The Band Wagon

“We enter with nothing but a dream, but when we leave, we’ll have a show. In between, there will be enthusiasms, frustrations, hot tempers, cold coffee. Some of us will fight, some fall in love, but all of us will work. And adore it!” Vincente Minnelli’s lavish musical comedy ranks with Singin’ in the Rain as one of MGM’s best. The Band Wagon takes us behind the scenes of an imperilled Broadway production. The play is intended as the light-comic comeback of aging song-and-dance man Tony (Fred Astaire), but the pretentious director (Jack Buchanan) wants to turn it into an arty retelling of Faust — and Tony and leading lady Gaby (Cyd Charisse) find they don’t get along. Box-office disaster surely portends! Filled with lively montages of auditions and rehearsals, classical musical numbers such as “That’s Entertainment,” and “Dancing in the Dark,” and elegance from screen great Astaire and Charisse, The Band Wagon is about as spirited as Hollywood musicals get. And yet, as Roger Ebert so aptly observed, “The Band Wagon has a note of melancholy along with its smiles, a sadness always present among Broadway veterans . . . who know the show always closes and that the backstage family breaks up.” Colour, 35mm. 112 mins.