On The Town (1949)

'On the Town' was originally a theatrical production made in 1944. It was made into a memorable film in 1949 and introduced a number of popular songs which have become classics, in particular, 'New York, New York.' It was co-directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly and the screenplay was by the team of Adolph Green and Betty Comden.

Two sailors, Gabey (Gene Kelly) and Chip(Frank Sinatra), in the company of cab driver Brunhilde (Betty Garrett), burst into an art school's life-modelling session. They gasp at the sight of naked woman, glimpsed from the back. The model turns, she is merely wearing a backless dress. Then the trio rushes out through the swinging doors they entered through: revealed are a third sailor, Ozzie (Jules Munshin), and his anthropologist girlfriend Claire (Ann Miller), furtively kissing.

The lightly subversive fun of 'On the Town ' is contained in this elaborate gag. It is basiclly about a hunt for casual sex: three sailors, on a 24 hour leave, want to get laid. Of course, on the surface, the film attempots to disavow this base impulse-there is, after all, Gabey's love for the sweet, innocent 'Miss Turnstiles,' Ivy (Vera Ellen)- but the proof is everywhere: in cultural references (surrealist art; a museum denoted to 'homo erectus'), double entendres (Brunhilde:'He wanted to see the sights, and I showed him plenty'), and above all in the high energy of the song and dance numbers, into which all eroticism is artfully sublimated-although there's nothing particularly hidden in Miller's bravura performance of 'Prehistoric Man!'

'On the Town ' hangs many, varied delights on its simple but driving 'lifetime in a day' premise, co-directors Kelly and Stanley Donen still some years away from their ideal of the dramatically integrated musical. Once the sailors split up, the film becomes especially busy, ranging from low burlesque ('You Can Count On Me') to high ballet, the latter via the Sinatra-Garretr duet 'Come Up to My Place' a highlight of Leonard Bernstein's jazzy score. Proceedings make room for all manner of reveries (Gabey's zany imagining of Ivy as a gal for all seasons), digressions, and gags.

Plot Outline

Three sailors are let loose on a 24-hour pass in New York. They are particularly interested in the female half of the city and as the movie progresses they each find a partner. Innocent Chip (Frank Sinatra) tries but can't resist a lady cab driver, Brunhilde (Betty Garrett), Ozzie (Jules Munshin) attracts the interest of a gorgeous anthropologist Claire (Ann Miller), who thinks he's the perfect example of a "prehistoric man", and Gabey (Gene Kelly) falls head over heels for the model who poses for the Miss Turnstiles advertisements whom he mistakenly thinks is a high class dame but who isn't.

Yes the plot is wafer-thin but it doesn't matter. Its just an excuse to let rip with the music, the snappy dialogue and the wonderful photography of New York at its finest.

Main Cast

Gene Kelly ... Gabey
Frank Sinatra ... Chip
Betty Garrett ... Brunhilde Esterhazy
Ann Miller ... Claire Huddesen
Jules Munshin ... Ozzie
Vera-Ellen ... Ivy Smith
Florence Bates ... Mme. Dilyovska
Alice Pearce ... Lucy Shmeeler
George Meader ... Professor