Embrasse-moi, chérie

Total delight from start to finish, this witty, musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. This show within a show is bright and splashy and boasts terrific performances, songs, dancing, and costumes. Howard Keel plays the egotistic Fred Graham who us mounting this new musical with ex-wife Lilli Vanessi (Kathryn Grayson) as his leading lady. The battling couple mirrors the battling couple in the play. All very clever.

As good as Grayson and Keel as however, Ann Miller totally steals the show as Lois Lane, the brassy chorus girl Fred has given a part (the younger sister) in the play. Miller is fantastic as she sings and dances her way through some great numbers: It's Too Darn Hot, From This Moment On, Always True to You, and Tom, Dick or Harry. Her opening number of Too Darn Hot is astounding as she swirls and taps around Cole Porter's living room and across his table tops. The skin tight tassled red outfit is probably the sexiest outfit Miller ever wore and she looks great. She was always denied the starring roles in MGM musicals which is a shame. MGM preferred the more demure types like Grayson or Judy Garland, Jane Powell, Debbie Reynolds for starring roles and Miller always got stuck playing the flashy friend or other woman.

Also good in this great musical are Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore as the thugs who get to sing Brush Up Your Shakespeare. Bob Fosse, Bobby Van, and Tommy Rall are the three dancers. Carol Haney and Jeanne Coyne show up for the From This Moment On number with Miller and the Boys. Ann Codee is the maid, Claud Allister is the butler, Willard Parker is Tex, Dave O'Brien is the stage manager, Kurt Kaznar is the stage father, and Ron Randell plays Cole Porter.

Originally done in 3-D, Kiss Me Kate is shock full of great songs and some of the best lyrics ever heard. For those of us growing up in the 50s, most of the songs from this musical are familiar hits, including Wunderbar, From This Moment On, Always True to You, and So In Love.

Kiss Me Kate is a textbook musical that works on all levels. Keel and Grayson were never better, Miller is outstanding, Whitmore and Wynn are fun, and Tommy Rall gets a couple of dance numbers (Why Can't You Behave) that prove him to be one of the best dancers of his generation. The short dance solo with Fosse and Haney also presages much of Fosse's later groundbreaking choreography.

Not a false step in this film, which ranks as one of the great musicals.

This was the last of the six movies that Kathryn Grayson made with Howard Keel, her favorite costar. And it's the last movie she would make for MGM (she'd make one more movie, for Paramount three years later, which is best left a forgotten footnote in film history). Not only are the Cole Porter songs in "Kate" great, but the dancing from one of my favorites of all time, Ann Miller, is also quite exceptional. And like always, the chemistry is there between Grayson and Keel. By this point, MGM musicals were on the downside slope of the bell curve, but this one was still well worth the effort. A solid 7/10.

Kiss Me, Kate was first released at the time that the movie screens were exploading into large formats to get people away from their T.V. sets and back into the theaters, and 3-D films came out of hiding and the only musical film to be shot in the 3-D format was Kiss Me, Kate, and stereophonic sound, to me, was better in those days than it is today, but the film gave everyone in it the chance to do their finest work, but it's a shame that they will not release a 3-D Version of this film on Home Video. The distributors would make a fortune!

Everyone knows the plot of Kiss Me, Kate, so there's no sense in going into that. Kathryn Grayson, Hollywood's finest singer of all time replaced Patricia Morrison who played Lilli on Broadway, and Howard Keel replaced Alfred Drake who played Fred Graham on Broadway, and Ann Miller replaced Lisa Kirk who played Lois on Broadway, and it's not too well known but Lisa Kirk dubbed Everything's Coming Up Roses for Rosalind Russell in the movie version of Gypsy!

Tommy Rall who replaced Harold Lang in the Broadway version, to me, was never given a fair chance in Hollywood. An excellent singer and versatile dancer, but still he shines in his work in Kiss Me, Kate and for his work in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers as the brother Frank who got upset when he was called by his real name.

This movie is a good example as to why Broadway stars are not necessarily good for repeating their Broadway roles on the screen. The cast in this movie is excellent in their acting, singing and dancing and I can not picture the Broadway cast repeating their roles in the movie version. To me, it just wouldn't work!

Casting Ann Miller in the role of Lois Lane was a good break for Ann Miller since she was always given roles in past movies that showed her off as a gal who had an overly-obnoxious appetite for the opposite sex. This film gave her a chance to display her full range of talent which had in the past been overlooked, but what can a person say about her number Too Darn Hot that burned up the screen and made Lilli [Kathryn Grayson] furious with her co-star Fred-er-rick Gray-ham [Howard Keel] to the point that she called him a louse of stage in front of the cast in the play! She couldn't call him what Patricia Morrison called Alfred Drake in the Broadway play because in those days the Hayes Office wouldn't allow Kathryn Grayson to call Howard Keel a ba****d!

Keenyn Wynn and James Whitmore played the comical gangsters that were to collect a marker from Howard Keel which was really signed by Tommy Rall and when they do their number Brush Up Your Shakespeare, it's hilarious. Not because Wynn can't sing and dance, he can, but because James Whitmore gave it all he could, but faked the number beautifully, and Whitmore had the good sense never to perform in a musical ever again, but together they were excellent in their comedic performance as the gangsters in the film.

So, you guys who distribute this movie - give us guys and gals a break and release this in the original wide-screen 3-D version with stereophonic sound and let everyone see why:

KISS ME KATE - IS "STILL" GREAT!

Great adaptation of the Broadway musical with a wonderful Cole Porter score. Yes the plot is just an excuse (though not a flimsy one) to put the numbers together, but so what? Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel are very good as battling exes who are destined to be together, in the best tradition of Scarlett and Rhett, with a dash of His Girl Friday thrown in. Plus, it's all acted out amidst Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, which provides for some great comic moments. Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore as the two gangsters are hilarious in the classic "Brush Up Your Shakespeare." Bob Fosse, who plays Bianca's blond suitor in the "Shrew" play-within-a-play, electrifies the screen with Carol Haney in their short but spectacular dance during the "From This Moment On" number. But it is Ann Miller who steals the show with her tradmark perkiness, charm and dynamite dancing skills, demonstrated memorably in another classic, "Too Darn Hot," and her numbers with Tommy Rall. Definitly recommended if you want a laugh, a tune to hum and a great show to see.

The movie is not the same as the stage production but it stands on its own as one of the best MGM musicals of the era. Howard Keel and Katherine Grayson were never better in any other of their films; Ann Miller is her usual energetic and delightful self, plus you get to see some superb dancers who made very few films at all, and they are all at the top of their form: Tommy Rall, Jeannie Coyne, Bob Fosse, Carol Haney and Bobby Van. The big closing number, From This Moment On, is a showcase for those five dancers plus Miller...look out for Fosse and Haney's amazing hipster/be-bop flavored segment! That song was added to the movie from another Porter show and it is the highlight of this great movie!