On the Town (1949)
Would it surprise you to learn that the 1949 musical ON THE TOWN, starring Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin, has some very queer roots? Given that it’s a musical featuring sailors on leave, probably not.
ON THE TOWN
1949. USA.
Directors: Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
Screenplay: Adolph Green and Betty Comden
Starring: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, Jules Munshin, and Vera-Ellen
The musical originated as a 1944 ballet by queer dancer/choreographer Jerome Robbins titled “Fancy Free” which followed 3 sailors trying to pickup women. Robbins had been inspired by a controversial homoerotic 1934 painting by gay artist Paul Cadmus titled “The Fleet’s In.” While creating the ballet he brought on a then unknown queer composer named Leonard Bernstein to create a score.
“The Fleet’s In” (1934) by Paul Cadmus (note the queer-coded fellow on the left).
After their ballet found success the duo brought on their friends Comden and Green to write the book/lyrics and together they would turn it into a Broadway musical. The production was a hit and ran for over a year on Broadway featuring 462 performances.
When MGM adapted it into the 1949 film they altered the story to accommodate the film’s star Gene Kelly (who was also co-directing the film with Stanley Donen) and brought in gay composer Roger Edens to work on the score. In the end, part of Bernstein’s original score/songs remained but it was predominantly a new work by Edens and Lennie Hayton, which earned the duo an Academy Award for Best Musical Score.
The film doesn’t feature many explicitly gay moments, this was released during Hollywood’s heavily censored Hays Code era after all, but it does have a queer-coded male/female couple:
Chip (Frank Sinatra) ~ has little interest in women and prefers to sightsee instead of finding a female hookup while on leave – which leads to his buddies teasing him in a surprisingly suggestive moment (watch the clip on the QCA Instagram, linked above).
Hildy (Betty Garrett) ~ an aggressively butch taxi driver who constantly fights with chip and tries to get him up to her apartment (which he avoids at all costs).
Both have personality traits not traditionally associated with their gender (at least not in 1940s movies anyway), so naturally by the end of the film the two wind up in a lavender pairing. This wasn’t uncommon in Hollywood films – and Betty Garrett found herself in this situation again in NEPTUNE’S DAUGHTER, which was released the same year.
And just a final note: There is a (probably unintentionally sexual) scene in which the sailor friends sing to Gene Kelly and repeat multiple times for emphasis, “you can milk me dry.”
Honestly, it made me cackle.
ON THE TOWN is streaming on Fandango (USA), for rent/purchase on AppleTV, Amazon & YouTube, and also available on DVD & Blu-ray.
