Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

For my Mum, I got her ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part One’ on Blu-ray for Christmas. 🙂 For my Dad, I got him the musical film ‘Anchors Aweigh’, starring Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson and Gene Kelly for Christmas. I greatly enjoyed checking out this film when we saw it on DVD at last.

The film is a 1945 musical comedy, and it concerns the plot of two sailors on a four-day shore leave in Hollywood. From watching the film itself, it felt like more than four days. 😀 Frank Sinatra stars as the mild-mannered and shy sailor named Clarence and Gene Kelly stars as the confident sailor Joe. 🙂

They both meet a young boy named Donald who wants to join the navy. Taking him home, they meet his aunt – Kathryn Grayson as Aunt Susan – who aspires to be a singer in Hollywood. Clarence and Joe try and help Susan to get an audition for José Iturbi at MGM studios. Will they succeed in this?

What struck me about this film is how the romantic plot of the story turns around from Frank Sinatra fancying Kathryn Grayson to Gene Kelly eventually falling in love with her instead. Quite frankly, Gene Kelly should have had top billing above Frank Sinatra, since he’s like the main star of the film. 🙂

Frank Sinatra’s character eventually falls in love with Pamela Britton who plays the girl from Brooklyn, who happens to be a waitress at a café. Yeah, the girl from Brooklyn doesn’t have a name. She’s simply referred to as ‘Brooklyn’ by Clarence. I do wonder if he found out her name afterwards.

It’s also amusing how Clarence tends to be shy, often tells the truth and is quite dopey in the film, whereas Joe is confident and exaggerates, especially when helping Clarence to win Susan’s heart. Joe sets up an audition for Susan to see José Iturbi at MGM before arranging it with the pianist at all.

José Iturbi happens to be a conductor, pianist and harpsichordist from Valencia in Spain. This is my first encounter with him in a film and he’s done other musical films like ‘Thousands Cheer’, ‘Music for Millions’, ‘That Midnight Kiss’ and ‘Three Daring Daughters’. I wonder if my Dad has seen them. 🙂

Dean Stockwell plays Donald, Susan’s nephew in the film. He went on to star in many film and TV productions over the years, including an episode of ‘Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman’, the film ‘Air Force One’ with Harrison Ford and one episode of ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’. 🙂

There are couple of Laurel & Hardy stars in ‘Anchors Aweigh’, including Billy Gilbert as the café manager and Edgar Kennedy as the police captain. Who knew these actors did more than appear in Laurel & Hardy films. 😀 I’m very surprised that Laurel & Hardy didn’t make a cameo in the film itself.

The highlight of ‘Anchors Aweigh’ is the live-action/animated fantasy sequence where Gene Kelly dances with Jerry the Mouse from ‘Tom and Jerry’. This was such a delight to see in the film, and it’s so astonishing to hear Jerry speaking whilst dancing with Gene Kelly in this little animated sequence.

Yes, I know this predated Tom and Jerry talking in their 1992 movie, but still. Tom also makes a brief cameo appearance in the film. I’m saddened there wasn’t more of Tom and Jerry in the film, as we could have had a cat and mouse chase sequence, which is what they’re often most famous for today.

One of the musical numbers featured in the film is when José Iturbi is playing Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, when Clarence and Joe try to get to him at the Hollywood Bowl. That musical number featured in the ‘Tom and Jerry’ cartoon ‘The Cat Concerto’, made two years after this film. 🙂

‘Anchors Aweigh’ is an enjoyable film to check out. I’m glad I purchased it for my Dad for Christmas 2023. It features lovely performances led by Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson and Gene Kelly and is well-remembered for featuring the dance scene between Gene Kelly and Jerry from ‘Tom and Jerry’.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂