List of films Today! on TCM The Clock (1945) Brigadoon (1954) Bells Are Ringing (1960) The Best Broadway Songs Ever by Hal Leonard Corporation Directed by Vincente Minnelli by Stephen Harvey; Foreword by Liza Minelli The Films of Vincente Minnelli by James Naremore

Far from the never-never land of movie studio production, Minnelli began his career as a theatrical costume designer in Chicago and New York. After he had directed several Broadway musicals, MGM recruited Minnelli and assigned him to The Freed Unit. This production group was soon to be known as the center of movie-musical geniuses, MGM's stable of award-winning composers, hoofers, directors and singers.

Arthur Freed had formed his reputation two decades earlier as a vaudeville performer and lyricist who churned out modern classics such as "Broadway Melody" and "Singin' in the Rain." Once in Hollywood, Freed began producing lighthearted musicals, many starring Mickey and Judy, before Minnelli burst on the scene to breathe new life into the genre. Freed's first assignment for Minnelli was an African American musical called Cabin in the Sky (1943). Cabin had been a hit on Broadway, but MGM recruited only one member of the original cast to star in the screen version: Ethel Waters. Eddie Anderson and Lena Horne joined Waters on the sound stage for the story of "little Joe," an Everyman who's tempted by God and the Devil-challenged to either stay true to his loving wife Petunia (Waters) or fall for the seductive enticements of Sweet Georgia Brown (Lena Horne). There was trouble on the set from the very beginning. Waters felt threatened by Horne-and the fact that the director had begun dating the 'bronze Venus' only made the Broadway star more sensitive.

Cabin in the Sky was Minnelli's first film, and although it's far rougher than the rich style that became his screen signature, the directorial flourishes were budding. In the 1930s, Warner Bros. entertained Depression-era audiences with "backstage musicals," such as Gold Diggers of 1933 and Footlight Parade (1933). These films followed a formula; the outside world, filled with poverty, was juxtaposed with the lavish realm of fantasy on stage. Minnelli's musicals abandoned the backstage formula for a new kind of musical, leaving behind economic and political realities to plunge fully into a world of fantasy.

Little Joe is tormented by dreams of angels and demons in Cabin in the Sky. In Yolanda and the Thief (1945), Fred Astaire plays a con artist who convinces Lucille Bremer that he is her guardian angel-a great cover while he tries to loot her wealthy South American mansion. Judy Garland plays another South American sweetheart whose dream world is shattered by a harsher reality in The Pirate (1948). Garland plays Manuela, whose arranged marriage to Don Pedro Vargas is imminent. She dreams of true love, of being whisked away by an enchanting buccaneer, Macoco - Mack the Black. A traveling troubadour (Gene Kelly) hears her longing and masquerades as the pirate. Fantasy and Reality come into further conflict when the aged Don Vargas turns out to be the legendary bandit himself! Minnelli's musicals opened up new realms of imagination. No longer was Movie House escapism running from the Depression or World War II; musicals moved from issue-oriented to the purely fanciful.

In Cabin in the Sky, Yolanda and The Pirate, Minnelli grounded his flights of fantasy in home life. The domestic drama took center stage when an average family tries to prepare for a wedding in Father of the Bride (1950). The film taps into Spencer Tracy's mental soliloquy and follows him through the stressed-out days before his daughter's marriage ceremony. Elizabeth Taylor plays Kay, the lovable but anxious bride. The family life just gets more outrageous when Kay announces her pregnancy in Father's Little Dividend (1951).

Minnelli was experiencing his own domestic drama off screen. After dating Lena Horne during the production of Cabin in the Sky, the director fell in love with the star of Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Judy Garland. They married in 1945 and had a dividend of their own the very next year--Liza Minnelli.

Meet Me in St. Louis, with its lush Technicolor cinematography and unforgettable numbers, was the beginning of Minnelli's mature style of musical direction. Judy's renditions of "The Trolley Song" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" became instant classics. By the 1950s, Minnelli had developed into the undisputed master of the MGM musical with An American in Paris (1951). With Gene Kelly in the lead and doe-eyed Leslie Caron as the object of his affection, American in Paris won over audiences and became the first musical to win a Best Picture Academy Award since the dawn of sound and The Broadway Melody (1929). Kelly lent a masculinity and athletic dexterity to each Gershwin number: "I Got Rhythm," "S'Wonderful" and the epic "American in Paris Ballet." After An American, Minnelli created a Fred Astaire classic with The Band Wagon (1953). Astaire was teamed with the long-legged Cyd Charisse for unforgettable numbers such as "Dancing in the Dark" and "That's Entertainment."

Exotic settings gave a dream-like feel to more of Minnelli's fantasy musicals. Brigadoon (1954) brought Gene Kelly to a mythical Scottish village. Kismet (1955) transported viewers to ancient Bagdad. Gigi (1958) brought Minnelli and his crew back to the city of Paris. Once again Leslie Caron starred as a young desirable in a variation of "Pygmalion" or "My Fair Lady." Caron plays a girl who is groomed in the manner of a society lady as she navigates through the sex-crazed scene. Maurice Chevalier gives the film a dignified feel very different from the Astaire or Kelly touch. Shortly after Gigi took home ten Academy Awards, the U.S. government broke up the major studios' monopoly of production exhibition and distribution and ended the Golden Age of production that Minnelli had helped shape.

From the haute Parisian culture, Minnelli ventured out into the cinematic countryside of France. In Lust for Life (1956), the director brought the tormented life of Vincent Van Gogh to the screen. Kirk Douglas impersonated the artist with uncanny realism and Minnelli's Technicolor landscapes perfectly captured the fields of sunflowers and starry nights that Van Gogh memorialized. In Lust for Life, the director broke down barriers; he took high production values and fantastic cinematography and used them to heighten the realism of a biographic film.

Although Minnelli is best remembered for his fantastic musicals, the director also crafted serious melodramas. Kirk Douglas played a manipulative, ruthless movie producer in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). Made a year after An American in Paris, there was no lush landscape here, no love interest-not even color cinematography. The Bad and the Beautiful is a scathing look at a Hollywood producer placed in a black-and-white world. A decade later Minnelli and Douglas teamed again for another caustic look at the Dream Factory in Two Weeks in Another Town (1962). In Two Weeks, Douglas plays a Hollywood star headed for oblivion when he's given a part by a director (Edward G. Robinson). In his opulent musicals, Minnelli demonstrated the magic that Hollywood was capable of creating, but he also exposed the deceit and deception behind the scenes in moody melodramas.

From realms of fantasy and studio-manufactured exotic lands to dark dramas of greed and hunger, Vincente Minnelli proved himself one of the great filmmakers in Hollywood history. His films helped to usher in a renewed Golden Age in the Dream Factory. Over the course of his career, the pendulum swung and Hollywood was confronted by a new era of viewers and production challenges. Minnelli teamed with Elizabeth Taylor fifteen years after Father of the Bride in The Sandpiper (1965). Times had changed and the star had changed. No longer the innocent ingenue, Taylor was now a superstar teamed with her on-again, off-again onscreen and off-screen lover, Richard Burton. Since the beginning of his career Minnelli had an eye for young talent. He directed Garland, Taylor and Caron in early important performances. Moving into a new era, he once again directed an up-and-coming star: Barbra Streisand in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970).

Minnelli career represents the zenith of the Dream Factory. His films illustrated what the studio system was able to achieve: great stories, great stars, songs, sets and cinematography. More than offering audiences frothy musicals, Minnelli's films constantly questioned the line between the realms of essence and appearance and gave each scenario a sophisticated twist. After the movie realism of the 1960s and '70s, looking back on the films of Vincente Minnelli is a reminder of the great art of Hollywood and the expertise of the MGM musical.