Once upon a time, the only special effects the movies needed to wow your senses was Gene Kelly’s brilliant choreography. He’s as graceful as Astaire, but with a bawdy side and a slapstick edge. A great leading man, there’s always a story in Kelly’s movements and a character in his ballet. Granted, it’s usually the same character, a brash charmer who may be down-and-out in one way or another—here, he’s a starving artist in a lavish set that’s supposed to be Paris—but you know that he’s going to be all right.
That’s what you get here along with a grand old Hollywood good time with an all-Gerswhin score that glistens as much as the sumptuous Technicolor photography. The film’s breezy fun survives some sexual politics that haven’t aged well. In this 1951 dream world, a sexually aggressive woman is instantly deemed undesirable, to be avoided like a castrating blade. The first move in flirtation belongs to the man. Them’s the rules. Any transgression of such results in a storming from the room.
Today though, all of that is more laughable (or even confusing) than uncomfortable. There’s always an inventive musical sequence set to “Nice Work if You Can Get It” or “I Got Rhythm” just around the corner to clear the air. It all culminates in one of the most ambitious (and expensive) dance sequences in film history, a sixteen-minute wordless ballet, featuring a sprawling cast of characters, set to the title music and that spans moods, settings, styles and tempos with seamless beauty.