stage elevator at end: I Dood It, trolley car: Meet Me in St. Louis, moving ramp on staircase, "Who": Till the Clouds Roll By, liftable bed, bureau on closet door, street cart with bread, monkey toy on stick, revolving mirrors at end of ballet: An American in Paris, boom, rope ladder, Murphy bed: The Bad and the Beautiful, arcade mystery box, set on stage elevator, panels in "Two Faced Woman", bones sign in ballet: The Band Wagon, tilting trailer, sliding can boxes: The Long, Long Trailer, curtains, lawn mower, bulletin board, phone booth folding door: The Cobweb, mine elevator, looms: Lust for Life, window seat that opens: Tea and Sympathy, boom, moving platform for lights, sliding doors: Designing Woman, crane: Two Weeks in Another Town)
• Windows between rooms, that open (dining room pass-through window: Meet Me in St. Louis, projection room: The Bad and the Beautiful)
• Long cords or strips of cloth, in musical numbers (rope dance in I Dood It, dream sequence in Yolanda and the Thief, "Sunny": Till the Clouds Roll By, Raoul Dufy dance in An American in Paris, scarves in "Two Faced Woman": The Band Wagon, Jack Cole with white cloth: Designing Woman, "Mu Cha Cha" in Bells Are Ringing)
• Chains of objects worn over body (bells: The Band Wagon, shoes: Designing Woman)
• Fountains (World's fair finale: Meet Me in St. Louis, ballet: An American in Paris, Gigi, Two Weeks in Another Town)
• Showers (The Long, Long Trailer, The Cobweb)
• Climactic suspense sequences in vehicles (The Bad and the Beautiful, The Long, Long Trailer, Two Weeks in Another Town)
• Rides in open carriages (Meet Me in St. Louis, Yolanda and the Thief, Mademoiselle, The Band Wagon, Gigi, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Two Weeks in Another Town, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Open-topped convertibles (An American in Paris, The Long, Long Trailer, Tea and Sympathy)

• Neon signs, often orange (The Band Wagon, motel: The Cobweb, restaurant: Tea and Sympathy, stage door alley: Designing Woman, Some Came Running)
• Smoke, often colored (Halloween smoke: Meet Me in St. Louis, The Pirate, Henri Rousseau dance in An American in Paris, Revolution movie scene: The Bad and the Beautiful, Faust scene, ballet in The Band Wagon, Vanishing town: Brigadoon, River bottom: Home From the Hill, steam pipe room with bookies: Bells Are Ringing, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, beach: The Sandpiper)
• Colored light (ballet (fountain): An American in Paris, jewel thief number: Lovely to Look At, river: The Cobweb, finale: Some Came Running, montage: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, first hypnosis flashback: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) colored lights backstage ("Look for the Silver Lining", "Sunny": Till the Clouds Roll By, Oedipus Rex in The Band Wagon) blinking red lights ("Sunny": Till the Clouds Roll By, river: The Cobweb)

• Garlands of green leaves and vines (Meet Me in St. Louis, The Pirate, Lovely to Look At)
• Flowers (The Clock, Yolanda and the Thief, Father of the Bride, Father's Little Dividend, An American in Paris, Brigadoon, The Cobweb, Two Weeks in Another Town, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Fake Magnolia trees (Cabin in the Sky, I Dood It)
• Artificial staircases (Cabin in the Sky, ballet: The Band Wagon)
• Pavilions on thin pillars (trolley car: Meet Me in St. Louis, "Nina" in The Pirate, Lovely to Look At, coffee stand at river: The Cobweb, poolside tables: Designing Woman, balcony at party house: Bells Are Ringing)
• East Asian screens (The Cobweb, The Reluctant Debutante, Bells Are Ringing, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Goodbye Charlie) lacquer (Two Weeks in Another Town)
• Bathtubs (bubble bath: Cabin in the Sky, Yolanda and the Thief, ballet: The Band Wagon, therapy: The Cobweb, Gigi, Some Came Running)
• Antlers or Antler-like decorations ("This Heart of Mine" in Ziegfeld Follies, artist's ball: An American in Paris, jewel thief number: Lovely to Look At, fair at start: Brigadoon)
• Still lifes of meals (Meet Me in St. Louis, The Clock, Yolanda and the Thief)
• Fruit displays in restaurants or bars (An American in Paris, The Long, Long Trailer, Designing Woman, The Reluctant Debutante)
• Picture frames on walls, used to create compositions (Meet Me in St. Louis, Yolanda and the Thief, Madame Bovary, Designing Woman, Some Came Running, Goodbye Charlie, The Sandpiper)
• Wall shrines of pictures, of a person or subject (I Dood It, Madame Bovary, The Bad and the Beautiful) also pictures by a single artist (workroom: The Cobweb, Van Gogh's paintings at brother's: Lust for Life) wall of photos (athletics: Tea and Sympathy, "The Midas Touch": Bells Are Ringing, radio station: The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
• Three-panel mirrors (wedding dress: Father of the Bride, ballet end: An American in Paris, dress shop in ballet: The Band Wagon)
• Statues (Meet Me in St. Louis, Yolanda and the Thief, "Look for the Silver Lining": Till the Clouds Roll By, Madame Bovary, the end of the ballet in An American in Paris, Lovely to Look At, The Bad and the Beautiful, Mademoiselle, Kismet, Pissarro: Lust for Life, title song: Gigi, end: Some Came Running, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, fountain: Two Weeks in Another Town, The Sandpiper, university building: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Chandeliers (turning off lights: Meet Me in St. Louis, Carnival: Yolanda and the Thief, ball: Madame Bovary, reception preparation: Father of the Bride, dining table set: The Bad and the Beautiful, opening night party: The Band Wagon, asylum hall: The Cobweb, stage show near end: Designing Woman, drum scene: The Reluctant Debutante, country club: Some Came Running, Robinson's suite: Two Weeks in Another Town, New Years: The Courtship of Eddie's Father, flashbacks: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Candelabra ("This Heart of Mine": Ziegfield Follies, Undercurrent, wedding: Father of the Bride, Stairway to Paradise: An American in Paris, party, movie set: The Bad and the Beautiful, The Band Wagon, The Long, Long Trailer, The Cobweb, family home, candles in hat: Lust for Life, Designing Woman, drum scene: The Reluctant Debutante, restaurant: The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Boone's house: Goodbye Charlie, hero's dining room: The Sandpiper, flashback dinner: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Bonfires (Halloween: Meet Me in St. Louis, finale: The Cobweb, ritual: Tea and Sympathy)
• Giant rings (ballet: The Band Wagon, Goodbye Charlie, flashback diamonds: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)

• Gardens often on hillsides, with green and white color schemes, often with a bit of red (Yolanda and the Thief, Mademoiselle, Brigadoon, "Stranger in Paradise" in Kismet, Tea and Sympathy, title song in Gigi, walk from mansion to summer house in Some Came Running, opening: Two Weeks in Another Town, opening: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Romantic picnics in the woods (title song: Cabin in the Sky, Lust for Life, Home From the Hill)
• Sets with stairs in the background (Yolanda and the Thief, The Pirate, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse)
• Rooms with peaked ceilings (interrogation room in finale: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, greenhouse on roof: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) tilted walls (Tootie's bedroom: Meet Me in St. Louis, Levant's room: An American in Paris, tilting trailer: The Long, Long Trailer, Gauguin's room: Lust for Life, John Kerr's room: Tea and Sympathy, radio broadcast room: The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
• Corridors with arched tops (the concentric arched doorways in the finales of Lovely to Look At and The Band Wagon, the tunnel-like corridor in The Reluctant Debutante, Goodbye Charlie) arched alcoves in university hall (On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Long, tall, clear glass panels, near or in doors (Meet Me in St. Louis, Lovely to Look At, The Cobweb, elevator: Two Weeks in Another Town)
• Gas stations (The Bad and the Beautiful, The Long, Long Trailer)
• Water-side scenes (title song: Cabin in the Sky, Yolanda and the Thief, The Pirate, An American in Paris, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Long, Long Trailer, Brigadoon, The Cobweb, Lust for Life, Tea and Sympathy, Gigi, Two Weeks in Another Town, The Sandpiper)
• Waterfalls (The Long, Long Trailer, The Sandpiper) water mill (Lust for Life)
• Bridges in background (Seine bank: An American in Paris, The Cobweb, "Just in Time": Bells Are Ringing, The Sandpiper) aqueduct (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse)
• Rain during crises (The Long, Long Trailer, The Cobweb, Tea and Sympathy)
• Fancy stores (perfume: An American in Paris, auction house: The Band Wagon, jewelry: Some Came Running)
• Arcades (The Band Wagon, The Courtship of Eddie's Father) trailer show (The Long, Long Trailer)
• Movie theaters and screening rooms, with red or orange seats (The Cobweb, Two Weeks in Another Town) bar with orange seats (Brigadoon, California pool: Designing Woman, "The Midas Touch": Bells Are Ringing) car with orange seats (An American in Paris)
• Official looking buildings in background, people standing in front (asylum: The Cobweb, prep school in opening: Tea and Sympathy, Brighton pavilion: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Front yards of neighborhood houses (Cabin in the Sky, Meet Me in St. Louis, relatives' house: The Long, Long Trailer)

• Special effects men create smoke and mist (The Bad and the Beautiful).
• Dyers create color (Brigadoon)
• Women's clothes being altered while they wear them (Designing Woman, Bells Are Ringing)
• Wedding planned (Father of the Bride)

• Robes with diamond, swirling lines and checkerboard patterns (Cabin in the Sky)
• Swirling lines on floor ("Coffee Time" in Yolanda and the Thief, Kismet)
• Checkerboard floors, often in female-run spaces - men often trip and fall (bath: Cabin in the Sky, around Christmas tree: Meet Me in St. Louis, church dream sequence: Father of the Bride, movie set: The Bad and the Beautiful, trailer: The Long, Long Trailer, woman's paint shop: Lust for Life, Bacall's foyer: Designing Woman, country club hall: Some Came Running, hall floor: The Courtship of Eddie's Father) hardwood floor with squares (party, at top of stairs: Bells Are Ringing)
• Diamond lozenge patterns on walls or windows, often in places under male control (Tootie's bedroom: Meet Me in St. Louis, christening: Father's Little Dividend, creepy mansion: The Bad and the Beautiful, curtains in office at start: The Long, Long Trailer, Widmark's office curtains: The Cobweb, church office at start: Lust for Life, screening room: Two Weeks in Another Town) costume with diamonds (Kelly at ball: An American in Paris)
• Bedspreads with diamond-like patterns (in motel: The Cobweb, heroine's couch at answering service: Bells Are Ringing)
• Diamonds inside squares (The Band Wagon)
• Diagonals in squares (Sinatra's uniform patch: Some Came Running)
• Nested rectangles (pillows: Father's Little Dividend, Fabray's skirt in "That's Entertainment": The Band Wagon, pillows: The Long, Long Trailer, pillows on hero's couch: Bells Are Ringing, opening titles: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Trapezoids (Bacall-designed chair: The Cobweb, mirror, obelisk in hall: Designing Woman, fish bowl: The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
• Modified hexagonal wallpaper (Theo's room: Lust for Life, Ellie's room: Tea and Sympathy)
• Octagons (street mirror: An American in Paris, mirror: The Bad and the Beautiful, bow window on building facade: The Cobweb, card table: Designing Woman)
• Circles with spirals (bed: Cabin in the Sky) Concentric circles (stained glass: Meet Me in St. Louis) Circle within semicircle (radio at Ellie's: Tea and Sympathy) Overlapping circles (behind hypnotized student: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) Circles in radio station (The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
• Circular breakfast nooks in kitchens (The Cobweb, The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
• Pie-shaped sections of circles (pillow: Cabin in the Sky)
• Cones (loudspeaker: The Long, Long Trailer, hat in bar: Brigadoon, hypnotist's chair: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) truncated cone (red fez: Meet Me in St. Louis, red lamp in restaurant: The Cobweb)
• Elliptical mirrors in dining room (Meet Me in St. Louis, The Bad and the Beautiful)

• Repeated vertical lines in the compositions.
• Horizontal lines near the base of the compositions - often long shallow steps (fashion show: Designing Woman, University building, Montand's office: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever).
• Camera parallel to rear wall, giving a frieze-like effect ("'S Wonderful": An American in Paris, Some Came Running, early boat scenes: Two Weeks in Another Town)

• Camera movements up and down staircases ("Who": Till the Clouds Roll By, An American in Paris, spiral staircase at end: The Band Wagon, "Stranger in Paradise" in Kismet, The Cobweb, Tea and Sympathy, title song: Gigi, trip to attic: Home From the Hill, Bells Are Ringing)
• Lateral camera movements, following people through crowd-filled streets (Ethel Waters to nightclub: Cabin in the Sky, finale: Some Came Running) Related: (opening shot of car and crowd: Yolanda and the Thief, backstage in "Look for the Silver Lining": Till the Clouds Roll By, people leaving movie theater: The Cobweb, hero at newspaper, heroine leaving boxing match: Designing Woman, "I Met a Girl": Bells Are Ringing)
• Camera movements through forests (finale: Tea and Sympathy, Home From the Hill)
• Through-the-wall camera movement (reception: Father of the Bride, Van Gogh's house in Arles: Lust for Life)

• Characters who appear when obstacles are removed (laundry taken down: Cabin in the Sky, Taylor in kitchen: Father of the Bride, "That's Entertainment": The Band Wagon, trailer door opens on wife, at end: The Long, Long Trailer, kid in kitchen at end: The Cobweb, Van Gogh entrance behind door, seminarians: Lust for Life)
• Character changes on movement behind objects (Dancing behind Christmas tree: Meet Me in St. Louis, change back to child: Mademoiselle)
• Character emerges from behind furniture (choreographer: Designing Woman) lifted blanket (The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
• Opening and closing doors revealing meetings (Symposium at Grahame's home: The Bad and the Beautiful, raising money at Buchanan's: The Band Wagon)
• Women who enter on staircases, showing off clothes (Bennett going to wedding: Father of the Bride, Grahame going to concert: The Cobweb, evening gown on apartment steps at end: Gigi)
• Dance in background, people conversing in foreground ("The Midas Touch": Bells Are Ringing, nightclub: The Sandpiper)
• People standing in triangles, often around someone: ("Good Neighbors", "The Sping": Panama Hattie, rope dance: I Dood It, Connors and thugs menacing hero: Designing Woman) Ring of people preventing contact (hazing: Tea and Sympathy)
• Dancers wheeling around a center point ("Good Neighbors": Panama Hattie, wedding: Brigadoon)
• Dancers crouching low, raising arms (before Ellington number: Cabin in the Sky, entering cafe in ballet: The Band Wagon)
• Dancers raising arms, shaking hands

• Red, especially the shade known at MGM as "Minnelli red".
• Color schemes built around the contrast of blue and red-orange, with occasional green (Rose and Esther at dressing table mirror: Meet Me in St. Louis, "I Love Louisa": The Band Wagon, coffee shop, brick gas station, relatives' clothes: The Long, Long Trailer, bar: Brigadoon, many locales, finale: The Cobweb, Paris, Arles scenes: Lust for Life, heroine's apartment: Gigi, Some Came Running, messy woman in commercial: Bells Are Ringing, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Two Weeks in Another Town, kitchen: The Courtship of Eddie's Father, elevator: Goodbye Charlie)
• Sometimes, gold is a third main color, with red and blue (The Reluctant Debutante, second visit to hero's apartment, "The Midas Touch": Bells Are Ringing)
• Red, blue, yellow as a sign of often wealthy, cheerful lowbrows at festive events with lots of people (Gabor's clothes at Maxim's: Gigi, steam pipe room with bookies, beatnik coffee shop: Bells Are Ringing, opening yacht party: Goodbye Charlie)
• Pink, blue, yellow, in scenes where lovers first meet (California pool: Designing Woman, first visit to hero's apartment: Bells Are Ringing)
• Red and green color schemes, often festive (Christmas scene in Meet Me in St. Louis, "D'Ye Love Me": Till the Clouds Roll By, jewel thief number: Lovely to Look At, wedding, trailer parks, song: The Long, Long Trailer, opening credit sequence: The Cobweb, "Stranger in Paradise" in Kismet, ravioli restaurant: Designing Woman, Study: Home From the Hill, "Just in Time" and "The Party's Over": Bells Are Ringing, psychiatrist's office at start: Two Weeks in Another Town, radio broadcast room, Ford's office: The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Pat Boone's TV room: Goodbye Charlie, forest, judge's chamber, hero's library, nightclub: The Sandpiper, casino in flashback: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) Red & green mentioned in dialogue (opening: The Cobweb)
• Red-green and gold ("Sunny": Till the Clouds Roll By) pink-green and gold (California hotel corridor and lobby: Designing Woman)
• Women in green clothes in pink rooms (backstage, "Look for the Silver Lining": Till the Clouds Roll By, Bacall's office: Designing Woman) green clothes and yellow flowers (backstage, "Look for the Silver Lining": Till the Clouds Roll By, Tea and Sympathy)
• Green and purple color schemes (Rose and Mother's dresses: Meet Me in St. Louis, Lovely to Look At, opening shot: The Long, Long Trailer, ballet in The Band Wagon, "There'll Be Some Changes Made": Designing Woman, standing and sitting lesson: Gigi, Eddie at wedding: The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
• Mauve and white interiors (dressing room in "Look for the Silver Lining", staircase in "Who": Till the Clouds Roll By, Caron in early fantasy sequence: An American in Paris, Grahame's bedroom: The Cobweb, backstage finale: Designing Woman, rich woman's apartment: The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
• Red and purple rooms (son's bedroom: The Cobweb, Lori's apartment: Designing Woman)
• Blue-gray color harmonies (men's clothes, "'S Wonderful": An American in Paris, Widmark's, Grahame's clothes, at end of: The Cobweb, Sinatra's uniform, walls: Some Came Running, producer's clothes and couch: Two Weeks in Another Town) blue suit not in harmony (John Kerr: Tea and Sympathy)
• Brown clothes harmonized with wooden walls (Garland: The Pirate, Gish's suit and office: The Cobweb, Lori's fur in Wilde's office: Designing Woman, Montand's sweater: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Asymmetric color schemes (Widmark's bedroom, purple-yellow left, red right: The Cobweb, hotel lobby, green left, red right: Designing Woman)
• Brightly colored taxis (green-yellow: An American in Paris, yellow-red: The Band Wagon, green-yellow: Designing Woman, green-yellow: Bells Are Ringing)
• Yellow houses, with a touch of green (relatives' yellow house, green foliage: The Long, Long Trailer, yellow house, green shutters: Lust for Life)
• Green food and drink (pea soup, liqueur: Mademoiselle, salad: The Long, Long Trailer, absinthe: Lust for Life) green grapes ("By Strauss": An American in Paris, ravioli restaurant: Designing Woman)

• Men who dress alike (Meet Me in St. Louis, Ziegfeld Follies, "Who": Till the Clouds Roll By, Father of the Bride, An American in Paris, Lovely to Look At, The Band Wagon)
• White tie and tails (Cabin in the Sky, I Dood It, Ziegfeld Follies, backstage, "Who": Till the Clouds Roll By, Madame Bovary, An American in Paris, Lovely to Look At, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Band Wagon, Designing Woman, Gigi, The Reluctant Debutante, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) White version of white tie and tails ("Sunny": Till the Clouds Roll By) Gold version of white tie and tails ("The Midas Touch": Bells Are Ringing)
• Fancy uniforms (Cabin in the Sky, I Dood It, The Clock, Yolanda and the Thief, The Pirate, Madame Bovary, An American in Paris, The Bad and the Beautiful, Mademoiselle, Brigadoon, Lust for Life, The Reluctant Debutante, Some Came Running, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Police uniforms (Father's Little Dividend, The Long, Long Trailer)
• Chorus boys dressed as members of a profession (reporters in Ziegfeld Follies, racetrack workers in Yolanda and the Thief, hoods in The Band Wagon)
• Bright yellow clothes for women ("Who": Till the Clouds Roll By, Caron's dress and ballet slippers: An American in Paris, shawl: Brigadoon, swimsuit: Designing Woman, Taylor: The Sandpiper) men (Charlie, band: Brigadoon, rain slickers: The Cobweb, Jack Nicholson: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Peach colored evening gowns (Yolanda and the Thief, Some Came Running, Home From the Hill)
• Bright red dresses for women (Meet Me in St. Louis, ballet in The Band Wagon, Brigadoon, The Cobweb, Designing Woman, Bells Are Ringing, trial: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Red-and-white clothes for women (Lucille Bremer on phone: Meet Me in St. Louis, Charisse, "Heather on the Hill": Brigadoon, women in trailer party: The Long, Long Trailer, Fay Wray at concert: The Cobweb, Dollye's drum scene: The Courtship of Eddie's Father) for a man (hotel: Designing Woman)
• Doormen in scarlet riding clothes (Lovely to Look At, Designing Woman)
• Two troupes of dancers, in different colored clothes ("This Heart of Mine": Ziegfield Follies, "Two Faced Woman": The Band Wagon)
• Face and body paint (Halloween: Meet Me in St. Louis, green paint in Yolanda and the Thief, elephants in "Sunny", Clowns in "D'Ye Love Me": Till the Clouds Roll By, silver paint and armor in Lovely to Look At, painted-on cat whiskers in "The Midas Touch": Bells Are Ringing, wristwatch drawn in ink: The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
• Intellectual men wearing sweaters with suits (Mitchell: The Band Wagon, Widmark: The Cobweb, Montand: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Gray suits in modern-day color films (Yolanda and the Thief, An American in Paris, The Band Wagon, The Long, Long Trailer, The Cobweb, Designing Woman, Some Came Running, Bells Are Ringing, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Two Weeks in Another Town, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Goodbye Charlie, The Sandpiper, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Mob enforcers in brown suits (Chuck Connors in alley: Designing Woman, Bells Are Ringing) other brown suits, usually downbeat or sinister (patroness proposes studio: An American in Paris, both train sequences: The Band Wagon, Levant delivering bad news: The Cobweb, nasty coach in brown sports coat: Tea and Sympathy, hero's bad proposition: Gigi)
• Cowboy clothes (rope dance: I Dood It, Levant at artists' ball: An American in Paris, B Western: The Bad and the Beautiful, kids on lawn: The Long, Long Trailer)
• Black-and-white costumes in color films, usually worn by people involved with the arts (nuns: Meet Me in St. Louis, "La Traviata" in Ziegfeld Follies, Caron as reading ballerina, artist's ball in An American in Paris, tuxedo: Mademoiselle, concert, John Kerr: The Cobweb, Van Gogh: Lust for Life, John Kerr at finale: Tea and Sympathy, hero at masquerade party, evening gown at end: Gigi, the theater party: Bells Are Ringing, Douglas' robe, Lavi dresses: Two Weeks in Another Town, tuxedos: The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Curtis, Boone: Goodbye Charlie, heroine: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Black-and-white uniforms of working class men (trailer teacher, policeman, milkman, gas attendants: The Long, Long Trailer, milkman: The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
• Black leather jackets (Tamblyn: Father of the Bride, Father's Little Dividend, gas station: The Long, Long Trailer, woman bookie: Bells Are Ringing, assistant director: Two Weeks in Another Town) chaps ("So Long Sarah Jane": I Dood It)
• Silver dressing gowns (I Dood It, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) metallic clothes (Ethel Waters' dress and headdress: Cabin in the Sky, gold hats, gold tailcoat in "The Midas Touch": Bells Are Ringing, New Year's hat, rich woman's skirt: The Courtship of Eddie's Father, gold dinner party gowns: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Diamonds and sparklers (Esther's Christmas hat: Meet Me in St. Louis, Streisand at dinner party: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)
• Scenes with visual overload, showing vast numbers of costumed characters (restaurant scene in The Clock, Carnival: Yolanda and the Thief, artist's ball: An American in Paris)

Minnelli was a great admirer of the film director Max Ophuls. He called Ophuls his "spiritual leader" as a filmmaker.

Minneli themes

A basic theme in Minnelli's work is the destructive effect codes of machismo and male supremacy have on other people. The father in Meet Me in St. Louis insists on moving his family to New York for business reasons, thus breaking up all their friendships and romances. In Gigi, the boyfriend insists on Gigi assuming her inherited role as a courtesan, something designed to exploit women, and nearly destroys her integrity as a human being. In Home From the Hill, the macho code of the father nearly destroys the two sons he forces to try to live up to it. And The Sandpiper is a full look at feminism, and the need for drastic improvements in the way women are treated by society.

Linked with these destructive gender role codes is the role of parents. They are always trying to coerce their children in Minnelli films. This is usually seen as a purely negative experience.

Another related theme: the negative impact of "kept" people. In addition to Gigi, where this is the central theme of the story, there is the heroine sold into marriage to benefit her greedy uncle and aunt in The Pirate, the mistreated mistress and child in Home From the Hill, and the painter's destructive relationship with his patron in An American in Paris.

A visual style influence from The Wizard of Oz

A scene that anticipates some of Minnelli's imagery is the first visit to the chamber of the Great Oz in The Wizard of Oz (1939):

• This is part of the Emerald City section of the film, which is entirely designed in bright green, anticipating Minnelli's lavish use of color.
• An arched hallway leading to the main chamber, like the concentric arched doorways in the finales of Lovely to Look At and The Band Wagon; and the tunnel-like corridor in The Reluctant Debutante.
• Glowing lights inside many of the futuristic decorations in the chamber, anticipating Minnelli's use of internal lights in An American in Paris and Lovely to Look At.
• Repeated vertical lines in the organ-pipe-like decor behind the Wizard, and in much subsidiary decor.
• Red flames and colored smoke billowing up in front of the Great Oz, as in The Pirate, An American in Paris and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
• Elsewhere, the field of poppies anticipates the fields of heather in Brigadoon, and the flowers in Munchkinland the garden in Kismet.
• The Yellow Brick Road anticipates the yellow roads in the dream in Yolanda and the Thief.

Panama Hattie

Panama Hattie has got to be one of the most low brow musicals ever to come out of Hollywood. It has relentless dumb dialogue, a song celebrating getting drunk, "(Did I Get Stinkin') at the Savoy", and mugging by Red Skelton that makes the Three Stooges look like Olivier. Minnelli's dance numbers are the only part of the film with any interest. Several of the musical numbers involve the singers just standing there and singing - it is hard to see any Minnelli contribution to them. A few numbers involve full scale dancing, and are more interesting. The numbers are also important, because they form a historic record of such talented black performers as Lena Horne and the Berry Brothers.

Hattie from Panama. This opening number has the singers in blindingly white tropical suits and dresses, with black accents. Such starkly white and black clothes are hardly uncommon in black-and-white musicals. Still, they anticipate the "white and black clothes" that will later run through Minnelli's color films. The men in the chorus line resemble some of the male chorus boys to come in Minnelli, all dressed alike.

Berry Me Not. The Berry Brothers' first number continues the white-and-black clothes. The Brothers do a virtuosic dance with canes. The whole sequence is shot with just two complex camera movements. The first movement closes in on one of the brothers, moves down to a close shot of his legs, and then pulls back to a long shot of the dancers again. A remarkable shot, especially for the way it seems to move down to the legs and back out in some unified complex pattern. The Brothers wind up with an athletic leap that anticipates Gene Kelly and The Pirate.

Good Neighbors. Relatively more ordinary dancing, but genial. The three sailors trying to pick up women suggest The Clock, and the dancing servicemen in the ballet in An American in Paris. The floor they dance on is tiled in a complex pattern, anticipating the complex floors that will later show up in Minnelli. Minnelli moves up with the crane, to get an elevated angle, showing dancers and floor, for the climax of the dance. The dancers form two concentric equilateral triangles: three men in the middle and revolving, three women outside.

The Sping. Dynamic song-and-dance number, with Lena Horne and the Berry Brothers, that anticipates the Caribbean feel of The Pirate. A drummer is on a moveable platform, that travels back and forth across the dance floor. This anticipates the Kinetic Art that will run through later Minnelli. When the three Barry Brothers enter, they too sometimes form triangles during the dance. Some of the triangles are equilateral; others are more irregular. Other times, they are in a row. The dance can get as geometric as the finale of "Good Neighbors". This is the film's most intricately patterned dance.

Cabin in the Sky

Minnelli's other early films, Panama Hattie and I Dood It, are mainly notable for interpolated sequences starring black performers. These sequences are islands of quality, in otherwise forgettable movies. By contrast, Cabin in the Sky succeeds throughout.

Cabin in the Sky is also Minnelli's first film of religion-based fantasy. This is a genre to which Minnelli would return throughout his career. Many of Minnelli's realistic, non-fantasy films, will also include the Christian imagery prevalent in Cabin in the Sky.

Subjects: Links to Home From the Hill

The hero of Cabin in the Sky rises from laziness, to become a steady worker. He performs manual labor at a warehouse. Theron in Home From the Hill gives up a life of luxury, to perform manual labor at a similar warehouse. The two characters start out in radically different classes - but both build new lives that are surprisingly similar.

Both films deal with adultery, and the pain it causes.

The wife in Cabin in the Sky falsely accuses her husband, when she catches him in a misleading compromising position. Such a false accusation by a wife will return in Designing Woman. A false accusation by a father, will lead to the protagonist's death in Home From the Hill.

Style: Links to The Band Wagon ballet

The fight has Domino attacking the hero with his legs. This is a bit like the use of dancers' kicks as weapons used by Astaire in The Band Wagon ballet.

The artificial looking staircase ascending to Heaven at the end of Cabin in the Sky, anticipates the stylized red fire escape in The Band Wagon ballet.

A trumpeter plays a role in both films.

Geometry

The devils wear robes full of geometric patterns, during the "idea" sequence. We see diamonds, checkerboards and wavy lines: all patterns that run through Minnelli as a whole.

The hammock contains a pillow: a circle divided into many different pie-shaped sections.

The delected bathtub scene, has a checkerboard floor in the background. As is often the case in Minnelli, this is a female space (Lena Horne is taking a bath).

Kinetic Art

• The ironing board, which the heroine folds up.
• The wheel chair, in which Joe recovers.
• The wash, which the heroine takes down off the line. The wash anticipates the curtains in The Cobweb. Both are a kind of movable architecture.

Camera Movement and Crowds

The heroine's movement through a crowd of people towards the saloon, while the camera moves with her, is a key kind of staging that recur in later Minnelli. This is one of the best shots in the movie. It anticipates the great finale of Some Came Running, and its numerous camera movements. And like that finale, it ends with a character tragically getting shot.

This scene, which has the wife looking for her husband after he disappears from church, anticipates the more elaborate hunts for missing persons in later Minnelli.

Infernal Thoughts

It also anticipates the numerous Minnelli women who get under male hypnotic control. Such women usually rebel - and at the finale Georgia Brown also shakes off the devil and his ways.

Costumes

The hero also gets into a favorite Minnelli costume for men: white tie and tails.

Ethel Waters' gown and headdress, during the late saloon sequence, is an early example of metallic clothes in Minnelli.

The artificial Magnolia tree, from which Georgia gets her flower, will return in the stage set in I Dood It.

Race

Against all this must be set the largely positive racial portrayals of most of the film. It was a major step up in 1943 Hollywood, to have a film featuring blacks in richly developed lead roles.

I'm not sure what to conclude about all of this. Cabin in the Sky is clearly designed to be a pro-black film. Are the film's sometimes stereotyped characters simply a minor flaw? Or are they a serious problem, enough to condemn the film?

I lean towards an approach that tries to recognize this film's many positive accomplishments - but which does not try to obscure its failings.

Race and Religion

• Boyd repeatedly tries to link Waters' character to Hollywood's stereotyped Mammies, such as Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind. I don't get this. Waters does not play a Mammy, or any sort of servant to white people. She takes care of her own family, instead. Waters' character seems just fine to me.
• Boyd also disapproves of the pro-religious element in Cabin in the Sky, claiming that it is designed to make the black characters non-threatening to white racists. Once again, I do not agree. Actually, I suspect that the heroine's religious values made her appealing to 1943 blacks, and non-racist whites, as well. In general, this sort of argument is a trap. Any positive virtue in a minority character (such as Waters' faith) can be dismissed as attempting to "make them less threatening to white racists". It leads one to dismiss all the positive or role model minority characters in film. This whole approach is a fallacy.
• Boyd argues that the film's devotion to religion over immediate gratification through adultery or gambling is just a "code" for postponing Civil Rights. This seems to be far-fetched and really stretching it. Old-time Hollywood was full of hard core racists. They didn't need "secret codes" to attack black people. They just made outright-racist films with Stepin Fetchit or radio shows like Amos and Andy.

I Dood It

Unfortunately, there is only a little of Minnelli's trademark style in I Dood It. The crane shot showing row after row of the orchestra at the end of the early number "One O'Clock Stomp" is good. And the rope dance to "So Long Sarah Jane" is skillful.

Sedation

There is perhaps a serious side to all of this. The heroine (Elizabeth Taylor) of Father's Little Dividend will adamantly refuse sedation during childbirth. She wants to be aware and understand everything. And several Minnelli films have heroines rebelling against hypnotic control.

Social Climbing: The Long Middle Section of the Film

All in all, the nasty nature of the story goes a long way towards explaining why I Dood It is such an unlikable movie experience.

The social climbing forms the long central section of I Dood It. It is the weakest part of the picture. Before and after it, there is better material:

• Before it, the opening "One O'Clock Stomp" and rope dance to "So Long Sarah Jane" are interesting.
• After it, we get the Hazel Scott section, and the finale involving spies: both of which are also creditable.

The Rope Dance

At one point, Powell is surrounded by three cowboys with lariats, who stand in a triangle. This recalls the triangles in the dances in Panama Hattie.

The finale has six dancers in a circle, with Powell rotating around them outside. Such concentric circles recall the finale of "Good Neighbors" in Panama Hattie.

The start has singer Bob Eberly performing the song, in cowboy gear. Eberly was at one time a well known singer in real life. His brief song here and at the start of the "Star Eyes" number are one of his few appearances on film. Eberly wears one of the most elaborate sets of chaps on film. They are of black leather, and both stick out on the sides in front, and wind around his legs in back. Minnelli gives us views of both during Eberly's entrance.

Hazel Scott

The section is basically a straightforward performance piece. It lacks either dancing, or the heavy stylization that would allow Minnelli to create extremes of visual style. So one should not oversell it.

Minnelli treats the members of the troupe as individuals. Each one comes across as their own personality. In this, the section recalls crowd and party scenes in Minnelli, with each extra getting their own characterization. Hazel Scott, too, comes across as a vivid personality, just through her performance on the piano.

The Spy Finale

Minnelli gets his hero into a uniform: here a Union Cavalry officer. Several shots emphasize his tall boots.

Props and Sets

• The revolving stage in "Star Eyes" shows Minnelli's fondness for Kinetic Art.
• So does the cabin set which is elevated during the spy finale.
• The wall of photos Skelton keeps of Powell, reminds one of Emma Bovary's shrine of illustrations on her wall in Madame Bovary.

Meet Me in St. Louis

Color

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) is one of Minnelli's most beautiful films. It is widely viewed as one of the most beautiful color films ever made.

Some images draw on color harmonies, among many objects on screen.

Red and White. Towards the end of her phone conversation, there is a medium close-up of Rose (Lucille Bremer), showing her in the corner against the wall paper. The red leaves that run through the wall paper, the wine in the decanter, the frame of the picture, and the lace in Rose's blouse and her belt, are all in similar colors of dark scarlet red. The effect is quite strong and over powering. The red areas make beautiful geometric patterns, against the off-white of the rest of the wall paper, and the white of Rose's blouse.

Red. When Esther (Judy Garland) and John (Tom Drake) put out the lights, the camera is at a high angle, showing the chandeliers, looking down at the rooms. The red pattern on the living room rug becomes conspicuous here. It recalls the red wall paper in the dining room. Similarly, during "Under the Bamboo Tree", the film shows us the red wall paper in the dining room again, forming a contrast to the living room framing it on either side.

Minnelli's fondness for "small bright red objects" is also found in Meet Me in St. Louis, a fondness he shares with the Japanese director Ozu. The ketchup in the kitchen, and the bright red fez hat worn by Grandpa, are examples.

White and Green. The early scenes of Esther singing first "The Boy Next Door", then "Meet Me in St. Louis", show harmonies based in white and green. The green is provided by vegetation. The most amazing shot is the close-up of Esther and Rose singing "Meet Me in St. Louis". They are framed against green curtains on the window; green ivy twirls around the bust on the piano, and a green plant is hanging in the pot on the window. The three shades of green are all different, yet all three work together in a color harmony. The different geometric patterns of the green objects, especially the looped, arching green curtains, also contribute a fascinating geometric design. The close postures of the two sisters, with Esther's hands on Rose's shoulder, is echoed by the twin bust on the piano. This is one of the most exquisite shots in the picture.

The women's costumes in the World's Fair finale are white, with touches of green.

Black and white clothes. Two nuns in the finale are in black and white, a combination that will later be prominent in Minnelli. The nuns form a brief burst of Christian imagery in the finale: something that will recur with greater emphasis in later Minnelli films.

Red and Green. Another color harmony shows the father outdoors, coming home from work. The shot is framed by green vegetation, that also contains pinkish-red flowers. The combination of the green and red is beautiful. Both red and green are motifs throughout much of the picture, especially prominent in the settings. By contrast, the women in the film often wear shades of blue, purple and lavender, while the men are often in gray suits.

The Christmas scenes show Esther in a red dress, and Rose in green. This is the first bright red dress for a Minnelli heroine.

Green and Purple. A shot of Rose and her mother, finds them in green and purple dresses. The green-and-purple color scheme will run through Minnelli. This is just a single shot, in a scene whose other shots show other colors. Later in Minnelli, most color schemes engulf an entire scene or scene section.

Blue and Orange. A shot of Esther and Rose and their dressing mirror, before the party, is an another favorite Minnelli scheme: blue-and-orange.

Red and Blue. When Esther dances briefly to "Meet Me in St. Louis", she is wearing a blue and red cape. Charles Walters' choreography seems designed in part to show off the red and blue, with as much variety of rhythm and display as possible. Alternating bright red and blue are well-known to create "Op Art" type effects, creating a pulsating contrast.

Composition

Many shots in Meet Me in St. Louis draw on the tall windows in the house for their composition. These windows are huge, with tall and fairly wide panels. They tend to repeat: there will be several such windows side by side, making repeating, regular patterns. Three such shots in the film are especially well done:

• Esther singing "The Boy Next Door" while the camera looks out through the windows towards the house next door;
• the father entering through the double, window-like doors while Rose and Esther sing "Meet Me in St. Louis";
• the telephone conversation, with Rose standing in the foreground, the family around the dinner table behind her, and the tall windows of the dining room at the back and top of the shot.

Geometry

Other circular forms run through the picture, especially men's hats. Also plates and soup bowls, the ketchup kettle, the cake, the white chair, and the opening barrels on the beer truck. There are also quarter circles on the front door.

Grandpa's fez is a truncated cone. Full cones will run through Minnelli.

The mirror in the dining room is roughly elliptical.

There is a checkerboard floor, around the Christmas tree where Esther dances. Such floors often have import in Minnelli: this one is linked to the near magical reappearance of John.

There are modified diamond patterns, on the windows in Tootie's bedroom. Such diamonds in Minnelli are often in places under male control. But these windows first frame Tootie and Esther, then the father - they are linked to both genders.

Kinetic Art

The World's Fair finale has a fountain, a recurring image in Minnelli.

The lights of the Fair go on. While the Fair does not move, its lights recall the Kinetic Art objects in Minnelli that are full of flashing light.

The pass-through window into the dining room is opened by the cook, to listen to Rose's phone call.

The long pole used to turn off gas lights, is also a border-line piece of Kinetic Art.

Costumes

Some of the kids at Halloween are wearing face paint: something that recurs in Minnelli.

Long Takes

A second long take occurs during the preparations for singing "Under the Bamboo Tree", and continues during the recitative that precedes the main melody. This too has intricate staging. Brother Lon is in the early part of the shot, then exits, stage left. Later, when the camera has moved back to the left, he is discovered sitting near the entrance to the dining hall.

A Sexist Society

Minnelli has long explored sexist social institutions in his work. His films show a consistent feminist perspective. Meet Me in St. Louis is one his most detailed looks at a sexist society, and the coping mechanisms used by women, and some men, in dealing with its severe limitations.

Meet Me in St. Louis takes place in the United States in 1903-1904. It deals with a society even more sexist than that of 1944 America. In many ways, it shows "traditional" restrictions on women in a "pure" or concentrated state. In this society, only men have jobs and college education. They are in complete financial control of everyone else: women, children, and old people, all of whom are dependent on them for survival. The men make big decisions, such as what city people will live in, and how, and small decisions too, such as when dinner will be served. It is like living in a slave state. Women's only means of support is through finding and marrying a man, and having him support her. This means that young women's major job is to try to attract a man, and have him marry her - the activity performed by the two marriage age sisters who are the leads in the film, Rose and Esther, throughout the movie. Women cannot even go anywhere except through male driven vehicles, such as the trolley and Mr. Neely's ice truck. And men control the telephone, and ration out access to conversations and communication through it.

The society shown in Meet Me in St. Louis shows in exaggerated form, gender roles that were still in force in 1944. They are more severe in the film than in the real world of 1944, but they were still powerful. By 1944, many women had access to phones, and transportation was more widespread. Also, many women were successfully performing "male" jobs, while many US men were away fighting World War II - this was the age of Rosie the Riveter.

Male Bonding and Romance

One of Rose and Esther's strongest allies in their struggle to cope with this society is their brother Lon. He has a foot in both camps. He has the entree into the male world that comes from being a man, yet he also has a strong loyalty to his sisters, and he does everything he can to help them throughout the film. This dual identity on his part is one of the sisters' strongest weapons. He is their "ace in the hole", to use card game terminology. He is both male, and a man who has an identity and place in the world of his family's women.

Esther is in love from afar with "the boy next door", John Truitt. Her passion for him is both romantic and physical, the film establishes, with overwhelming yearning. A sexist society gives her few means to reach out to him. But Lon has a way. Lon and John Truitt immediately male bond, establishing a powerful relationship that works at many levels. The film idealizes this relationship. It is seen as wonderful and powerful. The two men have a similar social role, being nice young men who are on their way to college. This common role helps them bond. The two also look and dress almost entirely alike. At the party, for instance, both wear dark colored, double breasted sport coats, white trousers, and bow ties. The only difference in their spiffy clothes, otherwise almost identical in detail, is that John's coat is dark blue, while Lon's is black. (John's blue is a color often worn by women in the film, while men are often in gray.) The two men even have similar hair styles, with their hair being slightly wavy in front. This ability to wear common clothes is also a liberating male bonding tool of the two men. One suspects that Minnelli regards the relationship between these two men as a personal ideal.

The two actors who play John and Lon also look alike. Both also look much like John Kerr, who starred in Minnelli's much later film, Tea and Sympathy (1956). All three have a gentle look. They look like friendly, non-threatening men. The character played by John Kerr in Tea and Sympathy is a young man who fits naturally into the world of women, but who is rejected by the macho male types around him. This is partly similar to Lon in the current movie. Like Kerr's character, Lon has a happy existence in the world of women, and is their ally in their struggles. But Lon and John are happier than Kerr, in that they also apparently have full acceptance in the world of men. Minnelli never actually shows this acceptance on screen - both are only seen among mixed social gatherings, or among the women at Esther's home.

John recites song lyrics on the staircase, with Esther. He is one of the naive-looking young men who unexpectedly recite poetry in Minnelli.

The actor who plays Rose's boyfriend Warren Sheffield is much more macho acting and looking than Lon and John. While Minnelli is largely sympathetic to him, Warren is also not quite as nice to Rose as Lon and John are to Esther. He dates other women, and does not say much of anything significant to Rose during their telephone conversation, much to her disappointment. His presence does make it clear that Lon and John's type is not universal among men in the society.

The bonding between John and Lon allows Esther to meet John, for the first time. It is only by throwing a party, allegedly in John's honor, that Esther can invite John to her home. This party is in honor of Lon's going to Princeton - the subject of his male bonding with John. Then at the party, it is Lon who introduces John to Esther. During this introduction, it is plain that society approves of the instant relationship between John and Lon. But Esther's ability to even talk to John comes from her brother's formal introduction.

Lon has the relationship with John that Esther wants. Lon does everything he can to help her. The film shows the two relationships as equivalent and parallel.

At first Esther tries to use traditionally "feminine" wiles, to try to get John to notice her. These are only partially successful. Somewhat startlingly, it is only later in the film that Esther breaks through to John. This occurs when she forgets her traditional feminine role, and starts behaving in a traditionally "male" fashion. Esther is defending her little sister Tootie, and in her fierce emotion she starts acting and fighting like a man. It is here that John finally notices her romantically. John even compares what Esther does to his experiences in football practice. This is a strong physical interaction John has with other men. It is clearly the key towards his recognizing Esther as a physical romantic partner. Once again, the film has John's relationships on two parallel, equivalent tracks: one with other men, one with Esther. Both are clearly gratifying to John.

When John calls Esther back to help with the lights, his comic dialogue oddly resembles that in Father's Little Dividend, where the husband reminds his wife about her medication. Both scenes involve men finally getting insight in how to appeal to women, and seizing their advantage with gusto. Both scenes are funny, and also passionate. Both men become knowing, after long being clueless.

There are other scenes of cross gender behavior in the film. During Halloween, the little kids in the film cross-dress: Tootie dresses like a boy, and the boys dress like girls. I do not remember anything like this from my childhood Halloweens. Everyone was instead in some costume. It is a very unusual scene.

Intensity

Many critics have noted an undercurrent of anxiety in Meet Me in St. Louis, and sometimes this is ascribed to the talent involved. This is partially true. Judy Garland is noted for her intensity, and even hysteria, as a performer. And Minnelli similarly always has an intense edge, with complex feelings towards his material. But this intensity has an objective correlative in Meet Me in St. Louis: the sexism of the society the film depicts. This society would be enough to cause anyone intense anxiety in their attempts to cope with it.

Another critical cliché about Meet Me in St. Louis says that it depicts an idealized America. In some ways this is certainly true: the peaceful life shown in the film must have seemed intensely nostalgic to war time audiences. But in other ways, the society in Meet Me in St. Louis is not ideal at all. Interpreting it in this way ignores the enormous difficulties faced by women in this world.

Sexism can seem invisible to many viewers, even though it is one of the primary subjects of a work of art. Take the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, the greatest of all Greek dramas. Society's discrimination against women is one of the two principal subjects of Agamemnon, the other being the destructiveness of war. But while Aeschylus is relentless about exploring the problems caused by women's second class status in society, this whole aspect of the play often seems invisible to many critics. It is as if it doesn't exist, and just can't been seen by them. One reason that I have gone on in such detail about gender discrimination and roles in Meet Me in St. Louis is that I wanted to make them more "visible" to viewers. These comments might seem "obvious" to anyone who watches the film. But it is clear that many people are ignoring or not seeing this aspect of the movie.

Ziegfeld Follies

Ziegfeld Follies was shot right after Meet Me in St. Louis, largely in 1944. It is a "revue": a series of comedy sketches and musical numbers with no connection to each other, and no continuing characters or plot running through the whole film. This type of entertainment used to be extremely popular on the Broadway stage, but it has always been much rarer in Hollywood. A few such revue films were made in the first great burst of musicals in 1929-1930, after the introduction of sound. (The Hollywood Revue of 1929, apparently the first of all such films, is best in its two versions of "Singin' in the Rain", and for a comedy skit in which William Haines ruins Jack Benny's clothing. Otherwise, it is not much.) The first version of Ziegfeld Follies ran for around three hours. It did not play well in previews, and eventually nearly half of the material was scrapped, and the film was not released until 1946. Even in its current shortened state, the various numbers are a mixed bag. They are by many different directors. The six musical numbers by Minnelli are usually considered the best parts of the picture. Some of these are outstanding, and show Minnelli and his collaborators at the top of their form.

"This Heart of Mine". Dance director: Robert Alton. Design: Jack Martin Smith. This is a dance featuring Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer. It is the high point of Ziegfeld Follies. In some ways this is in the pure tradition of Fred Astaire dance numbers. It features Astaire and an expert partner, here Lucille Bremer, dancing to a song. Astaire has made many such numbers throughout his long career; this is simply one of the most beautiful and joyous of them. In addition, all aspects of the number are designed in spectacular color, making rich visual patterns on the screen. This is more Minnelli and his collaborators than Astaire. This fusion of Astaire dance and Minnelli visual style is seamless and graceful. The number has a simple plot, with Astaire playing Raffles, the society jewel thief created by E. W. Hornung.

"A Great Lady Gives an Interview". Dance director: Charles Walters. Judy Garland spoofs a Hollywood grande dame giving an interview to the press. The interview is in the form of a song, and the gentlemen of the press form a chorus line and do much dancing. This interview is a funny parody of all things Hollywood. Plus the dancing is in Walters' most enthusiastic tradition, with an infectious liveliness that makes it a joy to watch. These are the youngest looking, least hard-boiled reporters in the history of the screen. They look like the young, non-threatening, pleasant men that run through many Minnelli pictures. They are all dressed alike, and recall the way that Lon and John in Meet Me in St. Louis dressed and looked alike. Only here, there are a dozen such men. This number is also known as "Madam Crenaton", being the subject of the next picture the actress is going to make, as sung in her interview.

"La Traviata". Dance director: Eugene Loring. The catchy, melodic "Drinking Song" from Verdi's opera La Traviata is performed, accompanied by dancers who swirl around the screen. This number is highlighted by the bizarre, spectacular black and white costumes by Irene Sharaff. The dancing frequently has the costumes swirling around, making geometric patterns on the screen. It is a pleasant spectacle, with beautiful music.

"The Babbitt and the Bromide". A Gershwin tune featuring Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, no less. This little song satirizes bourgeois businessmen, like the father in Meet Me in St. Louis. The two men also dress alike, like the younger Lon and John. Finally, the Heaven-set finale here anticipates the heavenly religious themes of Yolanda and the Thief.

The Clock

The Clock (1945) is a non-musical romance film, set in New York City during World War II. Robert Walker plays a serviceman with 48 hours leave, who meets secretary Judy Garland. The film tells of the their romance, and little adventures while they explore the city. It is Minnelli's first non-musical film, and the first set against a fairly "realistic" background, as opposed to his richly stylized musical films.

I think The Clock is more successful in its first half, showing light hearted romance, than in the heavy dramatics of its second half. These later parts of the film take one into the hyper-dramatic, awfully intense world of Minnelli drama. They can have a nightmarish quality, like one finds in The Cobweb and Two Days in Another Town.

This film was not shot on location; it was shot in sets on the MGM lot. All of the performers in the film, including all of the extras, are actors recruited for their roles. The extras look astonishingly believable and life like. At the same time, they are far more polished in appearance than most real people. Minnelli somehow conveys that each of these people have their own lives. They are like little miniature dramas that pass across the screen. Oftentimes their facial expressions and the gestures suggest that they are in the middle of some fascinating story of their own. We get only a glimpse at these stories as the extras hit their marks and move across the screen - everyone in this version of New York City seems to be in a hurry. The clothes these mini-characters wear convey their personal experiences. This is true both for the civilians, and the people in uniform.

Long Takes

There are several long take sequences in The Clock. The film opens with a boom shot, traveling over the astonishing recreation of Penn Station built for the film. Then a moving camera shot on the ground picks up Walker, moving through the crowds. The first person Walker meets is played by the film's producer, the legendary Arthur Freed. Freed was in charge of the Freed Unit that made the famous MGM musicals of the 1940's and 1950's, including Minnelli's. Freed offers Walker a book of matches. It seems symbolically important that Freed will open the series of encounters that Walker has in the film. He stands at the entrance of this complex studio-created world of The Clock. He is not the first extra we see - there have been quite a few well-drawn extras in the traveling shot before we encounter Freed - but he is the first with a line of dialogue in the movie. Later, the film's restaurant sequence will begin with Roger Edens, the music supervisor at the Freed Unit, playing the pianist at the restaurant. Edens is given the glamour treatment, a good suit, romantic lighting, romantic gestures with his body while he plays the piano synchronized with the rhythms of the music, and adoring glances from female fans. But Freed is seen with plain and simple straightforwardness.

The scene at the Astor Hotel with the flowers is split into two long takes, each full of complex camera movements around the lobby. They are broken up by a shot of the clock which gives the film its title. The camera movements here are often linked to the thoughts of the hero, and allow us to see inside his head. When Walker is confused and thoughtful, the movements are slow and in a series of mixed directions, echoing the hero's indecision. When Walker decides to buy the flowers, the camera moves swiftly to the right across the lobby and into the florist shop, in the sort of forceful lateral track that has been heretofore absent in the sequence. Flowers are always very important in the work of Minnelli, he has them everywhere in his films, both outdoors, and as arrangements on tables in his interiors. Both the motion of Walker, and that of the numerous extras, makes up much of the content of these shots. The geometric patterns made by the paths of the extras, which stretch in every direction and speed across the lobby, are the visual core of the shot.

The scene at the restaurant also opens with a beautiful moving camera shot. The camera keeps moving deeper and deeper into the restaurant. Meanwhile it swings to the right then to the left, then back again, taking it different views of the restaurant and people in it. This reminds one of the camera movement during the "Skip to My Lou" dance in Meet Me in St. Louis. The middle of the shot follows the waiter with the cake platter from the right to the left of the restaurant.

Shortly after this shot, there will be a reverse look at the restaurant, from exactly the opposite angle used in the opening moving camera shot. This shot is very beautiful. It is a fixed shot, not a moving camera one. We see several of the restaurant's diners and employees; Minnelli has arranged the shot so that each person is clearly visible, in their own little subsection of the screen. These are more of the mini-portrayals so vividly created for all of the extras in The Clock. The Italian diner at the forefront of the shot is a model of dignity and warmth. His portrayal stands as a welcome contrast to all the "what's-a-matta-u" caricatures of Italians in the movies. One sees the hand of Italian-American Minnelli in this, trying to give a more dignified and accurate portrayal. The family behind him includes a little girl, now seen from the back looking small in a big chair. She reminds one of the adorable little girl Tootie in Meet Me in St. Louis. The wallpaper in the restaurant reminds one a bit of the red-and cream wallpaper in the family dining room in Meet Me in St. Louis, too, although it is of a different pattern. The table in front of the Italian diner is full of a gorgeous still life, including glasses, bottles of wine and olive oil, a candle and a beautifully arranged glass of bread sticks. The still life is so arranged to make intricate and beautiful mathematical and geometric patterns in the composition. It is almost like a separate character in the shot. It has its own special region in the frame, just like all the people. Minnelli included similar still lifes of objects on the family table in Meet Me in St. Louis. Those objects were in glowing color, often green glass. Finally we see Edens again, playing the piano at the far rear of the shot. One of his pieces of music on the piano has elaborate artwork on the cover. This is another Minnelli touch, making the shot even more complicated than it is. This shot, like many in Minnelli, is so full of imagery in different sections of the frame, that it is almost impossible to take everything in it in a glance. Such shots, in which every region of the frame is loaded with visual detail, are associated with Jacques Tati, and his film Play Time (1967). There are many such shots in Minnelli. Even with the stop-motion capabilities of today's video machines, every time one watches this shot, one sees something new.

Overhead Camera Angles

The Clock is full of overhead camera angles. These are often used to include both the leads, and a good deal of New York City background in a shot. Minnelli had used such overhead angles in the "putting out the lights" sequence in Meet Me in St. Louis, and also in the telephone call in that film. Both of these scenes were associated with romance. Many of the overhead shots here also have elements of romance and adventure.

One of the most elaborate shots in The Clock combines long take, camera movement, and the overhead angle. This is the shot of Walker delivering milk. It starts out on a balcony, moves on down a circular staircase, and finally closes in on cats drinking milk. A shot like this definitely recalls the Ophuls tradition.

Men in Uniform

New York City is full of servicemen of all types here. Over half of the younger men in the film are in uniform. Especially noticeable are all the black men in uniform. The film makes a pro-Civil Rights point by including so many prominent black servicemen. It constantly reminds viewers of the contributions made by black men in the service of their country. This was a major focus of Civil Rights thinking of its time. Black people were making a major contribution on an equal level with white people in the Armed Forces; they therefore deserved equal treatment back home in the United States. Few American films underscored this contribution so vividly as The Clock. A black serviceman saying good-bye to his wife and child has some brief dialogue towards the end of the film. There are also several dignified black civilians seen in the course of the movie.

One notices some other things about the many servicemen seen in the crowd scenes that run through The Clock. They are carefully assigned to every possible branch of the service. Such equal treatment of the Army, Navy and Marines was a major concern of most Hollywood films of that era. Minnelli has made sure that every possible uniform is displayed in different parts of the film. This helps create visual variety, and ensures that many different parts of the service are represented.

Robert Walker plays one of Minnelli's gentle, non-threatening young men here. He is in the tradition of Tom Drake in Meet Me in St. Louis, and John Kerr in Tea and Sympathy. Walker specialized throughout his career in non-macho men. While some directors saw this characteristic of Walker in negative terms - Alfred Hitchcock cast Walker as a horrendously stereotyped Evil Homosexual in Strangers on a Train (1951) - Minnelli sees such a man as his hero. This is typical of the tremendous sympathy Minnelli has for such non-macho men throughout his career. Walker's hero meets fewer obstacles here than many later Minnelli heroes who do not fit into society's macho norms for men.

Walker has the advantage of his uniform here. It certifies him as a man whom society must respect, or at least accept. It also gives him a certain degree of social integration into the world around him. Later Minnelli films will often depict Minnelli's non-macho heroes as social outsiders, painfully kept outside of all social institutions. Walker's character also anticipates Frank Sinatra's returning serviceman in Some Came Running.

The servicemen throughout the film are also of a certain type. They tend to be good looking, romantic leading men types. Like most of the extras in the film, they seem refined and well mannered, in a sophisticated New York mode. Few if any are the sort of macho roughnecks one often sees in uniform in Hollywood films, such as Robert Mitchum in Edward Dmytryk's Crossfire (1947), or John Wayne in Allan Dwan's The Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). These handsome men are polished to the hilt. Most are wearing dress uniforms. An unusually high percentage are young officers. These wear the high peaked stiff caps along with their spit and polish uniforms. All of these men show tremendous social assurance, plowing their way through crowds in New York City, smiling and confident. Many have doting girl friends, and they look completely successful at romance. All of these men seem more confident than Walker's character. They also out rank Walker's enlisted man, being officers.

Walker sees a young naval officer at the hotel here as a role model. This young man is in the white dress uniform of the Navy, a uniform with a long association with romance in Hollywood pictures. He is played by an actor even less macho looking than Walker, Eddie Hall, a perennial bit player in Hollywood films. This young leading man is completely successful at romance, knowing exactly what to do to please his girl friend, buying her a flower for her hair. Walker will touchingly imitate this, buying a flower for Judy Garland. This is a small romantic stratagem. It reminds one of Judy Garland's attempt to become close to Tom Drake in Meet Me in St. Louis, by having him help her turn off the lights. In both cases, this small gesture leads to romantic intimacy. Minnelli is deeply sympathetic to both protagonists. There is also an element of gentle comedy, watching the protagonist perform such little stratagems in search for closeness with their beloved.

This scene also parallels other aspects of the romantic relationships in Meet Me in St. Louis. In that film, the heroine's brother first develops a male bonding relationship with the romantic hero played by Tom Drake. This male relationship is used as the model and the enabler for the male-female relationship that develops between Garland and Drake. Similarly, here Walker uses another man's behavior as a role model for his own relationship with Garland.

Yolanda and the Thief

Yolanda and the Thief (1945) is a strange, whimsical film musical. It shows plenty of talent, but the film also has problems. Its leading man is a crook, trying to con the heroine out of her money. This unsympathetic lead character makes the film less entertaining and pleasant. The leads are played by Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer here. They took on similar roles in the "This Heart of Mine" episode of Ziegfeld Follies, where Astaire was society jewel thief Raffles and Bremer was the princess he was trying to rob. However, in that film Astaire was only trying to lift some jewels that the princess would hardly miss; here his swindles seem more serious. Also, he is far more personally exploitative here.

Design

The bar has raised alcoves in back, reached by short staircases: a common architectural feature in Minnelli (they show up again in The Pirate). So does the study at the mansion, where Yolanda signs the papers. That room is overflowing with pictures on the wall, anticipating the many artist's studios in Minnelli. It also has large pillars, another Minnelli favorite.

The garden is full of green foliage and white fixtures such as statues. Green and white gardens run through Minnelli. Unlike other Minnelli gardens, this one is not on a hillside, but it does have a staircase leading down to it, anticipating the garden staircases in Kismet. (White and green also appear in the harp room, where they are combined with gold.) At the end of the film, the wedding reception in a garden adds red to the mix of green and white; the end of the garden scene in Kismet also adds red flowers to the green-white mix.

Other Minnelli imagery runs through the film: statues, fancy uniformed soldiers, candelabra, flowers. There is a car wreck, anticipating Two Weeks in Another Town. Still lifes of drinks show up on the table in the bar.

The Dream

The scene with the ladies unwinding long cords in a star pattern around Astaire, echoes a similar pattern in the rope dance number that opens I Dood It (1943).

The dancers costumed as racetrack workers and patrons anticipate the chorus boys costumed as hoods in An American in Paris. The green hunting coat of one of the men, anticipates the more traditional scarlet hunting coats at the start of the fashion show in Lovely to Look At.

Carnival

• The bizarre costumes anticipate the black and white ball in An American in Paris, in which people were also spectacularly dressed in eccentric and original clothes. Both scenes have a "visual overload" quality, in which every corner of the screen is packed with imagery.
• The opening shot, with the car moving slowly and purposively through the crowd, recalls the finale of Some Came Running, and similar slow, propulsive movement through its masses of townspeople.
• The numerous extras also recall The Clock, and Minnelli's ability to make crowd scenes in which each separate extra is a vividly defined little cameo.
• The man in green face paint is like the silver painted people in armor in Lovely to Look At.
• The juggling street performers anticipate the entertainers in The Pirate.
• So do the brocades of flowers.
• The shallow steps below the Queen's throne often appear in Minnelli architecture.

Coffee Time

Eugene Loring, who did the choreography for Yolanda and the Thief, later did some dance numbers for another Latin American film, Fiesta (1947), directed by Richard Thorpe. The most important dance in Fiesta is "La Bamba", done a decade before Richie Valens made it a rock hit in the late 1950's. "La Bamba" shows male and female lines of dancers weaving in and out, just as in "Coffee Time", although it is not quite as complex as the earlier number. Intermixed with the lines are the lead dancers, Ricardo Montalban and Cyd Charisse. The pair later have a beautiful solo number. Montalban's finest moments in the film come later, however, when the young composer he plays hears his music performed for the first time on the radio. His intense expressions during this scene remind one of his great skills as a dramatic performer.

Undercurrent

Undercurrent (1946) is a gripping work of cinema. The mystery plot it contains has many holes - no one ever goes to the police, and the authorities never show up and investigate incidents that stretch over many years - but this should not distract us from what a good work of storytelling it is.

Undercurrent reminds one a bit of some other Minnelli films. Like Home From the Hill (1960), it involves two brothers who grew up in the American South, and who have widely varying responses to the crises in their life. Like The Pirate (1948), it concerns a woman who has a relationship with a powerful man who harbors secrets.

Like Gigi (1958), it shows the difficulties women have fitting into male ideals of how they should act and behave: Katherine Hepburn's appearance is completely made over by Taylor here, who knows far more about women's clothes than she does. This reminds one of the demands made on Leslie Caron by Louis Jourdan in Gigi. Both women eventually rebel. Young men in Minnelli also have trouble fitting in to society's norms of masculinity: see Tea and Sympathy and Home From the Hill. Minnelli's characters tend to be more plastic than other director's. Here Robert Taylor has undergone a complete personal transformation shortly before the film opens, and Hepburn undergoes one on screen. Many other Minnelli characters develop new roles and personas. The movie people in The Bad and the Beautiful are transformed by the hero-heel, and the maid in A Matter of Time by the Countess and her philosophy. Van Gogh in Lust for Life tries many different life approaches, and the characters in Cabin in the Sky veer between the church and the night club, getting new clothes and behavior as they move from one to the other. The hero of Some Came Running is torn between respectable life and low life. And the title character in The Pirate is now completely different from his old self.

As in many Minnelli films, it is not at all clear what the characters should do. They are often plunged into perplexing situations without easy answers. This does not mean that they should give up. But they have to struggle and explore to figure out the right alternatives. It often takes Minnelli's characters quite a bit of screen time to figure out what is going on, and to come up with some options. The characters can tell that they need to do something, and urgently. It is clear that there is a moral imperative for action. But it takes them a while to figure out what, with the answers sometimes coming in stages. Nor do they always guess wisely. They have their director's sympathy, none the less.

Undercurrent takes place over a long period of time. This is typical of many Minnelli dramas. Such time is needed for the characters to evolve. In many Minnelli dramas, the characters are not in one single situation that extends over the whole running time of the film. Instead, they are in many constantly changing, evolving situations. They can go through many life stages. Both these charging environments and the struggle of his characters to find constructive actions take up many months or years in their lives.

Blending In to a Social Group

Hepburn here has trouble blending with Taylor's Washington society social set. The Washington society scenes, and the high powered, socially pretentious characters, recall Society scenes in Bells Are Ringing (1960), with their similar parody of such figures in "The Name Dropping Song". Minnelli suggests such figures have a powerful effect on people's lives. Much of the conflict in Designing Woman (1957) comes not from the man and woman who marry, but from the crowds in which they've typically moved. Each has strong trouble fitting into the other's crowd. Similarly, some of the most powerful scenes in Gerd Oswald's Crime of Passion (1957) deal with new wife Barbara Stanwyck's revulsion at socializing with her policeman husband's mind-numbingly bourgeois crowd of friends. With the social habits of today's Americans, such scenes seem like something out of an ancient past. People are much less likely to hang out with a crowd of people with whom they must fit in. Many crocodile tears have been shed recently about how bad it is that modern Americans do not hang out in groups. But such old films suggest that group living could be overwhelmingly rough.

No Politics

Undercurrent lacks any obvious political commentary. The presence in the film of the liberal in real life Katherine Hepburn and the conservative Robert Taylor does not align with any political orientation in the film. The Washington setting of part of the tale, and the political prominence of Taylor's character suggests that some political commentary is about to emerge, but it never materializes. The film also resembles somewhat George Cukor's highly political Keeper of the Flame (1945), another serious dramatic film in which Katherine Hepburn marries a politically prominent man with country estates, and in which mysterious situations abound. Cukor's film is as political as Minnelli's is apolitical. The tone of the two films seems similar; the political content does not.

Vertical Lines

Minnelli's trademark candelabra show up at the dinner party scene, and later in the country house evening with Hepburn playing the piano. Their repeated verticals help form Minnelli's compositions. Minnelli puts the dinner party candles through four stages: first we see the table full of glassware, but no candelabra; then the empty candelabra; then the candelabra full of candles; and finally the candles lighted during the actual party. This helps give visual variety to the scenes.

Till the Clouds Roll By

Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) is a musical, mainly directed by other people. Minnelli directed four lavish musical numbers with Judy Garland.

Look for the Silver Lining. "Look for the Silver Lining" opens with backstage scenes. These are actually better than the musical number that follows. They open with a corridor filled with that Minnelli favorite, statuary. The busts have top hats on them, a nice figure of style. They have been left behind by male visitors, who soon appear in their white tie and tails. These visitors form one of Minnelli's crowd scenes, in which each extra gets their own personality. The busts and cabinets of costumes oddly anticipate the dressmaker's salon in the ballet in The Band Wagon, with its room full of dressmaker's dummies.

The corridor is in Minnelli red, plus white. The dressing room will be one of Minnelli's mauve-pink-and white areas (like Grahame's bedroom in The Cobweb, and backstage in the finale of Designing Woman), contrasted with a green dress and yellow flowers. The pink-and-green colors will be important in Designing Woman.

Later, Minnelli will stage some excellent camera movements through the backstage corridors. One will take us down a path filled with colored lights. These do not shine bright colored light on the set, as will occur in later Minnelli movies. This camera movement is delightfully complex, through a maze of backstage flats.

While the heroine is walking to the stage, she is encouraged by working class stage hands. This anticipates the hero's encounter with numerous working class men throughout The Long, Long Trailer. The heroine is shown being transformed from a glamorous actress, to a stage version of a working class drudge, for her musical number. This recalls middle class Minnelli characters who go to work among the lower classes, such as Van Gogh in Lust for Life and Theron in Home From the Hill.

The actual song color-matches Garland's gray dress and red lipstick, with gray faucets with red handles.

Sunny. "Sunny" opens with more colored lights. Now we have a blinking red light, like the river scene to come in The Cobweb.

"Sunny" is a circus number. The maypole with its cloth strips, recalls the cloth and ropes in other Minnelli dance numbers. The gold body paint here occurs on the elephants, unlike the humans who get face and body paint elsewhere in Minnelli.

The men are in alternating red and green coats. They wear gold pants and top hats. There are also women in gold tutus. This combines Minnelli's red-green color scheme, with gold.

There is also a man in white tie and tails. His tailcoat is a solid white, unlike the usual black tailcoats that are standard both in Minnelli, and the real-life world of men's formal wear. This anticipates the gold tailcoat in Bells Are Ringing.

"Sunny" is full of geometric patterns. It is especially built around the circular circus ring.

Who. "Who" opens on a staircase. It contains a camera movement showing people moving on the stairs: a Minnelli specialty. The staircase also contains a ramp, which propels the performers down. It is an example of the Kinetic Art that runs through Minnelli.

Judy Garland is in a bright yellow dress, like a number of other Minnelli heroines - and like them, she really stands out and looks distinct from the people around her.

The chorus boys are dressed in white tie and tails. This number contains more men in white tie and tails than any other Minnelli movie. It is virtually a dream about Minnelli's favorite costume. It is also a scene in which the men are all dressed alike, a Minnelli tradition. The men are all pursuing the heroine.

The staircase is white. We eventually see that the wall below it is mauve, making one of Minnelli's elegant mauve-and-white locales.

D'Ya Love Me. "D'Ya Love Me" was cut from the release print, but is available as an extra on some DVDs. It has two clowns in startling costumes. The costumes are in that Minnelli favorite, red-and-green. Unlike the "men in identical clothes" in other Minnelli, here the men are in similar costumes, but with reverse color schemes. Items that are red on one clown's suit, are green on the others, and vice versa. The suits sport long, feathered tails, an item that seems effete, perverse, and comic. Women often wore feathers in showgirl numbers, but men rarely do. The clowns' white face paint is both traditional for clowns, and part of Minnelli's interest in face and body paint. One definitely wonders if this number was cut because the clowns seem gay. These guys are perhaps beyond the pale of what homophobic censors and social watchdogs might have tolerated in a 1940's film. One is glad this number has survived, to show a suppressed idea of Minnelli's.

The clowns were seen in the circus procession that opens "Sunny", carrying cymbals. And "D'Ya Love Me" opens in the circus set of "Sunny". One suspects "D'Ya Love Me" was intended originally immediately to follow "Sunny".

Other Judy Garland scenes. Judy Garland appeared in a few brief non-musical scenes in Till the Clouds Roll By, as well. I have no idea if Minnelli directed these non-musical episodes. None of these scenes seem especially Minnellian - unlike the musical numbers, which are full of characteristics that recall Minnelli's other work.

The Pirate

The Pirate (1948) is a musical, set in the Caribbean. Like Yolanda and the Thief, it is rich in the atmosphere of an imaginary Latin American country. Both films are designed by Jack Martin Smith.

Although this film is a musical, it also has strong elements of mystery. In this it resembles Undercurrent, Minnelli's sole pure mystery thriller. There is also the brief murder mystery underlying the ballet in The Band Wagon, and the little mystery element about the French Resistance leader's identity in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Relationships

The heroines of both Yolanda and the Thief and The Pirate are naive women, who have been raised in an atmosphere of great respectability. There are similarities and differences in the films in the relationship of the hero and heroine. In both films, the hero deceives the heroine into thinking he is someone different than he is. However, in Yolanda and the Thief, the "hero" is a crook who pretends to be a force for good, while in The Pirate the hero is a good guy who pretends to be the romantic pirate of the title, to win the heroine's love. This gives The Pirate a much more innocent and likable feel.

The hero here takes over the persona and romantic actions of another male, pretending to be the pirate, and carrying his pirate whip. This recalls the way in which the hero of The Clock imitated another man's romantic actions in the hotel scene, and the way in which the heroine uses her brother's male bonding with another man as a model for her own romantic relationship in Meet Me in St. Louis. In both films, a gentle protagonist uses a more romantically successful male as a template for their own romance. This also gives a strange feel, as if the two men were now in a common enterprise.

The scene in which the hero hypnotizes the heroine in front of a large crowd of people, causing her to reveal unexpected feelings, will recur in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970). The women in the jewel robbery sequence in Lovely to Look At (1952) also seem mesmerized into stillness while the thief steals their gems. Such scenes of men hypnotizing women go back at least to Cecil B. De Mille's The Affairs of Anatol (1921), in which Gloria Swanson has to be rescued from a hypnotist's power by her husband Wallace Reid. However, in Minnelli's films, the women rebel during hypnosis, and reveal strong inner feelings that cause them to escape from male control. The scenes become allegories, suggesting male attempts to control women in a sexist society, and women's revolt against such control.

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