It's Always Fair Weather (1955)

Three soldiers meet ten years after their last meeting in New York, and find out that they have little in common now.

Directors:

Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly

Writers:

Betty Comden (story), Adolph Green (story)

Stars:

Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey, Cyd Charisse

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Gene Kelly	...	Ted Riley
Dan Dailey	...	Doug Hallerton
Cyd Charisse	...	Jackie Leighton
Dolores Gray	...	Madeline Bradville
Michael Kidd	...	Angie Valentine
David Burns	...	Tim
Jay C. Flippen	...	Charles Z. Culloran

Storyline

Ted, Doug, and Angie are three ex-G.I.s who vow to meet again at a New York bar on October 11, 1955. They all show up on the appointed day, but quickly find that their friendship isn't what it used to be. However, a program coordinator wants to bring the three men together again on a live TV show. Circumstances are further complicated by a group of gangsters who are after Ted.

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Plot Keywords:

reference to john paul jones | reference to the theory of relativity | reference to albert einstein | reference to taj mahal | reference to jersey joe walcott | 

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Taglines:

M-G-M's Gigantic and Joyous Musical

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Musical | Romance

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Certificate:

Passed

Did You Know?

Trivia

The picture was a financial disappointment. Some film historians cite this failure as prime evidence that the original Hollywood musical had begun to lose its box-office clout around 1955. "It's Always Fair Weather" grossed $1,380,000 in the US and Canada and $994,000 overseas resulting in a net loss of $1,675,000 for MGM.

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Goofs

In the 1945-1955 montage, when we get to 1953, the shot of the New Years Eve crowds at Times Square shows Sundown at the Criterion Theatre, so it's obviously New Years Eve 1941-1942 footage.

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Quotes

Ted Riley: What kind of a screwball are you?
Jackie Leighton: To save you the strain of trying to understand me, I'll give you the salient facts: graduate of Barnard, summa cume laude; career girl; I'm fairly pretty - which is a nuisance; I attract a lot of men at first - but, I can always find a way of getting rid of them and then everybodies happy all around. In short, I can always scare them off.

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Connections

Featured in MsMojo: Top 10 Best Gene Kelly Dance Scenes (2019)

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Soundtracks

I Shouldn't Have Come
(1955) (uncredited)
from "The Blue Danube Waltz, Opus 314" (1867)
Music by Johann Strauss
Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Performed by Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd (dubbed by Jud Conlon)

User Reviews

Friends Forever?

The folks that brought you Singing In The Rain, Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Cyd Charisse, and Arthur Freed combined their considerable talents to give us one of the last of the great MGM screen musicals in It's Always Fair Weather. The film got two Oscar nominations for Comden and Green for Best Original Screenplay and for Andre Previn for Best Musical Score. Previn also contributed the music for the original songs in this film.

I remember back in 1971 when I did the weekend warrior thing at Fort Polk and Fort Sam Houston I had a number of friends back in the day there. But a few years from now if circumstance ever brought a group of us together we'd find we have very little in common. In fact there are relatives of mine I barely keep up with because of the little we have in common.

Thus did army pals Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey, and Michael Kidd find themselves after ten years earlier in David Burns's bar swearing that they would meet there ten years later and still be best pals in 1945 after V-J Day.

Well it's now 1955 and Gene Kelly is a native New Yorker. Michael Kidd actually comes down from Schenectady thinking his two friends will be there. Dan Dailey is an advertising executive working on a third ulcer and happens to be in from Chicago. Both Kelly and Dailey realize the day and half heartedly go to the bar and the three do run into each other. But life has led them down three different paths and they have nothing in common, but military service.

Dailey's firm advertises on a show hosted by Dolores Gray which seems to be a combination Queen For A Day, This Is Your Life, and Candid Camera. Her producer Cyd Charisse thinks the reunion of the veterans would be a great show and she contrives to make sure they're all there for the broadcast. Kelly she gives her personal attention to. He's got the most trouble. He's a fight manager whose heavyweight is going into the tank for gangster Jay C. Flippen.

Mix all those elements and you have a nice original story idea with some good songs, none of which became any kind of hit. The best numbers are by Gene Kelly dancing on rollerskates proclaiming his new found love for Charisse down the city streets just like in Singing In The Rain. I also liked Dolores Gray's numbers as well.

But I like her character as the overbearing TV host. I don't think it was any accident she bears some resemblance to Jean Hagen's Lina Lamont in Singing In The Rain as Comden and Green wrote that screenplay also. Hard to believe there were really shows like Madeline's back in the day.

It's Always Fair Weather, another quality product from the Arthur Freed unit at MGM. You can never go wrong there.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Italian

Release Date:

2 September 1955 (USA)

Also Known As:

Fair Weather

Filming Locations:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$2,062,256 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System) (35 mm optical prints) 4-Track Stereo (Western Electric Sound System) (35 mm magnetic prints)

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1