Tre piccole parole

... because the whole thing goes down so easy.

It's an odd combination - Red Skelton and Fred Astaire. It was the only time that they ever played opposite one another. They were both in a couple of the big MGM ensemble musicals of the era - "Ziegfeld Follies" comes to mind - but they didn't do anything together in them. That's too bad, because their styles seem to bring out the best in each other as far as acting goes. Fred becomes more of a comic. Red becomes subdued.

This is the very fictionalized biopic of songwriting team Bert Kalmar (Fred Astaire) and Harry Ruby (Red Skelton). In the film, Kalmar is a dancer who is a part time playwright and magician. One night when Kalmar is performing his magic act, Ruby, a stagehand, manages to accidentally destroy everything single-handedly, causing Kalmar to get laughed off the stage. This is the "meet cute" phase. When Kalmar injures his knee and must lay off dancing for two years, he becomes a full-time songwriter and ends up reluctantly partnered with Ruby, who he still blames for ruining his act that one time. Of course, reluctance turns to friendship and great success. There are squabbles along the way and Kalmar and his wife (Vera Ellen of the tiny waistline) step in to discretely disrupt Ruby's bad romantic choices.

The squabbles are short lived and on the surface, for there really are no villains in this film, not even a buffoonish one like Singin' In the Rain's Lena Lamont. It's just the great balance of comedy, music, and heart that many of MGM's other musicals wanted to be but just could not quite accomplish. This one has aged very well, and I'd recommend it.

Three Little Words, the "story" of songwriters Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar, probably is only accurate where their names, songs, and a rough frame of truth is concerned, but who cares? The cast is great. Fred Astaire has some really good dances. Red Skelton's comic potential isn't really used in this, and he seems almost like Fred's sidekick, but he does all right. It's certainly not his best. I usually don't like Vera-Ellen, but even I like her in this. And once you see past the black wig, that is most definitely Debbie Reynolds as Helen Kane, the girl singing I Wanna Be Loved By You. The songs are absolutely sensational. Oh yeah, the song Lucky Star (not written by Ruby-Kalmar), which Debbie would later sing with Gene Kelly at the end of Singin' in the Rain, is briefly featured.

Although Astaire was a bit past his prime in the dancing area, this is by far the best acting performance he gave (Towering Inferno Oscar nod included). His Bert Kalmar is complex, restless, at times testy, and very much a real person compared to the standard Astaire character. Whether the circumstances depicted in the movie were fact or fiction, he is really a character with a distinct persona, as opposed to Fred Astaire essentially playing himself as in most other his other films.

This film didn't try to do much more than bring us the songs. And that was good. It was wildly anachronistic -- the early number with Astaire and Vera Ella was danced to jazz that had to be some 15 or 20 years later than the date of the film, which at that point would be early 1920s, the age of the Turkey Trot, when bands were still coming out from their military origins. But the later sequence in the capacious ballroom of the ocean liner to "Thinking of You" was lovely. And the shot of the liner was the Normandie, wasn't it? Queen Mary was a four stacker. Vera Ella was a wonderfully acrobatic dancer. Al Schacht WAS a pitcher -- for 3 years (1919-21) for the Senators. The poster who said he was a catcher may have been thinking of Ray Schalk, a hall of fame catcher for the White Sox (including the 1919 nine, though not implicated in the throwing of the Series). And Barris, Rinker, and Bing sang with Paul Whiteman, not Duke Ellington. The MGM color in the 40s and 50s was magnificent -- and this film shows it off superbly. This one is a very enjoyable musical, one of the best of a period that produced some great ones.

This movie is an excellent representation of the talents of all four stars,Fred Astaire,Vera Ellen,Red Skelton, and Arlene Dahl. Astaire and Vera Ellen open the show with as good a dance routine that I have seen. "Where did you get that girl" is wonderful,bright,and energetic. Red Skelton always one of my favorite funny men is very good and Arlene Dahl is as pretty as any of them. It's a shame that these types of movies aren't made anymore, because they brought joy and happiness to both my wife and I and we watch the dance scenes over and over,especially Where did you get that girl. Vera Ellen was certainly as good as any of Astaires partners and in my opinion the best of all of them.