On the Town

Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Jules Munshin play sailors who each pick up a pretty lady and dance and sing around New York during their 24-hour shore leave. Sinatra’s voice is incredible, Kelly is clearly an amazing dancer, and then there’s poor Jules Munshin. He’s funny and a little weird looking, which becomes a plot point when he’s mistaken for a caveman.

They run off their ship singing about how excited they are to be in New York. Two of them act out their plan, with one pretending to be a woman–at 10:30 they’ll say hello, at 10:45 they’ll hold hands, at 11:00 they’ll dance, at 11:15 they’ll kiss, and at 11:30 . . . they shout “Wow! Wow!” while hooting.

On the subway, Kelly spots a poster of the month’s Miss Turnstiles, a subway-themed pinup girl, and instantly falls in love. He reads her biography and imagines her in a silly dance sequence: she cooks and irons, dances in a ballgown, supports the military, paints while doing ballet at the same time, runs and jumps hurdles, does a Russian squat-kick dance, scores touchdowns, boxes and knocks out guys with her fists and high kicks until they’re in a big pile that she climbs on top of for a final pose. He sighs, “Gee, what a girl!” He briefly meets her, but she slips away, so he decides to search the city for her.

The sailors hail a cab and are surprised that the driver is a woman. They say the war is over and she replies, “I never give up anything I like.” She’s got the hots for Sinatra and insists he sit up front with her. She keeps suggesting that he go up to her place and asks him to kiss her but he acts shocked while she grins at him suggestively.

They look for Miss Turnstiles in the national history museum. A woman spots Munshin standing next to a statue of a caveman that looks exactly like him and excitedly sizes him up with measuring tape. He’s into it and says, “How about some cheesecake?” while showing off his leg. She’s an anthropologist writing a paper called “Modern Man–What Is It?” She says she used to be too boy crazy, so her guardian encouraged her to study men scientifically, become more objective, and get them out of her system. When Munshin asks if it worked, she says, “Almost completely,” grabs him, dips him, and kisses him. She sings a ridiculous song about preferring prehistoric men to modern men, talking about their clothing, “I really love bear skin” (bare skin). But all the tap dancing and caveman puns destroy a brontosaurus skeleton, so the group runs away.

They split up, leaving Sinatra with the horny cab driver, who keeps suggesting they skip sightseeing and go up to her place instead. She finally wears him down. Later, at the top of the Empire State Building, she badgers him to look at her instead of through a telescope. He sings her a song that sounds like an insult before turning into a compliment: “You’re awful . . . awful good to look at,” “You’re nothing . . . nothing if not lovely,” “You’re boring . . . boring into my heart.” It’s like the literal doctor from Arrested Development saying that after losing his left hand, Buster is “going to be all right.” Everyone already knows this, but it’s shocking how good Sinatra’s singing is.

Gene Kelly finds his crush, Miss Turnstiles, doing a handstand at her ballet studio. He charms her with a sweet song and dance about his small Indiana hometown. After he leaves, she talks with her ballet teacher about how she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s a “cooch dancer.” I looked it up, and this means burlesque–sign my petition to bring back “cooch dancer” as a term for sexy dancing.

The three couples reunite and dance together in their bright white sailor suits and colorful dresses, all in vibrant Technicolor. But then the cops are after them for destroying that dinosaur skeleton. More and more cops join the chase, not even knowing who they’re after or why. One sailor says, “I wonder who’s minding the police station.” They have a silly showdown among the cooch dancers on Coney Island, with the men dressing up in drag and the women sweet talking their way out of trouble.

They get back to their ship, kiss, and wave goodbye, just as three new sailors run off the boat and start singing the same song from the beginning about how excited they are to be in New York.

This was my first Frank Sinatra movie and wow, it’s freaky how good his voice is. Gene Kelly is also amazing with his cute face and his cute butt. But my favorite part is the three women, who are all really sexual, really weird, and sometimes they talk about cooch dancing.

VERDICT: NOT GUILTY!