“Anchors Aweigh” is a Hollywood musical about two sailors on a four day shore leave in Hollywood where they meet a young boy and his aunt, an aspiring singer, and try to help her get an audition at MGM in Culver City. Producer Joe Pasternak and director George Sidney (“Bathing Beauty” 1944) gave this project the full Metro treatment with Jule Styne and Sammy Kahn writing the songs and Jose Iturbi conducting his orchestra. It won one Oscar (with four other nominations) for Best Scoring of a Motion Picture for George Stoll, and was very successful at the box office for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly were the stars of the show, the first of three movies they appeared in together. (The other two were “On the Town” and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” both from 1949, not to mention the “That’s Entertainment” film compilations of 1974 and 1976.) The talents and charisma of the pair were essential to the success of this project. Co-stars include Kathryn Grayson as the aspiring singer and Dean Stockwell as her nephew. This was his second film as a child actor, with his career on the big screen and television lasting from 1945 to 2016.
The cast is rounded out by Pamela Britton, Rags Ragland, Billy Gilbert, Leon Ames, Carlos Ramirez, Grady Sutton, and Henry O’Neill as Admiral Hammond. In a live action-animated fantasy sequence, Jerry Mouse (of “Tom & Jerry” fame) and Tom Cat do a dance with Gene Kelly. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s watchable “Anchors Aweigh” was filmed in beautiful Technicolor, a classic musical that is still enjoyed by audiences well into the twenty-first century.
Anchors Aweigh (1945)
cinema
My Review
“Anchors Aweigh” is a Hollywood musical about two sailors on a four day shore leave in Hollywood where they meet a young boy and his aunt, an aspiring singer, and try to help her get an audition at MGM in Culver City. Producer Joe Pasternak and director George Sidney (“Bathing Beauty” 1944) gave this project the full Metro treatment with Jule Styne and Sammy Kahn writing the songs and Jose Iturbi conducting his orchestra. It won one Oscar (with four other nominations) for Best Scoring of a Motion Picture for George Stoll, and was very successful at the box office for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly were the stars of the show, the first of three movies they appeared in together. (The other two were “On the Town” and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” both from 1949, not to mention the “That’s Entertainment” film compilations of 1974 and 1976.) The talents and charisma of the pair were essential to the success of this project. Co-stars include Kathryn Grayson as the aspiring singer and Dean Stockwell as her nephew. This was his second film as a child actor, with his career on the big screen and television lasting from 1945 to 2016.
The cast is rounded out by Pamela Britton, Rags Ragland, Billy Gilbert, Leon Ames, Carlos Ramirez, Grady Sutton, and Henry O’Neill as Admiral Hammond. In a live action-animated fantasy sequence, Jerry Mouse (of “Tom & Jerry” fame) and Tom Cat do a dance with Gene Kelly. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s watchable “Anchors Aweigh” was filmed in beautiful Technicolor, a classic musical that is still enjoyed by audiences well into the twenty-first century.