The Pirate (1948)

I was not into The Pirate. I like the movie's South American–Caribbean setting, of course, and I love pirate movies, but this is no pirate movie. The main character here is a young girl named Manuela (a name everyone in the film annoyingly pronounces as man-you-ELL-a) who has created a set of romantic fantasies about a pirate. This is Judy Garland, who apparently missed much of the filming because of illness. The stuff Garland appears in is pretty great, but the real star – although not top-billed – is Gene Kelly. The trouble is that Kelly's numbers are just... not that good. Cole Porter's score is dumb, and most of the songs are not good.

I did turn a corner with the film near the halfway mark when Vincente Minelli moved into his full fantasy sequence mode. Kelly does a great pirate dance in a fantasy number wearing tiny black shorts and an open shirt. He looks incredible, and the sequence is very fun. Because it's one of those Minelli's fantasy numbers for which he will become so well known, the whole thing just works so much better than the dumb plot that the musical is so tied to. It's almost as if musicals really aren't integrated.

The movie's final number and reprise, "Be a Clown", are also great. In the first version Kelly and the Nicholas Brothers do some great spins and leaps and turns. The Nicholas Brothers are not really restrained, and Kelly really keeps up with them! It's a fun, acrobatic number. The second version is Kelly and Garland as hobo clowns doing a series of bits and yukking it up as the finale. It's a delightful number and the dancing and comedy are great.

On the whole, though, this is rather a flawed mess, and one wishes "Be a Clown" fit nicely in some other show.