Cyd Charisse

AMG Overview:
by Hal Erickson
MGM’s Ricardo Montalban and Cyd Charisse were loaned to Universal for the Technicolor period piece Mark of the Renegade. Set in 19th-century California, the film stars Montalban as Marcos, in league with a band of pirates. Marcos falls into the hands of Don Pedro Garcia (Gilbert Roland), a despot who hopes to become dictator of California. Planning to force the cooperation of benevolent politico Jose De Vasquez (Antonio Moreno), Garcia orders Marcos to court De Vasquez’ comely daughter Anita (Cyd Charisse). It soon develops that Marcos is not the criminal he appears to be, and that he is dedicated to the vanquishing of the evil Garcia. Somehow, Mark of the Renegade finds an excuse for Cyd Charisse to perform a bewitching dance number.Read More »

IMDB:
In this crime-thriller, Rome proves to be an unhappy destination for an American couple when the husband is kidnapped and his wife begins a desperate search for him.Read More »

Quote:
Scripted by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, It’s Always Fair Weather (1955) revisits On the Town (1949), but with a satirical, revisionist bite. In this send-up of musical and post-war optimism, the dreams of Army buddies Kelly, Dan Dailey, and Michael Kidd all fall apart, and their ten-year reunion is a “frost”; Dailey’s bitter song “Situation-wise” takes aim at the stultifying effect of the quintessentially 1950s life of an advertising executive. Even though the trio finally bonds over a disastrous TV appearance, Fair Weather takes further aim at television’s plastic insincerity and technical poverty. Read More »

Synopsis:

In 1952, many “outdoors” adventure films would be shot on the studio back-lot, with fake-looking backgrounds and interior sets masquerading as exteriors. The Wild North benefits greatly from the fact that much of it was shot on authentic locations (the American state of Idaho standing in for northern Canada). The film also benefits from a clutch of strong leading performances from Stewart Granger and Wendell Corey, plus the ravishing Cyd Charisse (cast – some might say miscast – as a native Indian). The whole film is smartly presented by Andrew Marton, whose last film prior to this was another outdoor adventure with Stewart Granger, the 1950 version of King Solomon’s Mines.Read More »

Synopsis:
Lawyer Thomas Farrell has made a career defending crooks in trials. He has never realized that there is a downside to his success, until he meets the dancer Vicki Gayle. She makes him decide to get a better reputation. But mob king Rico Angelo *insists* that he continues his services…Read More »

“In Sight and Sound’s 2002 poll of the ten best films ever made, one musical made the list: Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain (1952). Without denying that film’s considerable charm, a musical released a year later (which failed to receive a single vote in Sight and Sound’s survey) may be worthier of similar hyperbolic citations: The Band Wagon. The films share several points of contact: both are backstage musicals built around songbook catalogues and produced for MGM by Arthur Freed; both have witty screenplays by Betty Comden and Adolph Green; and both feature important roles for Cyd Charisse. One may also see both films as primary examples of what André Bazin called the “genius” of the Hollywood system, in which great films are produced less through a single auteur than through a group of talented individuals working collectively with the sophisticated technical resources of a major studio while simultaneously drawing upon the rich traditions and forms of American popular culture.”Read More »