Uploaded December 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
(George Sidney, US 1945, 139 min.)
Originally scheduled as a film series for this fall at The Dryden, we look 75 years into the past at the Academy Award nominees for Best Picture of 1945. A diverse group of films that highlight the breadth of technique and genre taking place at the height of the Hollywood system.
Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra pair for the first of their three films as sailors on shore leave in Hollywood after eight months at sea. Their plans are immediately waylaid when a police officer asks them to return a Navy-obsessed boy to his home. There they meet his aunt, Susan (Kathryn Grayson), and love soon blooms. The boys promise Susan they can introduce her to conductor José Iturbi, hoping he can break her into show business, but when their lie is uncovered, it’s up to Susan to take matters into her own hands. Iturbi plays himself ,and the film is filled with songs from the team of Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn. MGM formed a new animation unit specifically for the sequence in which Gene Kelly enters the mythical animal kingdom and dances with Jerry the Mouse (only five years after his introduction).
This video has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: NEH CARES.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this video, do not necessarily represent those of the NEH.
(George Sidney, US 1945, 139 min.)
Originally scheduled as a film series for this fall at The Dryden, we look 75 years into the past at the Academy Award nominees for Best Picture of 1945. A diverse group of films that highlight the breadth of technique and genre taking place at the height of the Hollywood system.
Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra pair for the first of their three films as sailors on shore leave in Hollywood after eight months at sea. Their plans are immediately waylaid when a police officer asks them to return a Navy-obsessed boy to his home. There they meet his aunt, Susan (Kathryn Grayson), and love soon blooms. The boys promise Susan they can introduce her to conductor José Iturbi, hoping he can break her into show business, but when their lie is uncovered, it’s up to Susan to take matters into her own hands. Iturbi plays himself ,and the film is filled with songs from the team of Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn. MGM formed a new animation unit specifically for the sequence in which Gene Kelly enters the mythical animal kingdom and dances with Jerry the Mouse (only five years after his introduction).
This video has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: NEH CARES.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this video, do not necessarily represent those of the NEH.
