Saturday, October 16, 2010

Peter Filichia's Diary: The Movie That Should Have Been Made

Theatremania's Peter Filichia recently read Mark Griffin's new biography on Vincente Minnelli and wonders about the movie that should have been made...

Had a good time reading Mark Griffin’s very well-written and researched A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli. How nice to know more about such films as Cabin in the Sky, Meet Me in St. Louis, The Clock, Ziegfeld Follies, An American in Paris, The Band Wagon, Brigadoon, Kismet, Tea and Sympathy, Gigi, The Reluctant Debutante, Bells Are Ringing and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. None of us, I suspect, can resist any book that includes the line “I witnessed a nasty scene that Dolores Gray made.”

But the most intriguing paragraph for me was the one that started Chapter Five. “In January, 1937,” it began, “Minnelli drove through the Paramount gates for the first time. Never one to start small, he proposed that his first production should be an innovative musical mystery entitled Times Square. Minnelli envisioned the film as an all-star extravaganza that would incorporate scenes from actual Broadway shows currently on the boards.”

Read the full article at this link.