Seraherrera The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

bsmith5552 "Easter Parade" was another of those "rich and famous" musicals that MGM was known for. It was filmed in glorious Technicolor and the songs were written by the legendary Irving Berlin. Although he was given second billing, star Fred Astaire dominates the film. Judy Garland received top billing but takes a back seat to Astaire here.It's 1912 at the time of the Ziegfeld Follies with the story of Broadway dancer Don Hewes (Astaire), his split with his partner Nadine Hale (Ann Miller) and his discovery of unknown dancer Hannah Brown (Garland) to replace her. Into the mix comes Hewes' rich friend Jonathon Harrow III (Peter Lawford). You see Hewes is using the unsuspecting Hannah to make Nadine jealous and show her that he can team with any dancer. An eternal quadrangle develops between the four principles.Irving Berlin penned a number of classic tunes for this one including the title tune, I Love a Piano, Shaking' the Blues away, Steppin' Out With My Baby, Girl on a Magazine Cover among others.Fred Astaire gets two solo numbers, one in a toy store and a production number (Steppin' Out With My Baby) without Garland. She gets to sing a few forgettable numbers as well as the entertaining "Couple of Swells" in tramp costume with Astaire. Ann Miller, complete with those incomparable legs, has two spectacular numbers, "Shakin' the Blues Away" and "The Girl on the Magazine Cover".Judy Garland had by this time started her descent. No longer did she have Vincent Minnelli to make her look beautiful and she was having affairs with several prominent personalities. Fred Astaire literally carried her throughout this film. She would make only two more MGM films before being terminated by the studio.Also in the cast in his first film is Jules Munchin as Francois the waiter and Clinton Sundberg as Mike the barber. Also of note, is Richard Beavers the unbilled singer in the "Girl on the Magazine Cover" number. He had a great voice but never really made it in movies. And. it was a good thing that Peter Lawford didn't pursue a career as a singer as his "crooning" of "A Fella With An Umbrella" will attest.

tavm First, a personal note: While I had watched this previously on an independent TV station in Jacksonville, FL, during the '90s, I had a little child visitor at the time who wanted to play some games while the movie was running so I obliged him and missed some of the movie as a result. I had recently watched this on one DVD bought by my father years ago but that pixilated during Ann Miller's number "Shakin' the Blues Away" so I managed to see the rest from another one I borrowed from the library a few days ago. Okay, so when Fred Astaire retired after completing Irving Berlin's Blue Skies in 1946, he was going to keep busy raising horses and building his dance studios around the country. But only two years later, he seemed to want to come back and got an opportunity quicker than expected when Gene Kelly injured his ankle in an off-screen game and told Fred he'd be doing him a favor in agreeing to replace him. So Fred did and in doing so was not only reunited with the songs of Berlin but also got to team with Judy Garland for what turned to be the only time in their careers. Also, Ann Miller-after years of being in Columbia B-features-also got to appear in an M-G-M movie for her first time in her life! So with those three cast, it's no wonder this was such an enjoyable picture to watch, musical-wise! The plot, well, it's another in the dance man-loses-one-partner-gains-another-one done many times before. What matters is how great many of the numbers are like Asaire's "Drum Crazy" with the way he uses his feet on those things! Or Miller's number I mentioned earlier. And how about Fred and Judy's hilarious comic number "We're a Couple of Swells" with their being dressed as bums pretending to be rich aristocrats! Also, Astaire's "Steppin' Out with my Baby" with his slow-motion sequence was another highlight! Had Garland's "Mr. Monotony" also been kept in (Great outtake was eventually publicly shown in That's Entertainment, Part III) it would have been even better! Oh, and Peter Lawford wasn't bad with "A Fella with an Umbrella", either. So on that note, I highly recommend Easter Parade. P.S. In once again making note of people associated with my favorite movie-It's a Wonderful Life-with other things, here, it's screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett who wrote that and this one.

preppy-3 Tom Hewes (Fred Astaire) has his dancing partner Nadine (Ann Miller) leave him during a tour to sign up for a show. He hires a waitress named Hannah (Judy Garland) to take her place. Naturally he has to teach her to dance. Naturally they hate each other. Naturally they fall in love. There's even Peter Lawford in this singing a tune(and quite good at it too).It's in bright Technicolor, all the stars are full of energy and giving there all...but this is just good and nothing more than that. The plot is old hat (even for a musical) and the songs (there are 17 of them!) are tuneful but not at all memorable. All the great singing and dancing can only carry the movie so far. By the end I was bored silly by the story and just waiting for it to end. So it's a GOOD musical but not even close to being a great one.

richard-1787 This is, overall, a very disappointing, mediocre movie, with a very bad script. Every now and then, however, there is a remarkable number that stands out like a brilliant diamond in a sea of dross.For me, the brightest of those diamonds is "Then I'll walk down the avenue," a strangely beautiful song performed superlatively by Garland and Astaire - in that order. If the rest of the movie were at that level, this would be one of the great movies of all times.Ann Miller also gets some remarkable dance numbers. For whatever reason, her personality does not light up the screen, unlike Judy Garland, but she was certainly one very fine dancer.The "François salad" number is also wonderful in its own way, and emphasizes the extent to which this movie is not one organic whole, but rather a series of independent solo turns, some of which work, most of which don't.And the last number, "Easter Parade," is a great song, even if the movie doesn't do anything special with it. What a shame. That could have been a crowning glory that effaced much of the forgettable footage that came before.An uneven movie, in short, but one with scenes that are never to be forgotten.