Arthur Freed | Through the Shattered Lens

cracked rear viewer

The National Pastime is just a frame for TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME to hang its picture in. That’s okay though, because producer Arthur Freed and the MGM Musical Dream Factory put together a rollicking, colorful romp with turn of the (20th) century baseball as an excuse to let Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra , Esther Williams, Betty Garrett, and company razzle-dazzle us with plenty of songs, dancing, romancing, and comedy.

There’s not much of a plot in this outing. The World Champion Wolves are at spring training, awaiting the arrival of star diamond duo Eddie O’Brien and Denny Ryan, who’re off on a vaudeville tour. Eddie (Kelly) is a skirt chaser with Broadway dreams, while Denny’s (Sinatra) a shy, geeky guy who lives and breathes baseball. They get to camp just in time to hear the Wolves’ owner has died and left the club to his only relative, K.C. Higgins (Williams), who…

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Lisa Marie were talking tonight and the conversation went from her hurting herself dancing to our love of musical films. Yeah, our minds tend to go off on such predictable tangents. Well, for us at least it makes sense I don’t know about the rest of you people.

One such musical that we both seem to agree on was our love for the Gene Kelly-directed and starred musical film classic, Singin’ In The Rain. It’s from this musical that the latest “Scenes I Love” comes from. It’s a sequence that’s become an icon of a bygone era of Hollywood. Sure, there’s been musical films even up to the last year or so, but never in the same style, extravagance and joy shown in the musical films of the Freed-era of the 50’s and the following Golden Age of the 60’s.

It’s Gene Kelly singing the signature title song while dancing in the rain. There’s not much else to say other than it’s a scene that even the most cynical and elitist film snob can’t deny for it’s utter joy.