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Impressive!

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Gene Kelly with Dee Brantlinger

Dee Brantlinger was a classically trained ballerina who left dance to become a television promoter and producer. They were friends.

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Slaughter on 10th Ave

#Slaughter on 10th Ave ballet by Gene Kelly #Vera-Ellen dancing and behind the scenes for Slaughter on 10th Ave ballet by Gene Kelly

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Ring Around the Rosy ballet w/Tamara Toumanova dancing with Gene Kelly.

#Invitation to the Dance Gene Kelly Ring Around the Rosy second ballet in Gene Kelly's Invitation to the Dance #Gene Kelly dancing with Tamara Toumanova Tamara Toumanova Russian ballerina #This is the second ballet/dance in Kelly's film Invitation to the Dance. Tooumanova was on of the great ballerinas of her day.

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Mii

Gene on the beach in the South of France, 1959. Don’t know who the young woman in the strapless dress is. Some say Pascale Petit. 

If it’s a tryst Gene was having with the woman in the strapless dress soaking up some sun with him on the beach, there sure as hell were a lot of people there and there sure as hell was someone taking a lot of photos! And he doesn’t seem to be having anything but a friendly chat with the woman in the two-piece bathing suit. Honestly, it is comical to me that some see “scandal” where there so obviously is none. I wonder if Gene was talking to workers on the beach. It looks like that, but they may have been friends digging for clams. I hope one day we will know who everyone is and what was happening on this day, but it we never find out, it is so nice to see Gene obviously enjoying a warm day at the beach in the South of France. He looks so relaxed. I love all these photos. We have Luis Miguel Veramendi to thank for making them available to us to share. He has a treasure trove of photos of Gene. 

Is it Gene Kelly with Pascale Petit on the beach in Cannes (1959)

If so…5th pic vs 6th pic🤔

Just sayin’😁

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So this big argument has broken out online about just who this woman is with Gene. People are getting quite upset over it. I just don’t know. I don’t think she looks like Jeanne Coyne, but I don’t know. Her face looks fuller and less angular than Jeannie, but there is a photo of Jeannie Coyne the next year at a premiere when she looked fuller, rounder in the face with less angular lines. Maybe it’s Juliet Prowse. Frankly, whomever she is, who cares? 

My point is that I don’t understand why some people are getting worked up about who Gene Kelly was with in these photos. OBVIOUSLY, it was NOT some clandestine affair, for krissakes, or there wouldn’t be all these photos! ALL the photos of Gene on the beach, talking with the men, talking with the woman in the two piece bathing suit, skipping stones on the water, and taking in some sun with a female friend was just that: Gene having a relaxing day on the beach in the South of France.

He worked so hard all the time, it is nice to know he had time to relax and enjoy himself and friends. 

Is it Gene Kelly with Pascale Petit on the beach in Cannes (1959)

If so…5th pic vs 6th pic🤔

Just sayin’😁

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Reblogging because these are beautiful

Tigers, tigers!

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I have written about this several times. This dance shows the strength it takes to be a dancer. These two could put an Olympian to shame with the strength it took for them to film this gorgeous ballet. And for Gene, he not only had to keep his balance and look graceful, he had to perform all those lifts and make them look flawless, graceful, and deeply romantic and passionate. People forget that they were not only doing all this technically challenging dancing while being pummeled by those huge aviation fans, but they also had to do all that convincing acting while they were dancing this story of a dream fantasy wedding Gene’s character was imagining. Kelly was as strong as an ox; he HAD to be to dance this ballet! And he may have been the only dancer who was strong enough to pull iit off. -- Starlight Inkwell

Filming the “crazy veil dance” in Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

“I could hardly keep on my feet when the fans were turned way up and the enormous scarves tugged at me. I’d get home at night, with my shoulders sore and aching from the pressure of the wind.”

-Cyd Charisse

“It took all my strength to do it because the force of those motors was tremendous. My stomach muscles were tightening, my arms were like steel bands, it was like lifting this room. Of course you can’t let that be seen on screen.”

- Gene Kelly

(Singin’ in the Rain: The Making of An American Masterpiece)

#Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse illustrate the sheer strength needed to be a dancer

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Gene Kelly on marriage vs “sexual freedom”

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Thanks to #mostlydaydreaming for ripping this outtake and sharing it with us. You are a treasure, MDD! 

It is easy to see why they needed to do a retake of this scene. Jack (Gene Kelly) is supposed to be shocked by Charisse’s character’s assertiveness and aggressiveness. Smiling like a lovesick-but-smug male on the prowl did not work for the scene at all. This film, It’s Always Fair Weather, says SO much about what happened to American culture after WWII. Women who had been rolling up their sleeves and working their butts off to help with the war effort were now suddenly stuffed into pinafores and maternity smocks and supposed to be passive receptacles of male sexual desire. And absolutely everything in American society and culture was now For Sale. 

This is a brilliant film using, as Comden and Green, and Gene Kelly so often did, the genre of “musical comedy” as a vehicle for social commentary 

“It’s Always Fair Weather” Cyd Charisse & Gene Kelly’s kiss in the cab.

Movie version:

vs. Deleted Scene

Methinks Gene liked the kiss a little too much in the deleted take😆🥰

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Gene Kelly on Marriage and “Freedom”

"I can’t imagine an adult man not wanting marriage. Freedom is lonely... it’s sheer boredom. A little variety can’t possibly compensate for the joys of solidity, of having someone close by your side, of having children. For the joy of having a child, I’d eliminate a lot of freedom. And for a wife. A woman clips your wings a bit, but she’s worth it". –Gene Kelly, TV Radio Mirror (November 1962

#Gene Kelly on marriage vs freedom

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“Dionysus is a god who takes human form, a powerful male who looks soft and feminine, a native of Thebes who dresses as a foreigner. His parentage is mixed between divine and human; he is and is not a citizen of Thebes; his power has both feminine and masculine aspects. He does not merely cross boundaries, he blurs and confounds them, makes nonsense of the lines between Greek and foreign, between female and male, between powerful and weak, between savage and civilized. He is the god of both tragedy and comedy, and in his presence the distinction between them falls away, as both comedy and tragedy…”

— Paul Woodruff, The Bacchae (Translated and Annotated) 

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Scholarship and its duty to history

(This is from a message I wrote to some published authors who have written about Gene Kelly, one of whom is a film scholar associated with a major university, when I respectfully challenged some info published online. The reply that I was some “fan of a dead movie star” was an attempt, I felt, to trivialize the research done by people whom they may feel are not members of their rarefied circle, but upon whose work some of these very same people draw for information. I am NOT talking about Hess & Dabholkar, who respectfully credited the work of the late Sue Cadman’s blog, Gene Kelly: Creative Genius.)

This is not about adulation of a dead movie star. This is about people taking seriously the biographical facts of one of history's most important artists--who has been overlooked for decades, and whose widow, who claims to be preserving his "legacy" would have us believe the only thing Gene Kelly ever did in his entire life was make movies. In scholarly treatises about Leonardo di Vinci or Shakespeare or Cezanne, Picasso, Dante (any historically important artist), I doubt people would be so cavalier with facts. I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound vindictive or petty: But it is the JOB of scholars to get facts straight. That is what scholars get paid to do if they are fortunate enough to carry the imprimatur and backing of a scholastic institution that lends not only credibility to their work, but also allows them access to all sorts of material no "ordinary" person can hope to access. And no where is that a more challenging endeavor than in trying to get accuracy in the history of Hollywood movie stars. Hollywood is a culture of "starvation", where people believe (rightfully) that "there isn't enough to go around", and it makes people do very self-serving things in their desperation to get "credit". Lies and fabrications, personal vendettas and gripes are interjected into stories all the time, and are substituted for facts. 

To illustrate, I retell here one of the famous jokes about Hollywood: A writer had come to the end of his coping skills and energy when he had written himself into a corner he could not get out of. He finally collapsed into a heap of exhaustion and despair. While he slept, an elf came and finished typing his script, finding clever solutions to the plot, and giving the story a zinger of an ending. When the writer awoke and saw what the elf had done he said, "Oh,my! How can I ever thank you for what you've done?" The elf said, quietly, "Well, perhaps you could give me credit?" "Credit!" screamed the writer, capturing the elf in a jar and disposing of it posthaste. 

You may feel that those of us who are trying to research this giant of 20th Century art in what was The art form of the 20th Century are trivial "fans". I assure you that is not the case. Scholars have a duty and responsibility to use the "passport" their credentials afford them to double check the information they share just the same as any journalist has a moral and ethical responsibility to double and triple check their facts before they share them with the public. Yes, I am holding your feet to the fire: I'm not doing that out of spite or smugness; I am doing that out of a dedication to a subject that did way more than dance his way across a movie screen. Kelly, whether he knew it or not, was a cultural force that challenged the rigid perceptions of what gender means--That started with Gene Kelly. His passion and determination to get lumbering mentalities to see that dance has always been a part of male identity and expression, that assigning unbending rules of what is "acceptable" or "unacceptable" based on what kind of "plumbing" one was born with has no basis in historical or biological truth. He was a harbinger of so much more than the astonishing effect he's had on dance. Gene Kelly was one of those humans who seemed to carry in his artistic vision a roadmap to some greater truth we all need to understand. As with so many great, visionary artists, he himself may not have always understood to where is artistic vision was leading; he was just compelled to listen to his inner voice and keep slashing his way through the forest of lies and misperceptions that blocked his path and drag all of us along with him.  -- Starlight Inkwell

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For any of you who are G Kelly scholars or just interested addmirers.

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The victimized become the victimizers, the brutalized become the brutal? Is this the message of Season 4?

#Handmaid's Tale Season 4 trailer

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Audio is not synced, but the entire show is presented here.

#Gene Kelly 1959 TV show

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In 1964 an attempt was made to create a series out of An American in Paris. This was the pilot. It ran as the summer replacement in the time slot of the Lucy Show. It is not allowed to be rebroadcast because of copyright restrictions. But it is of historical interest. Gene directed. 

#TV pilot for proposed series for An American in Paris