I don't enjoy seeing Renee Zellweger in movies. In fact, I find her so unappealing that it takes a powerful pull to get me into a theater if she's in the film. I went to see Chicago because I love big flashy musicals, and I enjoyed it despite her presence, never mind the zillions of fast edits designed to disguise the fact that none of the leads could actually dance. But Zellweger was not just her usual squinty-eyed, overly-soft-voiced self: she looked terrible in that film, puffy and red-faced and shiny, and I thought that if that was the best that could be done by a roomful of highly-paid professionals whose expertise is in making people look their best, she must have been a truly sorry sight during filming. She looked so bad that I had trouble facing her in close-ups, and have vowed not to see the film again until digital technology has advanced so far that actors we don't like can be replaced. I'd love, for instance, to see Steve Martin's excellent Roxanne without Daryl Hannah's wooden performance; in that case, it might be enough to dub in the voice of an actual actress, since Hannah is at least easy on the eyes. But Renee Zellweger will have to be replaced completely before I'll be able to stomach another showing of Chicago.
I am thinking of this because I have just watched Easter Parade, starring Judy Garland and Fred Astaire, for about the hundredth time. Judy Garland could use some work in this movie; she's painfully thin, badly dressed most of the time, and I sincerely hope that whoever was doing her hair never worked in the business again. But the real swap-out I want to see is for Astaire. He does a fine job in the movie; he can act, sing, and dance, which was a rare triple treat even back in the Golden Age. Garland can sing, act, and do a few moves, but Astaire needed a couple of solo numbers to really show his stuff, and he does: both "Drum Crazy" and "Steppin' Out With My Baby" are good dance numbers, especially the latter.
So it's not for any of Astaire's deficiencies that I want him replaced in my special-order digital version: it's just that I want to see the movie that was meant to be. Gene Kelly was cast in the role, but broke an ankle, and Astaire came out of retirement to fill in, because, as we all know, the show must go on. Whenever I watch it, I can see Gene Kelly in my mind, delivering the lines, dancing the numbers, even (and this is a bit painful, because Kelly couldn't sing) singing the songs. I don't want the Fred Astaire Easter Parade erased from history, I just want the Gene Kelly version, too. Many of the numbers are better suited to Kelly's earthiness than to Astaire's elegance, though Astaire's versatility shines through--I'm not sure Kelly could have stepped into a typical Astaire role and pulled it off as well as Astaire does this. And I'd like to see Gene Kelly and Judy Garland together in something other than that terrible pirate movie they made in 1948 for Vincente Minnelli. Someday, some clever person with a roomful of very powerful computers is going to make a big splash with Gene Kelly and Judy Garland: Together At Last in the Easter Parade That Should Have Been. And I'll be first in line for tickets.
p.s. While they're at it, they can fix the terrible hairpiece Ann Miller is stuck with in the otherwise wonderful "Shakin' The Blues Away" in Easter Parade. Did they really think, in a Technicolor film, we wouldn't notice that the bottom half of her hair is six shades darker than the stuff on top? Every time I've seen the movie, starting when I was ten years old, I've been distracted from Miller's rapid-fire precision tapping by The Hairpiece From Hell. For crying out loud.
Posted by Su Penn at August 20, 2003 04:13 PM | TrackBack