In 1952, Fred Astaire starred alongside the stunning dancer Cyd Charisse in the 1952 musical comedy “The Band Wagon.” The storyline is that an aging musical star wants to kickstart his career with a new production. The play’s director brings in a prima ballerina to aid in a pretensions retelling of the story of Faust. The two stars clash terribly.
Despite being a modest box office success, The Band Wagon was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” in 1995. Then, in 2006, this film ranked #17 on the American Film Institute’s list of best musicals.
The film was directed by Vincente Minelli and was a typical luscious Technicolor splendor of the era. The colors used in this film are stunning and the set design, costume design and choreography are second to none. This scene, known as the Girl Hunt Ballet, is based off a Mikey Spillane pulp novel writer story The Girl Hunters. Famous line from this scene, “She was bad, she was dangerous. I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her, but, she was my kind of woman.”
