Q: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, and Jose Iturbi star in "Anchors Aweigh," directed by George Sidney.

Kelly and Sinatra are Joe and Clarence, two navy guys on leave in Hollywood. They meet a little boy (Dean Stockwell) and on taking him home, they meet his aunt (Grayson). Clarence falls for her. She wants an audition for Jose Iturbi. They try to help, but there's a mix-up.

This is a very energetic musical with great dancing and singing by Kelly and Sinatra. Kelly gets to dance with Jerry the Mouse in a delightful sequence. Grayson sings Jalousie and My Heart Sings. Not one of my favorite voices, but she does well. Iturbi's piano work is beautiful.

Sinatra gets to show his versatility and why the girls swooned over him, with those big blue eyes and boyish face. For Kelly, this was a major break for him at MGM.

Wonderful movie, very buoyant.
A: positive
Q: I just read the comments of TomReynolds2004 and feel I have to jump in here. I understand he doesn't like the film, but his reasons are not evident. My feeling regarding this film is that it is not afraid to travel the darker roads of loneliness, failure, disappointment and sorrow. Each of these two people, as portrayed, have plenty of reasons to be bitter and angry, yet find tenderness and comfort in each the other. Only great acting could make this work without becoming an emotional quagmire, sentimental and sappy. I really became interested in these people because of their overwhelming humanity given to them by such strong performances. I have every reason to dislike Jane Fonda for her Vietnam era actions, but personal feelings apart, she is fabulous in this role. Robert DeNiro is superb as a man whose intelligence and goodness begins to fail him in a world indifferent to his abilities. This is the first I have seen DeNiro using tenderness rather than toughness to sell a character and I really like it. This film was a big surprise when I first viewed it and I look forward to seeing it again.
A: positive
Q: This obvious pilot for an unproduced TV series features young Canadian actress Shiri Appleby as an amnesiac with some pretty incredible powers that must be put to use when a man-turned-flying demon is let loose on the world. The CGI is par for a TV job, and Appleby is OK as an amnesiac but hard to swallow as a superheroine. Familiar TV face Richard Burgi is along for the ride as Appleby's mentor, but he can do nothing to elevate this dreck above the mediocre level. We see way too much of the cartoonish flying demon right from the start, a bad sign. Also, the scenes where Burgi is training Appleby for battle are actually laughable. They are a bad copy of similar scenes in several other movies, most notably REMO WILLIAMS.
A: negative
Q: Myron Breckinridge (Rex Reed!!!) gets a sex change from a doctor (John Carradine--dead drunk) and comes out as Myra (Raquel Welch). She then decides to destroy male masculinity (or something like that) and proceeds to teach film history at an acting college run by lecherous John Huston (don't ask) and break up a young happy couple (young, handsome, hunky Roger Herren and Farrah Fawcett--yes THE Farrah Fawcett).

They took a great novel by Gore Vidal that was unfilmable and, naturally, tried to film it. They also hired an English guy with a decidedly Anti-American attitude and hired a bunch of actors with questionable "talent" (Welch, Reed) and embarassed old professionals (Huston, Carradine, Andy Devine, Jim Backus, Mae West), threw it all together and....SURPRISE!!! An absolute disaster.

The film got an X rating at its release (it's been lowered to an R), mostly because of a truly tasteless scene in which Welch sodomizes Rusty (Roger Herren) and a scene in which Welch attempts to have sex with Fawcett.

The movie is very scattershot...scenes jump all over the place and people say and do things that make no sense. It's not good at all but I was never bored.

Acting varies wildly...Reed is horrible...really sad. Huston chews the scenery again and again and AGAIN to a nauseating extreme. Welch is actually not bad as Myra but her lines make no sense so you never know what to make of her. West is hardly in the movie (a blessing) and it's really kind of sick to hear a woman almost 80 years old cracking sex jokes. Roger Herren (whatever happened to...) was very young, handsome and not bad as Rusty. Fawcett is OK.

It's hard to find things to say about this...you just watch it in disbelief. A must see movie--to believe!!!!
A: negative