Saw The Band Wagon, a show-biz musical film about an old-fashioned vaudeville-type dancer who's star is fading. He teams up with his writer chums, an artistically gay director, and a ballet dancer to put one The Show That Will Save His Career. The film is very self-referential. The aging dancer is Fred Astaire (I drew a picture of him, here.) The director says the play is going to be a magnificent collage of ballet, music, art, and the classics of theater. The director is made into the pretentious artist archetype later on, but he's got his finger firmly on the pulse of this film. Its red nose firmly in place, it is entertainment first and drama a distant second. There's an obligatory romance but most of the fun comes from just watching a show be put on. We have to suffer through a few tedious musical numbers (Louisiana Hayride!) but it's all in good fun.
I wasn't exactly in the mood for simple fun tonight unfortunately, so I wasn't really as swept away as I might have been. This movie's kind of the epitome of the meaningless, goofy old musical.
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