Kiss Me Kate on DVD |
Looking for a great summer movie? One that's
fast moving, amusing, and filled with color and action? Consider Warner Home Video's
superb Kiss Me Kate. We watched it for the 4th of July and found it a wonderful
counterpoint to the usual shoot-'em-up fare.
Kiss Me Kate was Cole Porter's most successful
musical -- and the only one of his musicals that ran on Broadway for more than 1000
performances. What's not so commonly known is that it sprang from the mind of producer
Saint Subber in 1935, when he worked as a stagehand for the Theatre Guild's production of The
Taming of the Shrew, which starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Subber felt the two
tempestuous thespians had a relationship at least as stormy as the one they were
portraying on stage -- perhaps one that offered even greater dramatic possibilities.
To create the play's book, Subber brought in writers Samuel
and Bella Spewack, who were married but separated at that time. The couple chose to remain
together after having worked on the project, so who can say where the onstage romantic
business ended and the autobiography began?
Kiss Me Kate was written as a play-within-a-play.
Fred Graham (Howard Keel), a great actor, is determined to produce a musical
adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, and the obvious co-star is his
still resentful ex-wife and acting partner Lili Vanessi (Kathryn Grayson). Once the plot
is set in motion -- the film version sets it up in a prolog that also includes Anne
Miller's showstopping "Too Darn Hot" and the duet "So In Love" -- it
alternates between Shakespeare-inflected "on stage" numbers rooted in the Shrew
("We Open in Venice," "Tom, Dick or Harry," "I've Come to Wive It
Wealthily in Padua," "I Hate Men," "Were Thine That Special
Face") and those that happen "off stage" ("Why Can't You
Behave?," "Always True to You in My Fashion," "Brush up Your
Shakespeare"). Of course, there are complications in addition to dueling egos and
rekindled (and damped) passions -- a whole meshugaas concerning gambling,
gangsters, and mistaken identity.
The 1953 film added a few other angles (as it were) to the
equation -- it was filmed in 3D and it featured an eye-popping Technicolor color palette
and stage sets that owed much of their extended perspective to Giorgio de Chirico.
3D? Oh yes, and it shows. Objects (and actors) are thrown
at the camera. Dancers explode into the foreground and the perspective of the entire film
is more than a trifle, ummm, in your face. The DVD, of course, is "flat," not
3D, but it's still impressive. (If you do ever get a chance to see one of the restored 3D
prints that are in circulation, however, don't miss the opportunity!)
There's some debate over the whole question of the film's
aspect ratio. The year of its release -- 1953 -- was during the transition from the old
4:3 Academy Ratio to the newer wide-angle formats. The laserdisc of the film featured a
letterbox presentation, so I was surprised to see that the new Warner DVD did not. My
suspicion that the DVD had been panned-and-scanned was reinforced by the seemingly odd
angles of a few shots -- they appeared to be more than a little "left of
center."
However, Warner says the film was shot in 1:37 and that the
DVD "is the way the master studio Technicolor print was when projected."
Presumably that means that there might have been more visual information in the 3D print,
which was cropped for the "flat" release, or, as one critic has conjectured,
that the "flat" release was made from only one of the pair of prints (shot from
slightly different perspectives) required for the 3D effect.
Boy, if that's my only misgiving, I'm really
reaching for criticisms here.
And it is -- and I am. Actually, I do have one other minor
quibble: The sound remains a tad fuzzy -- not bad for the early '50s, but not as pristine
as purists would like it. Otherwise, the DVD is simply delightful. The play has some
third-act storyline weakness that makes the ending seem a tad abrupt, but since we all
know what the only proper ending for the story is, that just serves to get us there
especially quickly.
The acting is delightful. Howard Keel is perfect as the
hammy Graham; ditto Grayson as Vanessi. The film's real strengths are its supporting cast:
Anne Miller sizzles as Lois Lane(!), an ambitious hoofer with an extremely Noo Yawk
delivery; Tommy Rall dances spectacularly as Lois's boyfriend; and Keenan Wynn and James
Whitmore threaten to steal the show as Lippy and Slug, hired muscle for a crime boss. The
choreography is extremely good, too -- Hermes Pan is credited, but Rall's dances are very
Fosse-esque and, indeed, the entire dance sequence for "From this Moment On"
seems drawn completely from Fosse's signature movements. Since it features Fosse himself,
that's certainly no coincidence.
The DVD even has a few "extras" that, for a
change, are special. One is a 20-minute 1949 Technicolor feature, "Mighty Manhattan,
New York's Wonder City," which grants us amazing access to the past glories of
Manhattan; the other is "Ann Miller Hosts Cole Porter in Hollywood: Too Darn
Hot," a "making-of" feature that, for a change, is fascinating.
No question about it -- I'm "So in Love," so Kiss
Me Kate.
