On paper this is a great cast but on screen it doesn't work because no two cast members seem to be working in the same film. The best voice by a country mile is that of Dolores Gray but it is diametrically opposed to that of Ann Blyth and we can only be glad they had no numbers together, Similarly Howard Keel and Vic Damone are equally poles apart. The last place one expects to find Ted de Corsia is in Baghdad and so on. We're talking serious mish-mosh here and three 'standards' - Baubles, Bangles and Beads, And This Is My Beloved, Stranger In Paradise - are not really enough to save it and, if it comes to that, they're not necessarily the best songs in the film. Vincente Minnelli directs as if he were determined to make something more insipid than Brigadoon and totally erase the charm of Meet Me In St Louis from the memory-banks of cinema-goers everywhere. Well worth missing.
Review of Kismet
