Kiss Me Kate (1953)
Kiss Me Kate (1953), directed by George Sidney.
A filmed version of Cole Porter's stage musical comedy about warring divorced actors putting on The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare's battle of the sexes comedy. We get the usual back-stage confusion and crossover with the production itself, cleverly done this time.
Warning: this is a musical, meaning people will occasionally break into song and start dancing. I realize the genre is not for everyone. The acting is like stage acting, very broad and overstated. Thin plot.
And yet it has many good features:
Leads Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel are beautiful people and both can sing -- putting it mildly. Ann Miller, playing the kid sister, can both sing and dance.
This is the finest examples of a 3D production in a mainstream film I have seen. You can understand the novelty value of 3D in creature features but you sometimes wonder why they bothered for other titles, Dial M For Murder (1954) or Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) for example.
Here we have a few 3D in-your-face gimmicks just to play with the format, but otherwise the composition and technique are a big step up from other examples.
It has many great shots from the rear stage, showing the actors in the foreground with the audience behind them, a natural and yet inspired use of the format.
For extra comic relief Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore are tough guy debt collectors who get pulled into the show. They close with "Brush Up Your Shakespeare"; Wynn can dance! Young Bob Fosse is another featured dancer.
We get to see quite a bit of the play; if you want a more complete version try Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew (1967).
This being a battle of the sexes you can expect some double entendres. In one lyric, to "You wouldn't take any Tom, Dick or Harry" she replies "I'll take any Harry Dick or Tom". Another has "Kick her in the Coriolanus".
Shakespeare loved plays-within-plays and we have a recursive hall of mirrors. The movie is called Kiss Me Kate which is about putting on a musical also called Kiss Me Kate. That show opens with strolling players who are going to put on a show for us called The Taming of the Shrew. Although it is not part of the musical, Shakespeare's text also is a play within a play, where a nobleman tricks drunken Christopher Sly into believing that he has merely dreamed his life as a drunken bum, that he is really a rich man about to watch The Taming of the Shrew. Bizarrely the play ends before we get back to Christopher Sly, meaning he is stuck in the fantasy without end.
Available in Blu-ray with 3D. As with all color 3D films of that era it seems grainy, but you just accept that after a while. Lovely presentation.
