Pal Joey Gene Kelly

Footage of Kelly on Broadway

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Gene
• Kelly
• Pal
• Joey

[thenicerguy]

The footage is about ten minutes long. I was contacted by a woman who danced in the chorus of the show and she told me it was startling to see herself up there on the stage.after all these years. She said Kelly was very, very nervous in real life and the chorus girls hated him during rehearsal because he nearly crushed their hands out of stark terror. Go figure.

Anyway, he obviously found his confidence by the time the show opened.

[thenicerguy]

Actually, this footage is part of an amazing collection of films made from about 1935 to 1965 by one man who began filming small clips from all Broadway shows as a young boy. In many clips, the stars wave to him during the curtain calls as he became quite a fixture.The cans of film ended up in the hands of a collector who has, to this date, not allowed much viewing of his precious treasure, which is certainly a real shame.

[298625]

Just fantastic. Gene Kelly is incomparable.

[ChristophePhilippe]

Watching this footage is joy. If only he had kept the same insouciant style he displays here in his youth instead of adopting that postured, artistic approach. The former was forward, natural, and masculine. The latter was so "artistic" it was best appreciated by women who thought they wanted a sensitive man and by men who needed something non-threatening to like to appear sensitive.

[calanais06]

Thank you for a interesting clip and equally fascinating story! Poor Gene for being so nervous - he certainly didn´t have any reasons to! I hope the films will be released to a bigger audience some day, they really are a bit of cultural history.

[OldieMusicMan]

Who would have thought they were bootlegging Broadway shows way back then? Seeing this gives me hopes of seeing, at least in a small way, all of the greats on Broadway.

[kellyakabilly]

Wouldn't it be absolutely amazing to see the entire show with Gene in it? I never thought there was any actual footage out there. I'm glad at least someone broke the rules and brought the camera into the theater! I wonder how long the "Pal Joey" footage really is?

[markamarkemarki]

Part of this was shown on a pbs documentary about the golden age of Broadway. The clip caught Gene Kelly tapdancing at a moment with lots of swagger and musicality. Wish someone would post the whole number.

[fyncara]

I saw this clip on the American Master and the speaker is a British biographer who did Kelly's bio. I wonder if it isn't someone in the family and understand the desire for privacy but what a gift it would be for his many fans to have access to it. Also I thought it was very interesting that he did not say where he saw the recording and yet a clip was provided to PBS for the masters show.

[flagler88]

Great choreography for Pal Joey, why is this stuff so hard to see, who is keeping this great footage hidden?