Yolanda and the Thief

It was shown on TCM this past weekend. It's a fantasy musical which has sort of unanimously been regarded as a mild stinker-- but amazingly has been amalgamated with a cult following over the years. (What're you gonna do?) It's not a serious piece of movie- not even in the Hollywood-attempting-a-certain-atmosphere vain. One look at the artificial sets, the candy-box Technicolor, and the performances and you need- I repeat NEED- to suspend yourself for 106 minutes and just let go. Lucille Bremer was actually a fine dancer (if you watched her and Fred Astaire in ZIEGFELD FOLLIES), but her abilities are not put to best use here. Record it (as I did), and just fast-forward to "Coffee Time," a sensational, four-minute hand-clapping dance performed in a Latin Carnival, on a floor of swirling black-and-white zebra stripes, easily the best thing in the movie.

Vincent Minnelli loves pure beauty, and in "Yolanda and the Thief" he's in heaven.

Here he has the unbridled luxury of reveling in rich colors, stylish costumes, imaginative dream sequences, and a carnival dance scene that's breathtaking.

With Arthur Freed and Harry Warren's tuneful songs, music supervision by Roger Edens and direction by Lennie Hayton, the score simply glows.

Right from the start, "This is a Day for Love" spans a colorful countryside, moving into a processional and to a lovely convent setting. At midpoint, there's a fantasy through cobblestone streets, to a "magical" pond (from which a remarkable "apparition" emerges) to a multileveled plane with assorted choreographic groupings.

This complex fantasy undoubtedly inspired Gene Kelly six years later in developing his great ballet sequence of "An American in Paris." The expansive MGM sound stages are fully utilized in both executions to their fullest.

Then the show-stopping "Coffee Time" choreography by Eugen Loring, and deftly danced by Fred Astaire, Lucille Bremer and company, is a masterpiece of concept and execution.

Starting off with a lone female trio stepping and clapping off-beat in 5/4, a startling 4/4 song is suddenly superimposed upon the "ground"--with dance and clap movements clearly continuing in 5/4. To add to the "tour de force, a slower pas de deux emerges in the irregular meter, only to be followed by the corps' return to the regular, with everything "taken out" in combined meters.

It's really something to see this dance, which is obviously the result of many weeks of painstaking work from a number of departments, so smoothly executed. Astaire is on top of his form, with Bremer right there every step of the way. They make as beautiful a pair here as in the lovely "This Heart of Mine" number from "Ziegfield Follies."

As for Minnelli, he must have been ecstatic throughout this picturesque production. Mildred Natwick shines in her hilarious role as Aunt, and Frank Morgan and Leon Ames provide able support.

The script itself is a serviceable backdrop for the art departments' joining the music team in having a field day crafting a very beautiful production.

As for Minnelli, this was certainly among his happiest hours in filmmaking.

This is a totally misconceived musical fantasy that never knows what direction it's heading in. Parts of it are sticky-gooey religious drek with heiress Yolanda Aquaviva (Lucille Bremer) graduating from a convent to take her place at the head of the country's richest family. The other story thread concerns grifters (Fred Astaire and Frank Morgan) entering the country (it looks like Bolivia) to escape the American police. With assistance from an archangel (Leon Ames)the stories meet.

Mildred Natwick, as the loony aunt, comes off best in a delightfully comic performance. Ames and Morgan have almost nothing to do. Astaire, with his worst toupee in a major film, seems bored. Bremer (of the twitchy eyes) has almost zero acting talent. The color cinematography and set decoration will knock your eyes out, but as the scenes run from obvious artsy sets to real back drops, there seems to be no consistency or authorial vision.

Aside from a few comic moments (which belong to Natwick) the only things that saves this film from total failure is the musical number "Coffee Time." The set up is a carnival where Astaire and Bremer get pushed into doing a dance together. The oddly syncopated "Coffee Time" catches the viewer off guard because it's so damned good and quite arresting.

The number is introduced by three girls who clap in counter beat to the slightly South American sounds of the main melody. Then swirls of dancers join in, also clapping their four-beat counter tempo. Finally Astaire and Bremer take the spotlight and for a few moments they both come alive as they dance across the amazingly psychedelic floor of black and white wavy streaks. This is a great song/number stuck in a lousy film.

After the song, we resume the dreary narrative. I have no idea what director Vincente Minnelli was trying for, but nothing works. It's not a fantasy, it's not funny, and the religious angle is a total dud. Thank heaven for Mildred Natwick, the color cinematography, and "Coffee Time."

I'd always been curious about this one, especially considering its rather unhappy reputation as a major disappointment in the Fred Astaire/Vincente Minnelli canon, and it's fairly easy to see why. Turner Classic Movies scheduled it recently and I tuned in to watch something that certainly made me glad Technicolor was invented but which fell somewhat short of its intended mark.

The story is absolute piffle, almost redeemed by Mildred Natwick's genuinely funny portrayal of a dotty aunt. (Check out the sequence where she welcomes Yolanda home from her years at a convent school.) M-G-M stalwarts Leon Ames and Frank Morgan (Was he in every single class "A" Metro production from the late Thirties through the early Fifties?) lend reliable support with the little they're given to do. And Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer get (only) two opportunities to display their dancing compatibility. Astaire, of course, managed to complement all of his dancing partners with his patented style and grace (even the miscast Joan Fontaine in "A Damsel in Distress") but, as a matter of personal opinion, I think that Ms. Bremer runs a very close second to the gorgeous Cyd Charisse as one of his most elegant and beautiful co-stars. She's too old for her role in this one, admittedly, but she's nevertheless quite charming and a prime object for the luscious Technicolor cinematography of Charles Rosher.

The real star of this misbegotten show, however, is the opulence of the very artificial art direction, set decoration, and costuming. It's Hollywood at its most baroque and Minnelli keeps his cameras gliding through it all as if on angels' wings. If you're not looking for one of the Arthur Freed's unit's bona fide musical classics, this one will provide a phantasmagoria of color and motion that's rarely been equaled.

This one is a strange one. Set in a fictional South American Country, Fred Astaire plays a con man who impersonates a guardian angel to Lucille Bremer's innocent, convent raised character. While he is trying to get to her vast fortune, he of course falls in love with her.

The story is over-shadowed by the bizarre musical numbers. There is a dream sequence which is one of the longest, most mesmerizing musical numbers ever put on film (eat your heart out Salvadore Dali). The number `Coffee Time' looks like it was fun to film and the dance floor will cause you to,have optical illusions.

The sets are very opulent and the Technicolor is breathtaking. Over-all I rate this film highly because it is so off-beat. I read that this film cost 6 million dollars to make, and was a huge box office failure, and that Fred Astaire nearly retired because of his experience with it.