"It's Always Fair Weather" is Delightfully Fun Even With That Dark Heart Underneath

There's no denying that It's Always Fair Weather is a loose, at times surprisingly moody, movie, but it's also a film that's often enough having a lot of fun in its attempts to make us have a good time that it's hard to refuse it's gleefully playful dance and musical routines (even if melancholic, emotionally sour sentiments underlie many of them).

Take the film's best, most memorable sequence, an extended dance sequence where Gene Kelly dances on roller blades:

It's a bravura piece of choreography, fantastically executed by Kelly with the appearance of effortless, acrobatic grace. The physicality he puts into a routine that is already difficult to begin with is jaw dropping and makes the sequence all the more entertaining. Kelly revels in the chance to show off his abilities and he's having so much fun doing it that we in turn can't help but roll along with it.

And there's plenty of other beautifully staged dance routines set to music that are just as infectious and indelible -- two impressive ones worth noting are a tap dance routines with trash can lids and a three way split screen showing actors dancing in sync while in different locations. That most of the music is about friendship and love helps and fits with how the film treats its eye-popping Technicolor stage world. The film acts as if its world is a little unreal (though some of the underlying sentiments hit close to the Post-War home), even dropping in some mild but hilarious satire (notably the awful fake variety show "Midnight with Madeline" filled with absurd product placement and featuring a ditz --- Dolores Gray -- that puts Lina Lamont to shame).

Though it is as slapstickish and eye-candied as other MGM musicals, it's also a lot darker than many others. The broken friendship between former GI pals (Kelly, Dan Dailey, Michael Kidd) at the film's center gets surprisingly bleak; not to mention the film's subplot where Kelly's character preps to fix a boxing match. The story doesn't always work, and it doesn't help that the film keeps getting distracted by extraneous plots -- including a long break where Cyd Charisse's Madeline goofs off at a boxing ring (that while admittedly fun doesn't advance the plot at all). But the dance sequences are pretty splendid all the same and what is a musical if not its music and its dancing. 

Grade: B