Kiss Me Kate (1953) on Netflix
Approved19531h 49mComedyMusicalRomance
Divorced actors Fred Graham and Lilli Vanessi play Petruchio and Katherine in a Broadway musical of The Taming of the Shrew. The former spouses clash from the outset.
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- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.0/107,365 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
Broadway actor Fred Graham is staging The Taming of the Shrew as a musical, with a score by Cole Porter, and wants his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi to play Katherine opposite his Petruchio. At Fred's New York apartment, Cole Porter plays So In Love for them, and both like the song, though Lilli keeps her distance from Fred. Lilli is engaged to Tex Callaway, a wealthy Texas rancher, and turns the part down until Fred and Cole offer it to Lois Lane, who auditions for Bianca. Lois's boyfriend Bill Calhoun plays Lucentio in the show and gambles heavily; he owes a local gangster two thousand dollars and puts Fred's name on the IOU.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Kiss Me Kate (1953)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Kiss Me Kate was MGM's second venture into 3-D after Arena: studio head Dore Schary was skeptical of the format but made the film that way under pressure from studio executives, and MGM also prepared a standard two-dimensional version in case audiences rejected 3-D.
- Bob Fosse, who played Hortensio, was allowed to choreograph a short dance segment for himself and Carol Haney in "From This Moment On"; he later described the moment as a turning point in his career.
- The Production Code Administration forced changes to the stage version's more suggestive lyrics, including replacing a reference to the Kinsey Report in "Too Darn Hot" with "the latest report".
- Cole Porter opposed cutting "Another Op'nin', Another Show" from the film, so the song survives only as an instrumental, with its chorus melody inserted into "Why Can't You Behave?" as a dance sequence and used as incidental music elsewhere.
- Kiss Me Kate is often called the first 3-D musical, but Those Redheads from Seattle, also a 3-D musical, was released by Paramount Pictures on October 16, 1953.
