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A young dance student accidentally cripples a teacher she doesn't like.A young dance student accidentally cripples a teacher she doesn't like.A young dance student accidentally cripples a teacher she doesn't like.
- Awards
- 3 wins & 1 nomination total
Elinor Donahue
- Josie
- (as Mary Eleanor Donahue)
Gregory Gaye
- Jacques Lacoste
- (as Gregory Gay)
Lola Albright
- Fashion Model
- (uncredited)
Polly Bailey
- Wardrobe Woman
- (uncredited)
Margaret Bert
- Hairdresser
- (uncredited)
Barbara Billingsley
- Miss Morgan
- (uncredited)
Sidney D'Albrook
- Gallagher
- (uncredited)
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I am a grandma now, but as a five year old, I viewed this movie in a very small town theater. After I saw this movie with a five year old's eyes, I not only wanted to be a ballerina, but I wanted to be Margaret O'Brien. Not being able to have dance lessons, I danced on my own. My aunt made me a beautiful outfit, and I was in heaven. Now, move ahead 20 years. I have a daughter who wanted to dance, and of course I sent her for lessons. She is now a very successful, and talented dance teacher. I would love for her to see this movie, but I don't know where, or how to get it. This movie has not only been an influence on one generation, but on two. I wish there were more movies of this calaber. Simple, but oh so good.
This was a 1947 film featuring Margaret O'Brien and Cyd Charisse. It also showcased Danny Thomas in his first film role. I initially recorded this film because I was intrigued by the synopsis in the Dish guide: "A ballerina arranges an accident to cripple her mentor's foreign rival." It sounded very dark, especially for a movie with Margaret O'Brien and Cyd Charisse. I thought the film was pretty good, even if the film didn't follow through with the plot described in the synopsis.
While O'Brien did plot to sabotage her mentor's rival's performance, she wasn't trying to cripple or injure her. What was interesting about this film was the way it framed O'Brien's struggle with her conscience versus her reality. While the film was so-so, I thought that O'Brien's was the standout performance in the film. It's a shame that she wasn't able to make the transition between child and adult performer. She may have been able to achieve a Patty Duke type career as I believe that O'Brien had the chops. I also thought that O'Brien executed her ballet steps very well.
While O'Brien did plot to sabotage her mentor's rival's performance, she wasn't trying to cripple or injure her. What was interesting about this film was the way it framed O'Brien's struggle with her conscience versus her reality. While the film was so-so, I thought that O'Brien's was the standout performance in the film. It's a shame that she wasn't able to make the transition between child and adult performer. She may have been able to achieve a Patty Duke type career as I believe that O'Brien had the chops. I also thought that O'Brien executed her ballet steps very well.
When Cyd Charisse made THE UNFINISHED DANCE (1947) she was still a young starlet in the MGM stable, before her rise to stardom in 1950s Arthur Freed musicals like SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952), THE BAND WAGON (1953), BRIGADOON (1954), and SILK STOCKINGS (1957). (You can tell it's from her "early years" by the way her face is made-up.)
Fans and admirers of Charisse will want to check out this film for a chance to see her at home in the world of ballet. Many dancers in Hollywood were tap dancers, but Cyd Charisse came from a ballet background. The ballet influence is evident in her work in things like BRIGADOON, for instance, but in THE UNFINISHED DANCE we get to see Cyd Charisse do some real ballet, in a tutu and everything.
The real focus of the movie, however is Margaret O'Brien, MGM's child actress extraordinaire. THE UNFINISHED DANCE is a Hollywood remake of a fascinating French film LA MORT DU CYGNE (a.k.a. "BALLERINA") (1937). It concerns the girls of a dance academy and a sort of tragic mistake. O'Brien is a young dancer who idolizes ballerina Charisse and perceives a visiting prima ballerina (Karin Booth) as a threat. With her idol's best interests at heart, O'Brien sabotages Booth's performance. Booth suffers a career-altering injury and O'Brien is haunted by her guilt, even as Booth becomes a mentor for her at the academy.
Margaret O'Brien was a major child star in the 1940s and MGM adapted LA MORT DU CYGNE as a vehicle for their young actress. What's impressive is that MGM got ten-year-old Margaret O'Brien to actually learn ballet. O'Brien had never been known as a dancer, but she does her own dancing here and is convincing enough. Karin Booth, too, seems to do her own dancing on camera.
MGM adds Hollywood gloss to the plot from the original French film. The tragedy isn't quite so tragic. The irony not quite so defined. While it's a darker role than some would expect from Margaret O'Brien, it's not *too* dark. Danny Thomas plays O'Brien's gentle, vaguely ethnic, de facto guardian and sings a couple of cutesy tunes. The ballet sequences are staged in glorious Technicolor.
The plot is probably good enough for those who haven't seen the French film, although I personally feel the remake suffers by comparison. I prefer the French film for aesthetic and thematic reasons. I would highly recommend checking out LA MORT DU CYGNE ("BALLERINA") if the opportunity arises. It seems to be rather obscure but I caught it on Turner Classic Movies a few years back.
Fans and admirers of Charisse will want to check out this film for a chance to see her at home in the world of ballet. Many dancers in Hollywood were tap dancers, but Cyd Charisse came from a ballet background. The ballet influence is evident in her work in things like BRIGADOON, for instance, but in THE UNFINISHED DANCE we get to see Cyd Charisse do some real ballet, in a tutu and everything.
The real focus of the movie, however is Margaret O'Brien, MGM's child actress extraordinaire. THE UNFINISHED DANCE is a Hollywood remake of a fascinating French film LA MORT DU CYGNE (a.k.a. "BALLERINA") (1937). It concerns the girls of a dance academy and a sort of tragic mistake. O'Brien is a young dancer who idolizes ballerina Charisse and perceives a visiting prima ballerina (Karin Booth) as a threat. With her idol's best interests at heart, O'Brien sabotages Booth's performance. Booth suffers a career-altering injury and O'Brien is haunted by her guilt, even as Booth becomes a mentor for her at the academy.
Margaret O'Brien was a major child star in the 1940s and MGM adapted LA MORT DU CYGNE as a vehicle for their young actress. What's impressive is that MGM got ten-year-old Margaret O'Brien to actually learn ballet. O'Brien had never been known as a dancer, but she does her own dancing here and is convincing enough. Karin Booth, too, seems to do her own dancing on camera.
MGM adds Hollywood gloss to the plot from the original French film. The tragedy isn't quite so tragic. The irony not quite so defined. While it's a darker role than some would expect from Margaret O'Brien, it's not *too* dark. Danny Thomas plays O'Brien's gentle, vaguely ethnic, de facto guardian and sings a couple of cutesy tunes. The ballet sequences are staged in glorious Technicolor.
The plot is probably good enough for those who haven't seen the French film, although I personally feel the remake suffers by comparison. I prefer the French film for aesthetic and thematic reasons. I would highly recommend checking out LA MORT DU CYGNE ("BALLERINA") if the opportunity arises. It seems to be rather obscure but I caught it on Turner Classic Movies a few years back.
In all my years as a film buff, my only exposure to THE UNFINISHED DANCE (1947) was a black-and-white still image from it in a publication I don't recall. It never ran on television when I was growing up, it never played at revival theaters, and no one ever wrote about it or called attention to it in any of the thousands of articles and book chapters on classic Hollywood cinema I've read over the decades. So when I finally watched it, after recording it off TCM on October 8, 2013, I was astounded at how good it was. Why had no one remarked on this film before? Why is this not touted as, perhaps, Hollywood's greatest film about ballet? Everyone talks about Powell & Pressburger's THE RED SHOES (1948), made in England a year later, but no one mentions this film. Granted, THE RED SHOES is some kind of artistic milestone, when judged by its cinematography, sets, costumes, choreography and prestige cast, but it always left me a bit cold emotionally. It depicts a rarefied world with characters that seem more literary creations than drawn from real life. THE UNFINISHED DANCE operates on a much more expressive emotional plane and its characters seem much more real to me. These characters are truly passionate about dance and they live and breathe it every waking moment the way so many dancers in real life do. The young girls in the film who attend the ballet school come out of working-class New York and we can feel the hunger and the energy these characters bring to their chosen art. And the dance numbers, while not quite as long or lavish as those in THE RED SHOES, are all beautifully shot, staged and orchestrated, all in glorious MGM Technicolor.
What fuels this whole film, of course, is the intensity of Margaret O'Brien's central performance as Meg Merlin, a struggling ballet student who worships the company's prima ballerina, Ariane Bouchet (Cyd Charisse), and would, it turns out, do anything to propel her rise to stardom. When a visiting ballet star, La Darina (Karin Booth), is seen as a rival, Meg commits a surreptitious act that injures La Darina and threatens to end her ballet career forever. Meg's guilt drives the rest of the film, going so far as to ruin her close friendship with fellow student Josie (Mary Eleanor Donahue), and possibly derail her future in ballet. Eventually, she reaches out to La Darina and begins the journey to forgiveness and redemption. It's quite a stirring and emotional spectacle and showcases some wonderful actresses who dominate the narrative.
O'Brien, who was all of ten when she made this, gave closeups steeped in feeling like no other child actress. Every emotion that arises during the film plays out on her face. I don't know that I've ever seen another performance by a child star in Hollywood that comes close. One can make a case for Peggy Ann Garner's performances in JANE EYRE (1943) and A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (1945), and even O'Brien's earlier performance in MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944), but I think THE UNFINISHED DANCE has them all beat. Cyd Charisse and Karin Booth merely have to react to O'Brien to give fine performances. I've seen Booth in other films, but I don't know why she didn't have a more substantial career. She's quite good here, especially in closeup where her striking features are best appreciated, and more than adequate in those dance scenes where she's seen up close. She was, however, doubled in the long shots. As for Charisse, I've seen a number of her MGM musicals, but I've never seen her do the kind of furious ballet dancing she does here. It's quite breathtaking and I wish she'd had more opportunities to display this side of her talent.
Interestingly, the largest male role in the film goes to a then-newcomer who was "introduced" in this film, none other than future sitcom star Danny Thomas. He plays a Greek immigrant shopowner named Paneros who runs a clock store and is the sometime boyfriend of Meg's aunt, who's seen only briefly before heading off on a vaudeville tour and leaving Meg in the care of Paneros, an arrangement that would raise plenty of eyebrows if depicted in a film today. Thomas is certainly charming, but his accented performance is much more self-consciously "folksy" than it would have been if played by one of Hollywood's more skilled character actors at the time. Still, as someone who watched his sitcom ("Make Room for Daddy") as a child, I found his presence here quite comforting and it gave the film added resonance. Another future sitcom star on hand is Elinor Donahue (billed as Mary Eleanor Donahue). I had no idea she'd started as a child performer and it's a fun challenge to imagine how Josie, who knows Meg's secret and holds it over her like a dagger, leading to some vicious behavior, would morph into Robert Young's beloved and level-headed "Princess" on "Father Knows Best." Who knew? She's quite good here and I wonder what other good parts she had as a child.
I'm pleased to see that this film has other positive reviews here. I just wish it were better known and more widely seen. There is a DVD out from the Warner Archive, but it has no extras, not even an audio commentary. It would be great to get one from Margaret O'Brien while she's still with us.
What fuels this whole film, of course, is the intensity of Margaret O'Brien's central performance as Meg Merlin, a struggling ballet student who worships the company's prima ballerina, Ariane Bouchet (Cyd Charisse), and would, it turns out, do anything to propel her rise to stardom. When a visiting ballet star, La Darina (Karin Booth), is seen as a rival, Meg commits a surreptitious act that injures La Darina and threatens to end her ballet career forever. Meg's guilt drives the rest of the film, going so far as to ruin her close friendship with fellow student Josie (Mary Eleanor Donahue), and possibly derail her future in ballet. Eventually, she reaches out to La Darina and begins the journey to forgiveness and redemption. It's quite a stirring and emotional spectacle and showcases some wonderful actresses who dominate the narrative.
O'Brien, who was all of ten when she made this, gave closeups steeped in feeling like no other child actress. Every emotion that arises during the film plays out on her face. I don't know that I've ever seen another performance by a child star in Hollywood that comes close. One can make a case for Peggy Ann Garner's performances in JANE EYRE (1943) and A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (1945), and even O'Brien's earlier performance in MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944), but I think THE UNFINISHED DANCE has them all beat. Cyd Charisse and Karin Booth merely have to react to O'Brien to give fine performances. I've seen Booth in other films, but I don't know why she didn't have a more substantial career. She's quite good here, especially in closeup where her striking features are best appreciated, and more than adequate in those dance scenes where she's seen up close. She was, however, doubled in the long shots. As for Charisse, I've seen a number of her MGM musicals, but I've never seen her do the kind of furious ballet dancing she does here. It's quite breathtaking and I wish she'd had more opportunities to display this side of her talent.
Interestingly, the largest male role in the film goes to a then-newcomer who was "introduced" in this film, none other than future sitcom star Danny Thomas. He plays a Greek immigrant shopowner named Paneros who runs a clock store and is the sometime boyfriend of Meg's aunt, who's seen only briefly before heading off on a vaudeville tour and leaving Meg in the care of Paneros, an arrangement that would raise plenty of eyebrows if depicted in a film today. Thomas is certainly charming, but his accented performance is much more self-consciously "folksy" than it would have been if played by one of Hollywood's more skilled character actors at the time. Still, as someone who watched his sitcom ("Make Room for Daddy") as a child, I found his presence here quite comforting and it gave the film added resonance. Another future sitcom star on hand is Elinor Donahue (billed as Mary Eleanor Donahue). I had no idea she'd started as a child performer and it's a fun challenge to imagine how Josie, who knows Meg's secret and holds it over her like a dagger, leading to some vicious behavior, would morph into Robert Young's beloved and level-headed "Princess" on "Father Knows Best." Who knew? She's quite good here and I wonder what other good parts she had as a child.
I'm pleased to see that this film has other positive reviews here. I just wish it were better known and more widely seen. There is a DVD out from the Warner Archive, but it has no extras, not even an audio commentary. It would be great to get one from Margaret O'Brien while she's still with us.
"The Unfinished Dance" is a color MGM film made in 1947 that depends on the star power and dancing ability of little Margaret O'Brien. Here she plays Meg, a nine-year-old ballet student enamored of the gorgeous prima ballerina, played by Cyd Charisse in a very early role. When the company brings in "La Darina" (Karin Booth) to do some performances, O'Brien is determined that she not succeed. In order for the dancer to be humiliated, she plans, with the help of a friend (Elinor Donahue), to douse the lights during her ballet. It all plays out, except that a trap door opens by mistake, and La Darina's career is over. When La Darina turns to teaching and takes a big interest in Meg's dancing, Meg's guilt becomes unbearable.
The ballet segments are beautiful, and while the intensity of O'Brien's performance may not be for everyone, she is excellent. I confess that she's always been a favorite of mine. Danny Thomas, in a role written for Danny Kaye, makes his debut in this film. It's a somewhat saccharine role, but he appoints himself well.
Charisse is good as a shallow, ambitious dancer who really isn't worthy of Meg's adoration, and Karin Booth is lovely as La Darina, and she's absolutely stunning to boot.
Not to everyone's taste, but a nice niche film from MGM.
The ballet segments are beautiful, and while the intensity of O'Brien's performance may not be for everyone, she is excellent. I confess that she's always been a favorite of mine. Danny Thomas, in a role written for Danny Kaye, makes his debut in this film. It's a somewhat saccharine role, but he appoints himself well.
Charisse is good as a shallow, ambitious dancer who really isn't worthy of Meg's adoration, and Karin Booth is lovely as La Darina, and she's absolutely stunning to boot.
Not to everyone's taste, but a nice niche film from MGM.
Did you know
- TriviaFilm debut of Danny Thomas.
- GoofsWhen Meg is running out of the locker room right after the "accident", a moving shadow of the boom microphone and cable can be seen on a pillar in the background.
- Quotes
Title Card: Long before people sang, they danced. Out of their dancing grew a new world, strange and wonderful - the world of ballet. This is a story of that world, of those who dance, of those who love and of those who hate, and of one who loved too much.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Bunheads: The Astronaut and the Ballerina (2013)
- SoundtracksExcerpts from 'Swan Lake'
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- How long is The Unfinished Dance?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
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- Also known as
- The Unfinished Dance
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Box office
- Budget
- $2,989,000 (estimated)
- Runtime
- 1h 41m(101 min)
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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