|
|
Ring Around the Rosy at Gene Kelly's Invitation
During a self-imposed exile in Europe from January 1952 to August 1953, Gene Kelly choreographed and directed a pet project, a predominantly ballet movie that was finally released by MGM in 1956 as "Invitation to the Dance". The film was produced at a distance by Arthur Freed and shot at MGM's studios near London.
Kelly's geographic separation from Hollywood gave him unusual freedom in gathering dancers for the project. But the filming had to be completed in 1952 to avoid paying income taxes in England, and many dancers from ballet companies would be expected to have already made commitments for the summer months when they would be free to work outside their companies.
The second of the eventual three segments of the movie had the greatest recruitment demands. Gene Kelly conceived a "modern ballet" derived from "Der Reigen," a play by the Austrian Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931). Published in 1900 and variously titled "Rondelay" or "Hands Around", the play comprised 10 scenes of attempted seduction, with one lover in each scene subsequently appearing in the next. In Kelly's version, "Ring Around the Rosy", a bracelet is passed repeatedly from one would-be lover to another.
(Just prior to this project, in 1950, the play had been made into a French film, "La Ronde" (Roundabout), by Max Ophüls. Schnitzler was noted for his erotic comedies; a 1926 novel, "Traumnovelle" or "Dream Story", was the basis for Stanley Kubrick's last film, "Eyes Wide Shut".
In "Ring Around the Rosy", the opening scene is an elegant home where a wedding anniversary party is in progress. The set designs were by Rolf Gerard, who worked in both Paris and New York and was a scenic and costume designer for ballet productions and the Metropolitan Opera. "The Artist" has painted a portrait of "The Wife". "The Husband" arrives, sees the Artist and his Wife embracing, and gives his Wife the bracelet as an anniversary present.
The Husband is played by David Paltenghi (1919-1961), who had danced with the Royal Ballet in the 1940s and also started a career as an actor in British films. He became a choreographer in 1950-51 with the other major British ballet company, Ballet Rambert. After his role in "Rosy", he choreographed or directed a number of British films.
The Wife is played by Daphne Dale. This seems to be her only appearance in a movie, and the role does not include anything beyond conventional ballroom dancing. She may be the Daphne Dale who was a member of London's Festival Ballet (now the English National Ballet) at least in 1953. David Paltenghi could have known her, and Tamara Toumanova ("The Streetwalker", who completes the Ring in returning the bracelet to The Husband) was a guest dancer with Festival Ballet in early 1952, at the time when Kelly's recruiting would have been underway.
The first scene in "Rosy" ends with the Husband's departure and the bracelet on the Wife's arm as she dances with the Artist.
In scene 2, the Artist is in his studio, working on a portrait of a ballerina, "The Model". The Artist is Igor Youskevitch (1912-1994), who was hired by Kelly primarily to play the ballet lead of The Lover in the movie's first segment, "Circus". In the summer of 1952, Youskevitch was a premier danseur at Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre) in New York. He was born in a small Ukrainian community near Kiev, and moved with his family to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, after the Bolshevik Revolution. After experience as a gymnast and an engineering student, at age 20 he was invited by a local concert dancer to learn ballet and become her partner. This led to a Paris debut in 1932, followed by further training there and membership first in Les Ballets Russes de Paris and then in Les Ballets de Monte Carlo in 1938, which led to performances in the U.S. The Ballet Russes remained in the U.S. when World War II began. Youskevitch became a U.S. citizen, served in the U.S. Navy in 1944-46, and joined Ballet Theatre by the end of 1946. His athletic youth and service in the Navy parallel parts of Kelly's history and might have been part of his appeal for Kelly.
As the scene proceeds, it turns out that the Artist now has the bracelet. By the end of the scene, he has given it to the Model, played by Claude Bessy. Bessy (b 1932) was a young prima ballerina at the Paris Opera. Lela Simone and Carol Haney saw her in "Les Indes Galante" and recommended her to Kelly. Gene already had some knowledge of her, arranged a meeting, and made her an offer.
Lela Simone (1907-1997) was the movie's "music coordinator", which in practice meant that she made sure a film's music turned out successfullly, no matter what obstacles might stand in the way. She was a key member of MGM's Freed unit, and Arthur Freed asked her to accompany him to Paris in early May 1952 for planning meetings with Kelly, and to stay to work with Kelly until filming was completed. One of her early recommendations to Freed and Kelly led to retaining Rolf Gerard as set designer for "Rosy".
Lela Simone was born Magdalene Lella Saenger in Berlin. She was a child piano prodigy and left Germany after Hitler came to power in 1933. Conductor Otto Klemperer brought her to Los Angeles to solo with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She became a solo pianist with the MGM studio orchestra in 1936. Roger Edens "discovered" her when he watched her play an incredibly difficult musical accompaniment to an ice ballet in "Ice Follies of 1939". He invited her to join the Freed unit permanently after working with her on "Meet Me in St. Louis" in 1944. She walked away from Arthur Freed and MGM in 1957 after Freed made one impossible request too many. (After production of "Gigi" was completed, he told her to slow down a Leslie Caron song, long after it had been recorded and filmed.)
In addition to his wife, Betsy Blair, and daughter Kerry, Kelly was joined in Europe by his secretary, Lois McClelland (whom he had hired in 1946 after she served as a WAVE secretary in his Navy film unit), and his choreography assistants Jeanne Coyne and Carol Haney. Carol Haney (1924-64) was born and grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and, like Gene Kelly, had her own dancing school as a teenager. She finished high school in 1942 and moved to Los Angeles, where her dancing teachers included Eduardo Cansino, the father of Rita Hayworth, and Ernest Belcher, the father of Marge Champion. Haney and Vera-Ellen had their movie debuts in Samuel Goldwyn's "Wonder Man" (1945), with Haney as one of many chorus dancers and Vera-Ellen as the secondary female lead with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. Haney soon turned to nightclub work, where she joined Jack Cole and his group of dancers. Haney became Cole's assistant and lead dancer, going with him back to Hollywood for several years at Columbia Pictures. Cole and his group returned to nightclub work in 1948, while Haney auditioned successfully for chorus dancer work at MGM.
By this time, Gene Kelly had brought Stanley Donen from Broadway (they met in "Pal Joey") to work with him on choreography and directing. Jeanne Coyne, who had taken dancing lessons from Kelly in Pittsburgh from age 7 and then worked as an assistant in his Johnstown, Pa., school, was already at MGM. After Kelly and Donen worked together on "Living in a Big Way" (1947), they trained Haney and Coyne to be assistant choreographers with Kelly. When Kelly and Donen directed "On the Town" in 1949, Haney assisted Kelly with the choreography and had her first major role as the "Dancer in Green" in Kelly's fantasy ballet. (By this time, the Arthur Freed unit had learned to help audiences follow the individuals in ensemble dances by color-coding the dancers; Carol Haney thus represented Kelly's fantasy about the long-sought Miss Turnstyles, played by the ubiquitous Vera-Ellen.)
Haney and Coyne assisted Kelly for "An American in Paris" in 1950 and "Singin' in the Rain" in 1951, including teaching Leslie Caron how to dance with Gene Kelly in the former and Debbie Reynolds and Cyd Charisse in the latter. Haney also is credited with creating the idiosyncratic moves for Kelly as the Chocolat character in the Moulin Rouge portion of the 17-minute-long "An American in Paris" ballet. The rhythm here is jagged and quirky and had seemed undanceable until Haney worked it out.
In "Invitation to the Dance", Haney appears on-screen as Scheherazade in the third and final "Sinbad the Sailor" segment, and worked with Kelly on the choreography, including being filmed dancing with Kelly as a model for the cartoonists who drew the princess seen in the rest of the segment. (Haney left MGM in 1954 to follow Bob Fosse to Broadway in "The Pajama Game", but she worked again with Kelly in 1958 as choreographer for "Flower Drum Song" when Kelly directed it on Broadway.)
Scene 3: A group of 8 men in formal black are gathered outside a stage door. A character labeled "The Sharpy" or the "Flashy Boyfriend" dashes up to the door and discovers that he is not late after all. Tommy Rall, in a black-and-white checked blazer, dances to help the others pass the time. Women finally emerge, and Rall walks off with the Model. When they stop for hot dogs, Rall notices the bracelet on her arm.
Tommy Rall (b 1929) was one of two dancers Gene Kelly drew from George Balanchine's New York City Ballet. Kelly, who frequently flew to New York to check on Broadway shows while working in Hollywood, had noticed Rall in major dancing roles in two successful Irving Berlin shows: "Miss Liberty" (opened July 15, 1949, at the Imperial Theatre) and "Call Me Madam" (opened October 12, 1950, at the Imperial). These were both choreographed by Jerome Robbins, with whom Rall had been working in several other Broadway shows after they met at New York's Ballet Theatre in 1944 (and later both joined the NYC Ballet). The 14-year-old Rall had already had tap and ballet training as well as acrobatic training, including ballet lessons with Adolf Bohm, David Lichine (who steered Rall to Ballet Theatre), and Bronislava Nijinska. Rall grew up in Seattle and also had already danced in four movies in Hollywood in 1942-43, before joining a Ballet Theatre touring company and staying with it on its return to New York.
By the time "Invitation to the Dance" was finally released, Rall had gone on to major film roles in "Kiss Me Kate" (1953), where he was the secondary male lead, paired with Ann Miller; "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954), where Michael Kidd's choreography showed Rall at his best, even out-doing the acrobatic moves of gymnast Russ Tamblyn in the barn-raising dance; and "My Sister Eileen" (1955), which reunited him with Bob Fosse after "Kate". In this film, Fosse choreographed a competition to see if Rall could match Fosse's style of likewise-athletic moves. Rall did, and the film turned out to provide a last record of the youthful exuberance of both dancers (Fosse was 2½ years older than Rall).
Scene 3 ends with a closeup of the bracelet on Claude Bessy's arm, which dissolves to a matching closeup of the bracelet now on the arm of Rall's new partner, Belita, looking like a copy of Veronica Lake. They are now in a night club, scene 4.
Belita, born Maria Belita Gladys Lyne Jepson-Turner on October 21, 1923, in Garlogs, England, was an English counterpart to Sonja Henie. Belita had been a professional ice skater from childhood, touring the U.S. at age 15 and enjoying several years as the main attraction of the Ice Capades. She was a skater in her first two movies: "Ice-Capades" (1941) and "Silver Skates" (1943). Gene Kelly's younger brother Fred Kelly was director and choreographer of the Ice Capades for three years after World War II, which is possibly what brought her to Gene's attention.
In the night club, Belita is the "Femme Fatale" or "The Debutante". After a brief shot of "The Hat Check Girl", looking bored by the music, "The Crooner" springs onto the stage. Possibly modeled on the exaggerated emotional style of singer Johnnie Ray (briefly famous in the early 1950s for "Cry"), the Crooner mimes and writhes to a highly expressive trombone as women gather at the stage and swoon repeatedly. As the Crooner ravishes the microphone on its stand, the Hat Check Girl expresses her distaste, but the Femme Fatale leaves the dumbfounded Sharpy and walks over the bodies toward the stage. She beckons to the Crooner, who comes down from the stage and, after pausing to smile at the Hat Check Girl, leaves the night club in tow by the Femme Fatale.
The Crooner is played by Irving Davies (1926-2002), a Welsh-born dancer whom Gene Kelly had seen in a London Coliseum production of "Annie Get Your Gun" in 1947. Davies considered Hollywood films to have been a major influence in his early career, and he developed an athletic syle of dancing influenced by Kelly. By 1952, Davies had already begun choreography for West End productions, and his long career included both choreography and dancing in movies, television, and West End and Broadway shows.
Scene 5: The camera has stayed in the night club, now closed and darkened. The Crooner is playing the piano and now wearing the bracelet. The Hat Check Girl wants to leave and brings him his hat. He extends his arm, and she is immediately mesmerized by the bracelet. They dance a jive ballet, during which he gives her the bracelet.
The Hat Check Girl is played by Diana Adams (1926-1993), coming along with Tommy Rall from the New York City Ballet. Adams, born in Staunton, Virginia, had been trained in ballet by her stepmother and by the end of 1943 had appeared in Broadway in the "dancing ensemble" in Agnes de Mille's choreography for "Oklahoma!" and "One Touch of Venus". She joined Ballet Theatre in 1944 and soon moved into the orbit (socially as well as onstage) of choreographer Antony Tudor and Hugh Laing, his lover and dark muse. Adams married Laing in 1947 and moved with Laing and Tudor to the New York City Ballet in late 1948.Financial troubles at Ballet Theatre had led to a lay-off of all dancers in July 1948; operations didn't resume until March 1949. Tudor and Laing left NYC Ballet in 1952, but Adams was George Balanchine's type of dancer; he strongly encouraged her to stay, and created several major roles for her before she retired in 1963 to continue teaching at the NYC Ballet school. Another connection worth noting: Adams went on a national talent-scouting tour in 1959, during which she discovered the 14-year-old Roberta Sue Ficker in Cincinnati, Ohio; Adams arranged an audition with Balanchine, leading to the start of Suzanne Farrell's career with the NYC Ballet.
(Adams stopped living with Hugh Laing after about three years and divorced him in 1953, after her 1952 work with Gene Kelly in Europe. Laing's career as a dancer had remained at a lower level, while Adams moved steadily upward. Apparently by coincidence, Laing's brief attempt at work in Hollywood came in Gene Kelly's next movie, "Brigadoon" (1954), in which Laing had a small part as the rejected and doomed suitor, Harry Beaton. A DVD that includes deleted scenes shows Laing dancing what appears to be some of Agnes de Mille's choreography derived from the original Broadway production.)
"Rosy" jumps to an apartment (scene 6) in which "The Marine" (Gene Kelly) paces the floor, waiting. The Hat Check Girl enters. It is her apartment, and she is startled by the Marine's return on leave. He sees the bracelet and angrily takes it from her. She pleads with him to stay, but he exits.
Scene 7: The Marine emerges from a bar and walks down the sidewalk, past "The Streetwalker" (also called "The Girl on the Stairs"). She beckons, he stops, and they dance briefly. Kelly rejects her, she acts hurt, and the dance resumes. She feels the bracelet in his shirt pocket; he takes it out, puts it on her wrist, and walks away.
The Streetwalker is Tamara Toumanova (1919-1996). In 1951 and 1952, Toumanova performed as a guest artist with La Scala and the London Festival Ballet. She was born on a railway train in Siberia headed for Shanghai as her mother fled the chaos of post-World-War-I Russia in search of her father, a Georgian named Tumanishvili. They eventually reached Paris via Cairo, and Toumanova began to study ballet with an older emigré Russian ballerina, Olga Preobrajenska. Another emigré, George Balanchine, raided Preobrajenska's studio in 1932, hiring the 13-year-old Toumanova, 12-year-old Irina Baronova, and 15-year-old Tatiana Riabouchinska for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. At about the same time, 20-year-old Igor Youskevitch arrived in Preobrajenska's studio for two years of study. It is unclear whether Youskevitch met Toumanova then, but their careers intersected later at Ballet Theatre in New York in the 1940s.
During the Ballets Russes 1933 tour in London, ballet writer Arnold Haskell dubbed the three girls the "baby ballerinas". Also in 1933, Sol Hurok promoted the U.S. tour of the ballet company, with a revised name of Colonel de Basil's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. During a financial downturn at Ballet Theater in 1941, Hurok and the Russian dancers became the base of the organization. Toumanova and Riabouchinska remained with Ballet Theatre until 1945. By then, Toumanova also had had an acting role in the 1939 Broadway musical, "Stars in Your Eyes", with Jimmy Durante and Ethel Merman, music by Arthur Schwartz, and a ballet company drawn from Ballet Theatre. She also reached Hollywood before "Invitation", appearing as a dancer in "Spanish Fiesta" (1942) and as an actress with Gregory Peck in his film debut, "Days of Glory" (1944).
Scene 8: The Streetwalker enters the scene as the Husband emerges from a hotel. She puts her hand on his arm, and he sees the bracelet. He gives her a wad of bills for it, and she runs off.
In the final scene, the Husband returns home, where the party is continuing. He gives the bracelet to the butler, directing him to give it to the Wife. She is grateful for its return, they embrace, and go upstairs together in a fine display of European vivre et se laisser vivre.
The saga of "Rosy" was not quite complete: the filming in England had proceeded mostly without music! A score had been commissioned from British composer Malcolm Arnold, but the result was unsatisfactory and was used as a guide for only part of the filming. For the rest, Kelly's assistant Carol Haney guided the movements in each scene with claps and counts.
Back in Hollywood in 1953, MGM studio composer-conductor André Previn (b 1929) was asked by Arthur Freed to create new music for the completed film. Guided by Haney and/or Lela Simone, Previn was taken back to the era of silent movies, but now with viewer expectations that music and movement would match precisely. Previn was up to the challenge, and the final product benefited from the late addition; Irving Davies would have had fits trying to lip-synch to a wailing trombone.
© 2014