"New York, New York;" it's a terrible song.

Just for the record, the Saenger Theater in Downtown Pensacola is showing a series of ten classic movies, one a week, for ten weeks starting July 14. Each movie will be shown on Saturday at 7, and the movies are On the Town, The Maltese Falcon, 42nd Street, Show Boat, Citizen Kane, My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof, The Music Man, Casablanca, and The Wizard of Oz. Tickets are $5 each, or $40 for ten. The selections were apparantly made based on public opinion polls at some point, which probably explains why seven of the ten movies are musicals. Why the first was On the Town was a bit of a mystery to me, until I saw it in a packed theater of all kinds of people who loved it, from families to couples. Everybody wildly enjoyed it, and the experience, a few technical difficulties aside, was wonderful. It will probably be amplified by some of those better movies they'll be showing later on, because the great setting didn't make this movie any better.

On the Town was directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen a couple years before they made Singin' in the Rain and, though it may be a bit unfair to compare the two, it is far inferior to its successor. I suppose I could understand someone loving the movie if it was one of the first classic musicals they had seen and didn't know any better, but I can't see it as anything but a lame stepping stone on a path to actual greatness. The whole movie is the very definition of corny, with the songs being largely bland and forgettable, the staging of the songs being very awkward, and everything in-between the songs being a bunch of stupid jokes that go nowhere. The whole point of the movie is that three sailors, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin, have one day of shore leave in New York City, and they pretty much just want some G-rated musical sex. One of the biggest reasons for the film's popularity must be all the innuendo, with songs like "Prehistoric Man" and "Come Up to My Place," having surprisingly racy lyrics for 1949, though it's all very tame now.

The sailors inevitably each end up with a woman, Ann Miller, Betty Garrett, and Vera Ellen. Miller is probably the highlight of the whole movie, with a significantly more vibrant personality than anyone else present, or maybe it's just that outfit she probably specifically picked out just in case she ended up tap-dancing. Garrett and Miller fail to make an impression as likeable or even appealing characters and you wonder why the sailors go so crazy for them until you realize that they're just as uninteresting. Each character has one thing they do: Kelly desperately searches for Ellen, Ellen pretends to be high-class (but that's just a lie), Sinatra tries to see all the sights he can, Garrett frantically tries to show Sinatra the sights in her apartment, Munshin jumps around like a mental patient on a bad sitcom, and Miller smiles and looks pretty and probably wishes she had gotten into a better movie.

Yes, my dislike of this film is almost entirely based on the fact that it's not as good as others, but why settle? The most inspired moment in this movie is also the most unnecessary, a ballet recap of the entire thing, not un like the climax of An American in Paris, which is a million times better. I've seen On the Town twice and neither time did I enjoy it or feel that it was a notable acheivement in any way. I guess the one thing it does have going for it is some sort of longevity, which would explain the hundreds of satisfied customers at the Saenger last night. Oh well, next week is The Maltese Falcon, and that is well worth going out of your way to see.