Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

rodrig58 I have seen almost all the films directed by Stanley Donen (just completed 94 years in April 2018), but I have not seen "Kismet" until now. Well, it's only Vincente Minnelli's name in the beginning credits, an absolute master of musical films so, I do not know who's more responsible for what I've just seen: a really charming, delicious movie. I knew Howard Keel from "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and "Dallas," but I did not know he was so funny and endowed with such a great voice (he sings in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" too but, here in "Kismet" he shows much more value...) Ann Blyth is fragile and distinguished (she will just be 90 years old in August 2018). I found myself in the character played by Howard Keel, in my own life I passed through many miraculous happenings, some that raised me, some that damaged me. An immortal film, more than fresh and agreeable after 63 years of being made, probably because the much older story is eternal. Beautiful Borodin's music too!

HotToastyRag Those of you who know me know that the musical is one of my favorite film genres. I bought the obscure film The French Line sight unseen because I'd heard one cute song from it, and once I watched Guys and Dolls twice in a week. I don't know why it took me so long to finally watch the film version of Kismet, but I only saw it for the first time a few months ago. Howard Keel, in the lead role as a glib poet able to talk-or sing-his way out of any predicament, is really incredible. He performs the show-stopping number "Gesticulate" as only he could: stylized, over-the-top but still accessible, and with charm but without conceit. He carries the movie, outclassing his costars by head and shoulders, but since he's in so much of the film, it doesn't really matter that the scenes he's not in drag a little. The romantic leads, Ann Blyth and Vic Damone, aren't particularly interesting, and they don't sparkle with chemistry the way Howard Keel and Dolores Gray do. If your favorite songs in Kismet are the ballads "Stranger in Paradise" and "This Is My Beloved," you'll be severely disappointed in this movie. If you don't really care about two young kids in love and prefer more upbeat tunes, you'll be fine.Don't laugh, but my favorite song in the show was Dolores Gray's dazzling number "Not Since Nineveh". The reason this musical isn't watched or performed anymore is because you just can't give rousing applause to a song that starts with the line "Baghdad! Don't under-estimate Baghad!" However, if you're able to put foreign affairs aside-which is essential if you're going to sit down and watch Kismet-Dolores's song is fantastic. She's beautiful and has a stunning figure, clad in inventive costumes by Tony Duquette, and she has a very nice alto voice that sells a song beautifully. Between her and Howard, it's easy to forget anyone else is even in the movie!For musical aficionados, you should probably check out Kismet if you haven't already. You'll hear some beautiful singing-not by Vic Damone, though-and watch some incredible dancing by Reiko Sato, Patricia Dunn, and Wonci Lui. Plus, the story is very fast-paced, clever, and entertaining, a feature not always included in a musical comedy. Even without the songs, it would still be an interesting movie.

Robert J. Maxwell We find Howard Keel and his daughter, Ann Blythe, in some whimsical Arabian fairyland. Keel is a near beggar who sells poems for a living. Some of the dialog is pretty witty. The whole screen play is full of keen lines. The plot is about mistaken identities and barely avoided executions and other nonsense, and Keel winds up terribly rich and accompanied by his enemy's lusty widow. Ann Blythe winds up married to Vic Damone, the all powerful Caliph.It's colorful, fast, tuneful, and often amusing. I don't know why it doesn't show up more often among the lists of favorite MGM musicals or something. Maybe what it needs is a little injection of Terpsichoreate from time to time. There is some uninspired ensemble dancing and that's it. It's easy to imagine one of the great dancers in MGM's stable in a supporting role: not Gene Kelly, of course, but Tommy Rall or Jacques D'Amboise. Either of them could have pepped up the choreography too, which is repetitious and a little bizarre.Keel does okay in the role of the quick-witted and fast-talking pawn of fate who is thrown from one state to another. His baritone is user-friendly and the lyrics are unusually sophisticated for what is basically a musical comedy. The evil Wazir is about to have Keel's hand chopped off for theft and Keel sings a love song to his hand, something along the lines of "how can I make a fist there, when there's nothing but the hint of a wrist there?" Hint of a wrist there? The lyrics approach those of Cole Porter and Noel Coward.You can't fault Ann Blythe's supreme soprano either. She reaches notes that would shatter glass for a mile around. Only Vic Damone sounds like he belongs on a period juke box.At least two or three of the songs became hits on that juke box, "Stranger in Paradise" was one. It's difficult for a viewer to understand just how complicated it is to arrange a musical that has so many melodies and choral passages in it. I was in a college production of "Kismet" and found the numbers tuneful and intricate, full of counterpoint and unexpected melodic intrusions. I was only a beggar but the part was demanding. Did you ever try wrapping a turban around your head? No. I thought as much. It was a small role but as a beggar I was peerless, convincing -- nonpareil. A great beggar. I still am.Maybe another reason why "Kismet" isn't so popular is that it draws its tunes from the works of Alexander Borodin. He was a good composer, considering that he was a chemist or something. But he wrote music that could be turned into POP SONGS. You can imagine how that made the cognoscente feel about Borodin. Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett on that damned juke box again, and, who knows, Lefty Frizell. Ask the music critic for the New York Times what he thinks of Borodin -- or Tchaikovsky ("Tonight We Love") or Rachmaninoff ("Full Moon and Empty Arms") and see what answer you get.Snobs, all of them. And I'll bet they never pay any attention to the colorful beggars either, no matter how magnificent the beggars' performances.

theowinthrop KISMET was originally a play by Edward Knobloch written about 1910, and used as a vehicle for many years by the popular Broadway character actor Otis Skinner, playing the role of Hajj, the philosophical thief who saves the Caliph of Baghdad. Skinner even did a silent film version of the play. Two years after his death in 1942 a sound version of the film (in color) was made starring Ronald Colman, Marlene Dietrich, and Edward Arnold. The movie was a success, but nobody realized it would shortly become extremely successful in a new way. A song writing team (Bob Wright and Chet Forrest) constructed a score for KISMET based on the melodies of Alexander Borodin. The score contained such songs that became standards as STRANGER IN PARADISE (from the "Polevetsian Dances" in the opera PRINCE IGOR), BAUBLES, BANGLES, and BEADS, THIS IS MY BELOVED, THIS WAS THE NIGHT OF MY LIFE, and others. Wright and Forrest would do this several times on Broadway (they composed reset themes by Heitor Villa Lobos in another musical, for example) but KISMET was their joint masterpiece. So successful were they at rejuvenating the old Knobloch play, it was eventually revived again in the late 1990s in a new form as TIMBUCTOO (reset from the Califate of Baghdad to the great African trade city).Eventually the musical came to the attention to the Freed unit at MGM, and Vincent Minelli was chosen to direct this 1955 version. The musical expanded on the play a little. Howard Keel (as Hajj - the name was restored to the original one, not Hafiz as Ronald Colman was named in the 1944 version) is involved at the beginning with Jay C. Flippen as a violent bandit leader who is seeking his son, and whom Hajj suggests will be found in Baghdad. We see Flippen from time to time looking for his missing son. In the end he does find the son (who lives up or down to Flippen's own reputation). Keel had the right voice for Hajj, as did Dolores Gray as Lalume, the Vizier's bored wife (Dietrich in the 1944 film). Ann Blyth played Hajj's daughter Marsinah (who falls for the Caliph, Vic Damone). The evil vizier was played by Sebastian Cabot, and his rival government figure Omar (played by Harry Davenport in the 1944 film) is now played by Monty Wooley, in his final major movie part. Actually the musical is livelier than it's critical history suggests. The old creaky play may turn off many critics, but it had some color, and the Borodin-inspired melodies raised it. But like BRIGADOON, Minelli could not shoot the film on location as it would have been incredibly expensive. Possibly the studio sets may have effected how the film was received by the critics. But it is entertaining, and (because of the music) very memorable. If some numbers were cut most of the big numbers were saved. Besides, I'd rather hear Keel sing A FOOL SAT BENEATH AN OLIVE TREE than hear Cabot (a questionable singing talent) try WAS I VIZIR. I don't think Sebastian Cabot even tried to sing once on FAMILY AFFAIR...his was a distinguished speaking voice, not a singing one.