Chatverock Takes itself way too seriously

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

atlasmb Invitation to the Dance is what you get when you take an artist at the peak of his abilities and allow his imagination to run wild. Gene Kelly--and some very talented people in all fields--integrated music and dance to create three distinct stories.He reduces some scenes to their visual essences by using abstract or minimalist sets, aided by lighting effects. The third story includes cartoons, allowing Kelly to take his imagination beyond the bounds of human limitations and physics.The performances are a synthesis of various dance and related forms (ballet, tap, jazz, mime, acrobatics, pop, and ethnic) with musical accompaniment (classical, jazz--cool and hot--ethnic, and pop).Invitation to the Dance is a treat for any dance lover. It should be seen by all young students of dance.It would be interesting to see this film they way Kelly originally imagined it, with him dancing in one section only.

Neil Doyle No wonder INVITATION TO THE DANCE found no audience at the box office. The first two musical sequences, "Circus" and "Ring Around the Rosy" are monumental bores dragged down by pedestrian stories and, in the second one, inept use of camera trickery to speed up the action.But the third, "Sinbad the Sailor," makes expert use of the Rimsky-Korsakov ballet score and makes dazzling use of animated effects, especially for the dancing between Kelly and a couple of Arabian guards which are highly original, intricate and amusing examples of combining live action with animation. It's the kind of originality sadly missing in the previously mentioned stories.The "Sinbad" highlight almost makes up for the rest of the film with its own brand of originality--but alas, the first two sequences are enough to turn many viewers away from watching the final segment.Summing up: Easy to see why this one failed miserably to attract a target audience with either high or low brow tastes.

ccbc The first two segments of this film may or may not impress you, but do watch the third: "Sinbad the Sailor". Kelly plays an American sailor in an exotic Oriental market. He rubs an old lamp and a genie appears, played by an amazingly talented kid. After a bit of messing around,the genie gets a sailor suit, too. Then they open a book to a picture of a wonderous land. The genie transports them inside and all the rest features the two dancers (mostly Kelly alone) dancing with animation.This segment is much longer than any other live-plus-animation sequence until Mary Poppins excepting, possibly Song of the South whose sequences were nowhere near so complex as this. Kelly dances with an animated dragon (that wraps around him), into a harem, is chased by the Sultan's guards, has a long sequence with one harem girl, and then a very long sequence with the guards. This is amazing work for 1952, especially when you remember that every bit of the animation is hand-painted on cels. Hanna-Barbera (then with MGM doing Tom and Jerry directed the animation. (Kelly also did a famous dance number with Jerry in Anchors Aweigh eight years earlier.) Walt Disney advised. This is swell stuff and any fan of animation should give it a look.

mrdonleone this movie is probably one of the most boring pictures I ever saw. it has got nothing to tell, except for the three little stories that are brutally forced into a concept without inspiration, but filled with unusable ideas. oh yeah, Kelly was a genius alright, but this is a perfect example of how geniuses can BEEP the BEEP up. the stories are already known to the general audience, so what I was searching for, was a novelty about them all. I was bitter when I found out Kelly only repeated himself. the story with the clown made me wonder if I washed my feet today... too bad, this truly is a movie to see while washing your feet, so you can do something useful when the torment begins. second part, the 'crime': really stupid and boring, it made me compare the good with the bad, and this seemed to be the ugly. the third part made me realize Kelly repeats himself over and over again, like a little child with a doll or when a kid becomes a teenager. too bad for the whole idea, this movie didn't reach adulthood for me, it should have stayed in Kelly's brain.