I like a decent bunch of MGM musicals, but each time I give KMK another chance, I just find it's fundamental problems. It has a play within a play structure that cheats both stories. It has many limp Cole Porter songs (but also, of course, some classics). The good songs (So in love, Why Can't You Behave?, Too Darned Hot, From this Moment On) are so well known that I'd prefer just to hear them sung really well, than to watch characters act them in a movie. They're so unanchored by the story that you could easily perform them in any order and get the same result. After an hour or so I'm bored and wishing the script offered some interesting development, some decent humor, rather than another character (onstage or backstage) singing a momentum-killing song.
For me, there are two deadly musical ideas here: 1) Characters singing to me, rather than to each other (I Hate Men, Where Is The Life That Late I Led? Brush up Your Shakepspeare). 2) Characters singing declarative songs that are so forthright (I Hate Men, Tom Dick or Harry) that any chance of detecting a sub-text oneself is shot to hell. There is nothing to discover about these characters, or their predicament. You just watch passively from start to finish. The songs generally bring the plot, and any forward momentum in the movie, to a dead stop.
The best moments in this are 10,000 volts of Anne Miller (Too Darned Hot) and one or two dance numbers in front of deChirico inspired backdrops. The rest is just a matter of endurance.
For me, there are two deadly musical ideas here: 1) Characters singing to me, rather than to each other (I Hate Men, Where Is The Life That Late I Led? Brush up Your Shakepspeare). 2) Characters singing declarative songs that are so forthright (I Hate Men, Tom Dick or Harry) that any chance of detecting a sub-text oneself is shot to hell. There is nothing to discover about these characters, or their predicament. You just watch passively from start to finish. The songs generally bring the plot, and any forward momentum in the movie, to a dead stop.
The best moments in this are 10,000 volts of Anne Miller (Too Darned Hot) and one or two dance numbers in front of deChirico inspired backdrops. The rest is just a matter of endurance.