M-G-M. Director Vincente Minnelli; Producer Arthur Freed; Screenplay Betty Comden, Adolph Green; Camera Milton Krasner; Editor Adrienne Fazan; Music Andre Previn (adapt.); Art Director George W. Davis, Preston Ames
Judy Holliday
Dean Martin
Fred Clark
Eddie Foy
Jean Stapleton
Frank Gorshin
Better Broadway musicals than Bells Are Ringing have come to Hollywood, but few have been translated to the screen so effectively. Bells is ideally suited to the intimacy of the film medium. Where it might have a tendency in several passages to become dwarfed on a big stage, it's always bigger than life onscreen, which actually is a desirable factor in broad, free-wheeling comedy such as this.
The Betty Comden-Adolph Green screenplay, based on their [1956] book musical, is not by any means the sturdiest facet of the picture, but it's a pleasant yarn from which several rather inspired musical numbers spring. 'Just in Time' and 'The Party's Over' are delivered smoothly by Dean Martin and Judy Holliday. The latter's outstanding turn, however, occurs near the end of the picture, when she demonstrates her verve and versatility on the amusing 'I'm Goin' Back' (Where I Can Be Me, at the Bonjour Tristesse Brassiere Factory).
Martin has a chance to get in some solid licks on the alcoholically-inspired 'Do It Yourself' and in a traffic-stopping, crowd elbowing street sequence labelled 'Hello'. A real show-stopper is a production number with symphonic overtones presided over dynamically by Eddie Foy.
Vincente Minnelli's graceful, imaginative direction puts spirit and snap into the musical sequences, warmth and humor into the straight passages, and manages to knit it all together without any traces of awkwardness in transition, a frequent stumbling block in filmusicals. Jule Styne's bright score has been vibrantly adapted and conducted by Andre Previn.
Holliday, as might be expected, steals show with a performance of remarkable variety and gusto as a girl who takes her switchboard and humanity seriously, Martin is excellent as her writer friend, displaying more animation than customary.
1960: Nomination: Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture
(Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1960. Running time: 126 MIN.
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