Einladung zum Tanz

The first two segments of this film may or may not impress you, but do watch the third: "Sinbad the Sailor". Kelly plays an American sailor in an exotic Oriental market. He rubs an old lamp and a genie appears, played by an amazingly talented kid. After a bit of messing around,the genie gets a sailor suit, too. Then they open a book to a picture of a wonderous land. The genie transports them inside and all the rest features the two dancers (mostly Kelly alone) dancing with animation.This segment is much longer than any other live-plus-animation sequence until Mary Poppins excepting, possibly Song of the South whose sequences were nowhere near so complex as this. Kelly dances with an animated dragon (that wraps around him), into a harem, is chased by the Sultan's guards, has a long sequence with one harem girl, and then a very long sequence with the guards. This is amazing work for 1952, especially when you remember that every bit of the animation is hand-painted on cels. Hanna-Barbera (then with MGM doing Tom and Jerry directed the animation. (Kelly also did a famous dance number with Jerry in Anchors Aweigh eight years earlier.) Walt Disney advised. This is swell stuff and any fan of animation should give it a look.

Invitation to the Dance is what you get when you take an artist at the peak of his abilities and allow his imagination to run wild. Gene Kelly--and some very talented people in all fields--integrated music and dance to create three distinct stories.

He reduces some scenes to their visual essences by using abstract or minimalist sets, aided by lighting effects. The third story includes cartoons, allowing Kelly to take his imagination beyond the bounds of human limitations and physics.

The performances are a synthesis of various dance and related forms (ballet, tap, jazz, mime, acrobatics, pop, and ethnic) with musical accompaniment (classical, jazz--cool and hot--ethnic, and pop).

Invitation to the Dance is a treat for any dance lover. It should be seen by all young students of dance.

It would be interesting to see this film they way Kelly originally imagined it, with him dancing in one section only.

Gene Kelly was a visionary. He was passionate about his art and he was a master.

If you are passionate about your art and creativity, you will enjoy this celebration of dance. There is no dialogue to explain what is happening. There is no person telling you what to think. Kelly brings you to a moment and allows you to make the most of it.

Did you see love, pain, joy, desire, frustration, anger...congratulations!

It might better have been called "Invitation to the Pantomime" because there is no speaking, much less singing, in the film, a production much better suited to the stage. The movie does in fact look like a filmed stage production, and the format and ambitions of the film are not what audiences had come to expect from Gene Kelly. But this was his baby, and he wanted to take filmed dance to entirely new levels of artistic achievement. In many ways, it is a testimony to his power as a choreographer and a star that he was able to pull it off. Nevertheless, beautiful as it is, this is not everyone's cup of tea. Watching the first of the three dance sequences, I longed for Kelly to take that white paint off his mime face and stop mooning over the ballerina. He did, and the next two sequences are more enjoyable, the last being rather fun when animation takes over. ---from Musicals on the Silver Screen, American Library Association, 2013

In what must have been a daring move in the 1950s, Gene Kelly created a film which was pure dance - three sequences (Circus, Ring Around The Rosy, Sinbad the Sailor).

Although not a great grosser in its day, time has been kind to this film and although it is not that well known, this film should be as it has a large amount of charm.

The first section, Circus, is a story about a clown and his unrequited love for the leading lady. A common love triangle presented in ballet, this is bittersweet and watchable.

In Ring Around The Rosy, a bracelet is lost and found and there is a charming duet to watch ... while Sinbad the Sailor includes a mix of real life and animation in the story of the sailor and the genie.

As good as any of Kelly's other work, this should be seen a lot more than it is.