The Band Wagon

The Band Wagon follows Tony Hunter, a former Hollywood song-and-dance star whose career has faded and whose finances have suffered. He returns to New York to visit his friends Lester and Lily Marton, a married writing team who have a Broadway revue in mind for him. The show is placed in the hands of Jeffrey Cordova, a director known for ambitious, dramatic staging, who reworks their light material into something far grander and stranger than intended. A leading ballerina, Gabrielle Gerard, is engaged opposite Tony, and the production's rehearsals are complicated by clashing temperaments and a choreographer's resentment. The result is a troubled New York opening, though the performers' own efforts eventually give the show new life. Vincente Minnelli directed, working from a screenplay by Adolph Green and Betty Comden, with Arthur Freed producing for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; it was Minnelli's eighth film as director, released between The Bad and the Beautiful and Brigadoon. Fred Astaire plays Tony, Cyd Charisse plays Gabrielle, and Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray, Jack Buchanan and James Mitchell appear among a credited cast of forty-five. The film had a budget of two million dollars and took four million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.4 from about 14,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.2 from roughly 250 votes, while the critics' rating stands at 8.4 from twenty reviews.