I am not entirely sure why IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER is given such short shrift in the history of Hollywood's golden-era of musicals. Donen and Kelly re-team with SINGIN' IN THE RAIN writers Comden & Green for what is a bittersweet ode to the passing of time, and just maybe the passing of cinema.
There are great individual sequences here, such as the Stomp-inspiring trash can tap number, or Cyd Charisse's wowing of a boxing gym with her rendition of 'Baby, You Knock Me Out'. There is also an underlying air of melancholy which sits rather neatly with the central tale of three war buddies who have long since gone their separate ways. Time is the great destroyer and there is a beautiful sense of how it irrevocably pulls a person's life this way and that, which makes IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER perhaps one of the most obviously fated of musicals.
Shot in beautiful, wide cinemascope, the film has its flawed moments, in which Donen and Kelly's aesthetic experimentations outrun the practicalities of the technology - the long, continuous lens pull back as the buddies leave the bar and go their separate ways being one such clear example. That said their is still a lot to love about this musical, especially the knockabout humour of the final TV moment - which is one of Dolores Gray's very best screen moments.
There are great individual sequences here, such as the Stomp-inspiring trash can tap number, or Cyd Charisse's wowing of a boxing gym with her rendition of 'Baby, You Knock Me Out'. There is also an underlying air of melancholy which sits rather neatly with the central tale of three war buddies who have long since gone their separate ways. Time is the great destroyer and there is a beautiful sense of how it irrevocably pulls a person's life this way and that, which makes IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER perhaps one of the most obviously fated of musicals.
Shot in beautiful, wide cinemascope, the film has its flawed moments, in which Donen and Kelly's aesthetic experimentations outrun the practicalities of the technology - the long, continuous lens pull back as the buddies leave the bar and go their separate ways being one such clear example. That said their is still a lot to love about this musical, especially the knockabout humour of the final TV moment - which is one of Dolores Gray's very best screen moments.