George Sidney's Kiss Me Kate, from 1953, is a missed opportunity. albeit one with magic moments. The standout sections are the dance numbers where Ann Miller, Bobby Van, Carol Haney and Bob Fosse let it rip on the MGM soundstage. Fosse's duet with Ms. Haney during the "From This Moment On" number is his best hoofing on celluloid. However, much of the remainder falls flat. Sidney films the comic vignettes as if they were vaudeville routines. The bits are dwarfed by the set which dominates the frame, proscenium arch and all. The shots where scarves, bananas and goblets are hurled at the camera are certainly a sop to the 3D format much like the carnival barker spinning a Yo-yo at the screen in De Toth's House of Wax.
The main problem with Kiss Me Kate, like most MGM musicals of this era, is that a lively musical stage production was neutered and turned into a candy-coated MGM product. It is bad enough that they bowdlerized Cole Porter's lyrics, but Dorothy Kingsley's screenplay loses much of the backstage flavor that makes the musical such a kick in the pants onstage. Kingsley shifts the opening to a penthouse apartment and it takes Ann Miller in pink, tap dancing on the tables and singing "Too Darn Hot" to enliven the leaden first act. Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel seem vapid today, but at least it wasn't Deanna Durbin and Danny Kaye. Both "Bianca", briefly glimpsed as Keel exits stage left, and "Another Op'nin, Another Show" are two numbers that are sorely missed. Like Pal Joey, a later Sidney-Kingsley collaboration, this is superior material turned into anodyne entertainment.
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