Actors - Yolanda and the Thief

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	Actors - Yolanda and the Thief

Yolanda and the Thief (MGM) is a 1945 Hollywood musical comedy film set in a fictional Latin American country, and stars Fred Astaire, Lucille Bremer, Frank Morgan, Ludwig Stossl and Mildred Natwick, with music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Arthur Freed. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli and produced by Arthur Freed.

The film - a long-time pet project of Freed's to promote his lover Bremer's career - which fared disastrously at the box-office, was an attempt to create a whimsical fantasy and ended up - in the words of critic John Mueller - as "egg-nog instead of the usual champagne", despite admirable production values. The music is merely competent, the orchestration syrupy, Bremer's acting is poor, whereas the already fragile plot and some good comedy elements were scuppered by last-minute injudicious cutting by Minnelli. It ruined Bremer's career and discouraged Astaire, who decided to retire after his next film Blue Skies.

Perhaps it also vindicated Astaire's own horror of "inventing up to the arty" - his phrase for the approach of those who would set out a priori to create art, whereas he believed artistic value could only emerge as an accidental and unpremeditated by-product of a tireless search for perfection.

Key songs/dance routines:

Eugene Loring was responsible for most of the choreography, with Astaire for once taking a back seat and only contributing in parts. Tactfully, Astaire claimed he wanted to see what it would be like dancing to other choreographers' ideas, a move some critics have attributed to a putative temporary decline in Astaire's creative powers around this time, but it is equally possible that he found the artistic pretensions of the project somewhat offputting. In any event, the dancing saves the day in what is also Astaire's most visually arresting colour film, featuring possibly the first example on film of the deliberate integration of colour and visual pattern with dance - a theme which Minnelli explored on a larger scale and to such celebrated effect eight years later with Gene Kelly in the dream ballet finale of An American in Paris. Astaire had already created an early dream dance on film with I Used To Be Colour Blind in Carefree
(1938), and had worked with Minelli on a dream ballet insert for the Limehouse Blues number from Ziegfeld Follies
(1944/1946). The dream ballet genre achieved popularity when Agnes de Mille choreographed a celebrated number for the 1943 stage hit Oklahoma!
.

Dream Ballet: An extended (c. 15mins.) routine for Astaire, Bremer and various others, which Minnelli has described as "The first surrealistic ballet in film". The Dali-esque scenery and the main characters (Astaire and Bremer) are dressed in pastel shades as are characters in harmony with them - such as the three handmaidens near the end. Most of the other characters - who have an aggressive, disruptive quality, and bring spiky dance rythms into play - wear vivid primary colours making them stand out from the background scenery and from the main characters, adding to the powerful illusion of space - a quality remarked upon by New York Times dance critic James Martin at the time. In the middle of the ballet, Astaire inserts a beautiful partnered romantic duet for himself and Bremer to Will You Marry Me as sung by Bremer, and much of the choreography of this section seems to bear the signature of Astaire himself.

Yolanda: Astaire serenades Bremer with this attractive melody while playing a harp (dubbed by jazz harpist Bobby Maxwell). He follows the song with a very brief but enchanting solo dance routine around the harp.

Coffee Time: A jazzy, innovative and exuberant dance routine for Astaire, Bremer and chorus, blending complex repeated syncopated rythms (inspired by Loring's idea of setting a five-count dance phrase against a four-count musical phrase) in a visually stunning setting incorporating a wavy black and white dance floor (designed by Irene Scharaff) and chorus dancers dressed in brightly-coloured costumes. The costumes, hypnotic singing and twirling dance style of the chorus are evocative of whirling dervishes. The floor earns a reference in the recent romantic comedy Simply Irresistible
(1999).

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