Title: It’s Always Fair Weather
Year: 1955
Director: Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly (On the Town, Singing in the Rain)
Writers: Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Stars: Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse (Tension), Dan Dailey, Michael Kidd, Dolores Gray

The Story: Three old war buddies show up for a reunion ten years later, only to discover that they’ve each abandoned their dreams. Only when their reunion is exploited by a smarmy live TV show does each confront his own failings.

One Reason Why It’s Great: In 1948, Donen, Kelly, Comden and Green had made the zany sailors-on-leave musical On the Town. Somehow they all found the guts to reunite seven years later for a semi-sequel that would reflect the disappointments of the postwar years. The triumph and camaraderie of wartime America had soured, dissolving into angst and acrimony. Things had soured at MGM, too. Dore Schary’s fabled musical unit was winding down. The Golden Age of Hollywood had come to an end and the dawning age of TV seemed to those left behind like a tacky little replacement. How on earth did they make such an entertaining movie out of this bleak material? The satirical touches are way ahead of their time. A Face in the Crowd‘s attack on TV and The Apartment‘s skewering of corporate-ese both seem a little less daring once you realize that a toe-tapping musical beat them to the punch.

Two more reasons over at Cockeyed Caravan.