Reviews

I am surprised that this movie is not more widely known, as it is Brando's film debut. It's very good and the acting is wonderful. Brando is believable as the war veteran, as is Teresa Wright as his sweetheart. I had only seen Wright in movies from the early 1940s (The Little Foxes, Shadow of a Doubt, etc) and always wondered what had happened to her career.

It's nice to see that she never lost her talent, even if she was appearing in fewer films. The supporting cast is good too, I enjoyed seeing Sloane in this (I had only seen him in Citizen Kane). It's not one of those sugary-sweet movies, it has a realistic plot, so be prepared if you're lucky enough to catch this one on TV.

I seem to recall reading/hearing somewhere that movie musicals were becoming less popular in the 1930s. They were, for the most part, creaky messes with poor sound quality. Then came this movie, which you can credit (or blame, depending on whether you like musicals or not) for popularizing them.

The story has been done before now (2004) and was probably done before in 1933. Prima donna gets injured, the ingenue must take her place. All the clichés come out in full force, but with enough enthusiasm that you may find yourself sucked in, depending on how jaded a viewer you are.

The performances are good. Daniels is stunning, and a good actress, and she can sing. We don't get to see her dance too much though. Powell makes a good juvenile lead and sings well. Keeler gets a bit annoying, but that's probably just the character she is playing. She cannot really sing, and I never thought her dancing was that great. I'm a fan of Ginger Rogers though, so I am biased when I wonder how this movie could have catapulted Keeler and Powell to stardom while Rogers had to wait until she was paired with Astaire for her career to take off. After seeing movies starring the likes of Astaire, Rogers, Eleanor Powell, Ann Miller, Gene Kelly, etc. I find Keeler's dancing to be a bit heavy-footed. Not that it is terrible, she does pull the part off well enough. The Busby Berkeley choreography is fabulous--no one did it like he did it. Just never you mind that if the show were actually on a stage the way it is supposed to be in the movie, you wouldn't actually notice the aerial geometric patterns. Still, it is nice to look at. So leave your sense of reality in the other room, pop this movie in your VCR/DVD player, and enjoy!

The movie is very stagy, and must lose something when not seen in its original 3D. Ray Milland does a wonderful job, you almost want him to succeed. He makes the movie great. Grace Kelly, on the other hand, wastes her talents by playing an almost unsympathetic, one-dimensional character. Overall, the picture is not as good as Hitchcock's other masterpieces, but like his other sub-par works, it is a lot better than most movies.