Convite à Dança

This film includes three dance interpreted stories, choreographed and starring the great Gene Kelly. The first story is called "Circus" which tells the story of a circus clown who is secretly in love with the Circus Ballet Star who is openly in love with the Circus High-Wire-Walker. The second story is called "Ring Around The Rosy" which tells the story of a bracelet that is past from one silly lover to the next. The third story is called "Sinbad The Sailor" which tells the story of a navy sailor who, while on shore leave in Bagdad, finds a magic lamp that takes him on an animated adventure.

Each story includes an all star cast of "then" well known dancers who give outstanding performances that only Gene Kelly fans and other dancers could appreciate. It is a delightful film, that will brighten any persons video library.

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.

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.

No wonder INVITATION TO THE DANCE found no audience at the box office. The first two musical sequences, "Circus" and "Ring Around the Rosy" are monumental bores dragged down by pedestrian stories and, in the second one, inept use of camera trickery to speed up the action.

But the third, "Sinbad the Sailor," makes expert use of the Rimsky-Korsakov ballet score and makes dazzling use of animated effects, especially for the dancing between Kelly and a couple of Arabian guards which are highly original, intricate and amusing examples of combining live action with animation. It's the kind of originality sadly missing in the previously mentioned stories.

The "Sinbad" highlight almost makes up for the rest of the film with its own brand of originality--but alas, the first two sequences are enough to turn many viewers away from watching the final segment.

Summing up: Easy to see why this one failed miserably to attract a target audience with either high or low brow tastes.

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.