It's Always Fair Weather

It’s Always Fair Weather is a film filled with some of the best, under heralded dance sequences in the MGM canon and a story that is underwhelming. There’s very much a tonal and narrative problem at play here as Fair Weather tries to be a satire of television, an exploration of post-war malaise, and a shiny/happy MGM musical romantic-comedy all in one. That’s a lot of movie to carry and Fair Weather doesn’t always carry the load evenly.

Even if the story involving three WWII soldiers reuniting ten years afterwards is most interesting when it explores the disillusionment of the GIs, Fair Weather strays too far from this central premise to register as an underrated classic. Dolores Gray’s Madeline Bradville, a wonderfully theatrical parody of TV hostess of the era, takes too long to pay off in the narrative and exists as an intrusion far too often. A happy intrusion in a way as Gray is hilarious in the part, but it feels like her part could’ve been pared down without losing much to the overall narrative.

Populating this uneven narrative are a series of truly wonderful dance scenes. There’s Cyd Charisse and a bunch of pugilists making “Baby You Knock Me Out” a KO. Gene Kelly, Michael Kidd and Dan Dailey transform trash can lids into tap shoes during a drunken reverie. Kelly’s “I Like Myself” involves him alternating between smoothly skating through the streets then tapping on them in jubilant bursts. While Gray’s “Thanks A Lot, But No, Thanks” is like Frank Tashlin hijacked the director’s chair and had one of his sexy characters bomb her suitors.

It's Always Fair Weather is still more than worthy of your time. It’s one of the sourest, strangest productions to come out of the storied Arthur Freed unit. Think of it as a sarcastic inverse of On the Town by picking up where that film left off.