On the Town Poster

On the Town (1949)

Comedy | Romance 
Rayting:   7.6/10 16.2K votes
Country: USA
Language: English
Release date: 30 December 1949

Three sailors on a day of shore leave in New York City look for fun and romance before their twenty four hours are up.

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Putzberger 8 July 2010

because it's just a big, silly MGM confection with no (okay, very few) pretenses towards art. Three sailors on shore leave in New York meet three girls. That's the entire plot. However, two of those sailors are a couple of the 20th century's greatest entertainers, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, so MGM builds an extravaganza around them complete with ballet sequences, love duets and then-current digs at popular culture (you might have to explain the dinosaur/Dinah Shore joke to younger children). Along for the ride are some venerable MGM contract players like Vera-Ellen and Ann Miller, not to mention a couple of future TV sitcom wacky neighbors, Alice Pearce (the paranoid Gladys Kravitz from "Bewitched") and Betty Garrett (the liberated Irene Lorenzo from "All in the Family"). How can you lose? It's easy to loathe Gene Kelly. He's smarmy and egotistical (those massive close-ups in "Singin' in the Rain" remain scorched onto my retinas) but he's also a great dancer and a brilliant choreographer, and here co-director Stanely Donen manages to keep his personality flaws in check. In "On the Town" he plays Gabey, an Iowa hick, and his unusual willingness to not be the smartest guy in the room makes him much more tolerable. Kelly spends a big chunk of his shore leave tracking down Vera-Ellen, whose image on a subway poster inspires a comic fantasy sequence. When he finally meets her, the rest of the cast spends a lot of time and money protecting him from the truth, which is that she's a two-bit hoofer and not a celebrity. Sinatra plays Gabey's buddy Chip, another wide-eyed yokel in the big city. Frankie doesn't create much of a character, but he looks pretty and sounds great so it doesn't really matter. Ol' Blue Eyes hooks up with Garrett, a lady cab driver (scandal!) with average looks but great comic timing. She's also blessed with a decent singing voice and a hysterically frumpy roommate played by Pearce. The third singing sailor is Jules Munshin as lovable big lug Ozzie, who provides adequate but unnecessary comic relief and is mightily upstaged by his romantic interest, the very funny, sexy, and graceful Ann Miller as manic rich girl Claire. Miller was such a mega-talent that she was impossible to classify -- she could sing, dance, act and tell jokes -- and that very versatility might have kept her from becoming a bigger star. But she's magnificent here, outshining her better-known co-stars with bits like the hysterical "Prehistoric Man" number ("Bearskin! Bearskin! I love bearskin!").

So that's the plot, which is, of course, tertiary to the song and dance. Leonard Bernstein composed the score, and some of the songs are magnificent -- here Sinatra takes on a "New York, New York" with a rousing chorus and silky verse that's far superior to the plodding nursery rhyme he would popularize in the 70s. Frankie's love duet with Garrett, "You're Awful," is a riot, and the title song is nice and lively. Kelly warbles a couple of dirges but they're blessedly short. The dancing, when it's integrated with the plot, is loads of fun but Kelly stops the action cold for a ballet sequence called "Three Sailors and a Girl," which is dull, but to its credit nowhere near as disruptive or self-indulgent as the "Broadway Melody" number from "Singin' in the Rain." (To its debit, it doesn't have Cyd Charisse and those six-foot legs of hers.) So pop this one i

hshreve 15 February 2003

Fmovies: I have found that On the Town is one of the best movies from the 1940's. It has the perfect chemistry for a movie. From the all-star cast of Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Ann Miller, Vera Ellen and others to the script itself written by the wonderful Betty Comden and Adolph Green, it is no wonder that this movie is still around. When 3 sailors have a leave in NYC, and their main objective is to pick up girls, you know that you are in for some laughs. From the dinosaur to the cab drivers, this movie is a score on my list. The dancing is also great. Ann Miller taps her heart away and Gene Kelly amazes us yet again. This movie is here to stay!

funkyfry 28 October 2002

Great score by Bernstein and awesome dancing (of course) by Kelly and company. Nice color and photography, engaging and amusing story lags only at the end. Sinatra is pleasingly pursued by Betty Garrett (much as in the previous "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"). Only 4 songs from the original musical by Bernstein, MGM pulls another "Roger Eden" (a man whose mission in life seemed to have been to ruin good stage musicals.... as witness his atrocity of "Funny Face").

Comden and Green's wonderful sparkling words are often missed, but this musical did fortunately bring their talents to the attention of MGM, Freed, Kelly and Donen. They scripted "Singing in the Rain" and I guess the rest is history, although Comden and Green should be better remembered for their outstanding broadway hits: "On the Town", "Wonderful Town", "Bells are Ringing" and so many more.

Sweet Charity 26 December 2000

On the Town fmovies. Another Comden-Green triumph! Although it may not be as good as "Singin' In The Rain", it's truly a masterpiece that no home should be with out!

Jules Munshin is energetic in the role of Ozzie! Gene Kelly plays the part of the lovesick Gabey absolutely perfect! And although I am a die hard Kelly fan, I must say that the best male performance given in this film was from Ol' Blue Eyes himself, Mr. Frank Sinatra! In the role of Chip, he brings a certain innocence as well as that sailor spunk and vitality! And the three of them crooning songs such as "New York, New York", "Let's Go To My Place" and "On The Town" is absolutely wonderful (especially Kelly and Sinatra)!

Ann Miller is fantastic as the leggy anthropologist, Claire! She brings a lot of zest to her role! (It's hilarious to hear her refer to Ozzie as "Specimen"!) Vera-Ellen also is WONDERFUL in the role of Ivy, or "Miss Turnstiles"! She is a highly underrated actress... and her dancing is truly DIVINE! However, another highly underated actress is Betty Garrett, who portrays the female cabbie, Hildie! She makes the role zippy and sassy... and she and Chip singing "Let's Go To My Place" is an absolute knee-slapper that will have you laughing and singing with it every time! Alice Pearce is also rather funny as Hildie's roomate, Lucy Shmeeler.

I recommend this movie to anyone who is a fan of musicals, especially the older ones, such as "An American In Paris", "Singin' In The Rain" and "Take Me Out To The Ballgame." This carefree frolic of a film will leave you laughing and singing for days!

JamesHitchcock 8 July 2005

This film has a very simple plot. Three sailors have 24 hours shore leave in New York. They met three attractive girls, and three romances blossom. And that's about it. The characterisation is really no more advanced than the plot development. The sailors and their sweethearts are each given their own idiosyncrasies, but none of them really emerges as a rounded individual. Fortunately, however, a complex plot and well-developed characters are not always essential to the musical genre, and "On the Town" manages to succeed reasonably well without these elements.

The film's most important quality is the energy and vivacity of its song-and-dance numbers. It was shot on location in New York itself, and the city is portrayed as a vibrant, exciting place, a new world as far as the sailors, who are all country boys, are concerned. There is also plenty of humour, such as the scene where Frank Sinatra wants to go sight-seeing, unlike his new-found girlfriend, a man-hungry female cab driver, who would rather take him back to "my place", Gene Kelly's search for "Miss Turnstiles", whom he imagines to be a glamorous and famous beauty queen, and the scene where the three men manage to demolish a dinosaur skeleton in the city's Museum of Anthropology. (Jules Munshin's girlfriend is described as a lady anthropologist, although the scriptwriters seem to have blurred the difference between anthropology and palaeontology). The songs are tuneful, although with the possible exception of "New York, New York" none of them are particularly memorable. Some have criticised the more formal balletic sequence near the end, but as far as I was concerned this was one of the best parts of the movie. After all, if you are going to make a film starring a dancer as talented as Gene Kelly, you might as well use his talents to the full.

This is not really my favourite musical. It lacks, for example, the indefinable magic of "Singin' in the Rain", which also starred Kelly, or the depth and social comment of "West Side Story", Leonard Bernstein's other New York musical made twelve years later. (The contrast between these two films shows just how far the genre had progressed in just over a decade). Nevertheless, it is enjoyable enough for anyone in the mood for soft-centred escapist entertainment. 7/10

gaityr 3 July 2002

I've rewatched both these movie musicals in the space of a week, and ON THE TOWN is no SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. I mean, what is? By 1952, the sheer technical mastery of Gene Kelly had melded perfectly with an entire soundtrack of classics and a clever, satirical plotline with some of the best film characters ever created (Lina Lamont, anybody?).

Having got *that* out of the way, however, there is simply no denying that ON THE TOWN is essential viewing in the Kelly oeuvre. It tells the story of three lonely sailors who finally get shore leave in New York for 24 hours. Of course, they're on the prowl to paint the town red, preferably with girls on their arms. (Though for a brief while Sinatra does charmingly play a skinny little geek bent on seeing the sights of New York, flinging facts from his guide book and appearing unaffected by Betty Garrett's streetwise cabbie flinging herself at him.) Gabey (Gene Kelly) falls for 'Miss Turnstiles' or Ivy Smith (Vera-Ellen), and spends the day trying to track her down from information on the poster. Chip (Frank Sinatra) meets cabbie Hildy (Garrett) who teaches him how to have a little fun while they romp gaily through two great duets together ('Come Up To My Place' and 'You're Awful'). Ozzie (Jules Munshin), in the meantime, gets entangled with the Claire Huddesen (an absolutely delightful Ann Miller), who likes how much he resembles her ideal 'Prehistoric Man'. They dance and sing their way through a series of misunderstandings between Gabey and Ivy, but all comes right in the end as the girls bid their fellows farewell from the dock.

So what's so good about ON THE TOWN, you ask? Well, first of all, it's brilliant fun and very amusing--from the dancing to the singing to the snappy dialogue. It takes a while to get used to the *very* forward New York women (played with marvellous wit and charm by Garrett and Miller), but once you get over their throwing themselves at Chip and 'Specimen' respectively, you really appreciate ON THE TOWN for what it is: pure, unadulterated, and unpretentious entertainment.

Granted: The songs aren't as catchy as in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. But there are definitely some minor classics to be heard here--'You're Awful', Frankie's serenading of Betty, and 'Count On Me' being among them. I thought it was a really nice touch to have Bern Hoffman singing a lazy-morning song, 'I'm Feeling Like I'm Not Out Of Bed' to bookend the film beginning and end, to give the sense of a full day having passed.

It should probably also be granted that there isn't quite enough dancing, especially not from Gene Kelly (who is always a delight to watch, even when mostly playing the bystander as he was in the 'Count On Me' number) and Ann Miller, who got the chance to show off her amazing tap-dancing skills and gorgeous gams in the wildly energetic 'Prehistoric Man'. (It only whetted my appetite to see *more* of her dancing and singing! I'd have liked it if Miller's role was expanded, period. She gave her character an indescribable life and vivacity in the limited screen time she had and overshadowed Vera-Ellen easily.). I'd have loved it if Kelly had danced properly with Miller too, the latter being one of the best female tap-dancers in the business. All the same, the sweet ballad 'Main Street' that Gabey sings to Ivy is accompanied by a beautiful dance routine that shades naturally and easily from dancing to wa

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