Serious Screen Fare, but Flying High on Stage

Abstract

After a false start on one project for MGM (which did ultimately resurface for them a few years later), Comden and Green discovered that Gene Kelly loved an idea they had had for a follow-up to the stage musical On the Town, and that scenario (about three guys reuniting ten years after their service together in World War II) became the basis for their newest film. With music by André Previn, the movie, It’s Always Fair Weather, starred Kelly, along with Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd. Before they completed work on the screenplay a call from Jerome Robbins had them at work on their next stage project; they contributed additional songs to the new version of Peter Pan he was staging. It was the classic that starred Mary Martin.