Kiss Me Kate

What Gene Kelly was to Arthur Freed, Howard Keel was to Jack Cummings. Cummings, the "B" level producer on the MGM lot during the reign of Freed, sometimes got the upper hand on his more successful rival, but only rarely. After all, there is a reason Arthur Freed is regarded as a genius. However, that should not discount the work Jack Cummings did, all with significantly less resources. While "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" is regarded as the pinnacle of the Cummings unit, his work with leading man Howard Keel the year before that film is also quite good. "Kiss Me Kate", based on the truly wonderful stage musical by the incomparable Cole Porter, was released in 1953, and featured quite the collection of talent. In addition to Keel, the film starred Kathryn Grayson (something of a casting coup for Cummings, he managed to secure the star duo of one of Freed's previous hits, "Showboat"), and in her largest role to date, Ann Miller. The film was also directed by George Sidney, director of such MGM hits as "Showboat" and "Scaramouche". I like to think of George Sidney as a poor man's Michael Curtiz; he successfully worked in many different genres, and his work here is exceptional, not always a given when adapting a popular Broadway show to the big screen. Of course, when your characters can break into Cole Porter songs every scene, things come a little easier, and this show has a healthy number of standards, including my personal favorites "Always True To You" and "Tom, Dick or Harry" as well as "Too Darn Hot", "Wunderbar" and "So In Love" (which, it should be noted, was used perfectly in "De-Lovely", the biopic of Cole Porter). While the movie changed elements of the extremely successful stage musical (most significantly moving "Too Darn Hot" from the opening number of Act Two, to the very beginning of the movie, where it is used as an "audition" number, with "Cole Porter" in attendance), the film still plays very well, thanks to the dynamic presence of Keel and Grayson (who plays the obnoxious, tempermental Lilli quite well, considering her roles were usually chaste and innocent), and of course, that incomparable score by Cole Porter.

As the film opens, Cole Porter has invited Fred Graham, a pompous theater hyphenate, to his apartment to hear a young chorus girl sing a song from his new musical, "Kiss Me Kate". What he has not told Fred is that he has also invited Fred's ex wife, the domineering Lilli Vanessi, as well, in the hopes of convincing the two on a collaboration. Fred and Lilli used to be a happily married couple, as well as the biggest male and female stars of the stage, until their marriage deteriorated thanks to Fred's inflated ego and Lilli's diva like behavior. What Fred has not told Lilli is that he and the chrous girl, Lois Lane (you have to love it when characetrs in old movies had names which would subsequently take on greater pop culture status) are now an item (while she has not told him of her own tempestuous relationship with gambler/dancer Bill Calhoun), and Lilli has not told Fred that she too is on the verge of remarrying, in her case, a Texas millionaire. And for good measure, Bill has not told Lois that he signed an I.O.U. in Fred's name to a couple of gangsters. All of these secrets initially converge in Cole Porter's apartment, as Lois' "Too Darn Hot" numbers wows the assembled financial backers and Fred convinces Lilli to sign on as the production's leading lady (with an unhappy Lois and Bill as the "B" couple). It is obvious from the first scene that despite Fred's big head and Lilli's bad attitude, the two still love each other. Where Cole Porter's libretto truly attains its classic status though is the way he incorporates elements of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" into his plot. In "The Taming of the Shrew", there are two beautiful daughters, Bianca, the younger, guy crazy one, and Katherine, the older, man-hating one. Enter boastful ladies man Petruchio, who teams up with lovesick Lucentio to "tame the shrew"; by winning the hand of the monstrous Kate, Bianca is free to marry her sweetheart Lucentio. While all this is playing out on stage, "off stage" Fred finds himself taming a real shrew, Lilli. Throw in song and dance (Ann Miller and Tommy Rall as Lois and Bill might not have the voices that Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson have, but they are twice the dancers, talents featured in their number "Why Can't You Behave?"), and some gangsters with a theatrical itch, and you have a marvelous confection.

The show's opening night finds the company with no shortage of trouble. Lilli is threatening to leave after one performance to marry her Texas millionaire fiancee and Fred has to deal with the gangsters who have moved in backstage to make sure Fred makes good on the I.O.U. Bill signed in his name. To Fred, the gangsters are the least of his problems; the show is all that matters. Early on in the evening Lilli started to warm to Fred's charm again and you see why the two were so in love with each other. They sing of their early days in the theater to the tune of the great song "Wunderbar", itself a joke of the ways Fred used to ingratiatingly play to the crowds. The good will quickly evaporates as a flower bouquet from Fred intended for Lois ends up in Lilli's dressing room, hence Lilli's threat to leave the company immediately. This latest conflict is played out brilliantly, in Lilli's woman-scorned anthem, "I Hate Men" and Fred/Petruchio's taming of the shrew on stage (a great scene when paralleled with the hysterics back stage). Meanwhile Bill is dismayed that Lois would leave him for the pompous Fred, and the romantic subplot is actually worthwhile, thanks to the splendid performances of Miller and Rall, and the fact that they get some great numbers. The aforementioned "Why Can't You Behave?" is good, but "Always True To You" is arguably the film's most infectious song and "Tom, Dick and Harry" is, in true Porter fashion, an incredible use of lyric with a catchy tune to go with it. This being "Kiss Me Kate", everyone gets their big number, even the gangsters, who steal the film (and the show, this number on stage always gets the biggest cheers) with "Brush Up Your Shakespeare", which they sing to Fred. Porter's lyrics are perhaps never more inspired than in this song, which incorporates virtually every title and character name Shakespeare ever put down on paper. Of course by the end Fred and Lilli have fallen back in love, Bill and Lois have put their differences behind them (mainly Lois is over her Fred infatuation and Bill has resolved to stop gambling), and the gangsters give up their life of crime for life in show business! It should be noted that the film was the first musical to utilize the latest technological fad of the time: 3D, a device used throughout the film, as characters constatly pitch things "at" each other (more accurately at the camera). The ending gives the format an opportunity to be worthwhile though, as confetti and streamers explode in the air to celebrate Petruchio and Katherine and Lucentio and Bianca's weddings. A rousing ending to, in my opinion, the best film to utilize the music of Cole Porter.