We find Howard Keel and his daughter, Ann Blythe, in some whimsical Arabian fairyland. Keel is a near beggar who sells poems for a living. Some of the dialog is pretty witty. The whole screen play is full of keen lines. The plot is about mistaken identities and barely avoided executions and other nonsense, and Keel winds up terribly rich and accompanied by his enemy's lusty widow. Ann Blythe winds up married to Vic Damone, the all powerful Caliph.
It's colorful, fast, tuneful, and often amusing. I don't know why it doesn't show up more often among the lists of favorite MGM musicals or something. Maybe what it needs is a little injection of Terpsichoreate from time to time. There is some uninspired ensemble dancing and that's it. It's easy to imagine one of the great dancers in MGM's stable in a supporting role: not Gene Kelly, of course, but Tommy Rall or Jacques D'Amboise. Either of them could have pepped up the choreography too, which is repetitious and a little bizarre.
Keel does okay in the role of the quick-witted and fast-talking pawn of fate who is thrown from one state to another. His baritone is user-friendly and the lyrics are unusually sophisticated for what is basically a musical comedy. The evil Wazir is about to have Keel's hand chopped off for theft and Keel sings a love song to his hand, something along the lines of "how can I make a fist there, when there's nothing but the hint of a wrist there?" Hint of a wrist there? The lyrics approach those of Cole Porter and Noel Coward.
You can't fault Ann Blythe's supreme soprano either. She reaches notes that would shatter glass for a mile around. Only Vic Damone sounds like he belongs on a period juke box.
At least two or three of the songs became hits on that juke box, "Stranger in Paradise" was one. It's difficult for a viewer to understand just how complicated it is to arrange a musical that has so many melodies and choral passages in it. I was in a college production of "Kismet" and found the numbers tuneful and intricate, full of counterpoint and unexpected melodic intrusions. I was only a beggar but the part was demanding. Did you ever try wrapping a turban around your head? No. I thought as much. It was a small role but as a beggar I was peerless, convincing -- nonpareil. A great beggar. I still am.
Maybe another reason why "Kismet" isn't so popular is that it draws its tunes from the works of Alexander Borodin. He was a good composer, considering that he was a chemist or something. But he wrote music that could be turned into POP SONGS. You can imagine how that made the cognoscente feel about Borodin. Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett on that damned juke box again, and, who knows, Lefty Frizell. Ask the music critic for the New York Times what he thinks of Borodin -- or Tchaikovsky ("Tonight We Love") or Rachmaninoff ("Full Moon and Empty Arms") and see what answer you get.
Snobs, all of them. And I'll bet they never pay any attention to the colorful beggars either, no matter how magnificent the beggars' performances.
It's colorful, fast, tuneful, and often amusing. I don't know why it doesn't show up more often among the lists of favorite MGM musicals or something. Maybe what it needs is a little injection of Terpsichoreate from time to time. There is some uninspired ensemble dancing and that's it. It's easy to imagine one of the great dancers in MGM's stable in a supporting role: not Gene Kelly, of course, but Tommy Rall or Jacques D'Amboise. Either of them could have pepped up the choreography too, which is repetitious and a little bizarre.
Keel does okay in the role of the quick-witted and fast-talking pawn of fate who is thrown from one state to another. His baritone is user-friendly and the lyrics are unusually sophisticated for what is basically a musical comedy. The evil Wazir is about to have Keel's hand chopped off for theft and Keel sings a love song to his hand, something along the lines of "how can I make a fist there, when there's nothing but the hint of a wrist there?" Hint of a wrist there? The lyrics approach those of Cole Porter and Noel Coward.
You can't fault Ann Blythe's supreme soprano either. She reaches notes that would shatter glass for a mile around. Only Vic Damone sounds like he belongs on a period juke box.
At least two or three of the songs became hits on that juke box, "Stranger in Paradise" was one. It's difficult for a viewer to understand just how complicated it is to arrange a musical that has so many melodies and choral passages in it. I was in a college production of "Kismet" and found the numbers tuneful and intricate, full of counterpoint and unexpected melodic intrusions. I was only a beggar but the part was demanding. Did you ever try wrapping a turban around your head? No. I thought as much. It was a small role but as a beggar I was peerless, convincing -- nonpareil. A great beggar. I still am.
Maybe another reason why "Kismet" isn't so popular is that it draws its tunes from the works of Alexander Borodin. He was a good composer, considering that he was a chemist or something. But he wrote music that could be turned into POP SONGS. You can imagine how that made the cognoscente feel about Borodin. Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett on that damned juke box again, and, who knows, Lefty Frizell. Ask the music critic for the New York Times what he thinks of Borodin -- or Tchaikovsky ("Tonight We Love") or Rachmaninoff ("Full Moon and Empty Arms") and see what answer you get.
Snobs, all of them. And I'll bet they never pay any attention to the colorful beggars either, no matter how magnificent the beggars' performances.