The Band Wagon (1953) on Netflix
Passed19531h 52mComedyMusicalRomance
Fading film star Tony Hunter comes to New York, where Lily and Lester Marton pitch him their Broadway musical. Jeffrey Cordova turns it into a Faust with ballerina Gabrielle Gerard.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.4/1013,745 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes95%
Trailer
Plot summary
Tony Hunter, a song-and-dance star whose top-hat-and-tails screen musicals have gone out of fashion, takes the train to New York. At Grand Central Terminal the reporters on the platform have come for another star traveling on the same train, not for him. His friends Lily and Lester Marton, a Broadway writing couple, greet him with the stage musical they have just finished, and they want the actor-director Jeffrey Cordova to stage it. Cordova, who is starring in and directing Oedipus Rex, seizes on one line of their light story and turns it into a modern Faust, with himself as the Devil. He brings in the ballerina Gabrielle Gerard as leading lady, and her mentor and boyfriend Paul Byrd as choreographer. Tony and Gabrielle meet and take an instant dislike to each other.
Cast
- India Adamsas Gabrielle Gerard
- Brandon Beachas Auction Guest
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Band Wagon (1953)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- For The Band Wagon, "A Shine on Your Shoes" was reworked by jazz arranger Skip Martin to showcase all of Fred Astaire's musical talents, and it remains the only time Astaire danced on-screen with a black dancer, the uncredited Leroy Daniels.
- One musical number shot for The Band Wagon was dropped from the release: a seductive routine in which Cyd Charisse performs "Two-Faced Woman", with her singing dubbed by India Adams. Adams's recording was reused in Torch Song for a Joan Crawford number, and the footage was first made public in the 1994 retrospective That's Entertainment! III.
- Songwriters Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz wrote "That's Entertainment!" specifically for The Band Wagon; the number became a hit and then a standard of popular music.
- Screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green modeled the characters Lester and Lily Marton on themselves, even though the fictional pair were a married couple and the two writers were not romantically involved.
