Capital Celluloid 2019 - Day 343: Mon Dec 9

Kiss Me Kate (Sidney, 1953): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6pm


This 3-D 35mm presentation is part of the BFI musicals season (details here). The screening will be introduced by season programmer Robin Baker. There are other presentation of the film on the same day at 2pm and 8.40pm. Full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
One of the classiest and most experimental 3-D efforts from Hollywood—as well as one of the best MGM musicals of the 1950s that didn't come from the Arthur Freed unit. Adapted by Dorothy Kingsley from the successful 1948 Cole Porter stage musical and directed by the underrated George Sidney, this 1953 feature does interesting things with mirrors, windows, and the relationship between stage and audience, playing on the differences between theatrical and film space and, paradoxically, exploiting 3-D as an artificial and antirealistic effect. Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel play an estranged couple who uneasily join forces in a musical version of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, with much comic confusion between life and art. The cast (including Ann Miller, Tommy Rall, Bobby Van, Bob Fosse, and Carol Haney) and score are consistently pleasurable.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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