Kiss Me Kate
Director: George Sidney
Year Released: 1953
Rating: 2.0
Cole Porter teams up with the Bard for a singing, dancing version of The Taming of the Shrew with the added attraction of utilizing parallel storylines (on-stage taming and off-stage taming!) and Bob Fosse's jazz hands stealing the show. The on-stage aspect - the 'play' portion - is significantly more fascinating than the behind-the-stage antics between Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson and two bumbling mobsters (Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore); the 'acting' leaves much to be desired. I've been told by Broadway aficionados that this is a vastly inferior adaptation of the actual musical, and having never seen a production of it - but being unimpressed with this - I'll just have to take their word for it. The fact that Hollywood changed around Porter's lyrics makes me think even less of it - censorship should never be tolerated.
