Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Pluskylang Great Film overall

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

bkoganbing Invitation To The Dance took three years to make and it was a labor of love for Gene Kelly. Too bad for him that the public didn't take to it. But it was a film aimed at a highly specialized audience, those lovers of the ballet and other forms of dance.Around the time that Kelly was winning plaudits for Singing In The Rain he pitched the idea to the MGM studio heads and having just starring in a film that many claim as the greatest musical ever made, he was in a position of considerable leverage. To cheapen costs MGM shot it over in the United Kingdom and this does explain Kelly's appearance in a pair of British films, Crest Of The Wave and The Devil Makes Three while putting together his dance film.All this is according to the Citadel Film series book on Gene Kelly's films and then because the third and the best sequence was to be done with animated figures like Kelly's famous dance number with Jerry Mouse in Anchors Aweigh, MGM wanted to use Hanna&Barbera their crack cartoonists. Which meant him coming back to the USA to shoot that sequence. All in all it wasn't until 1956 that Invitation To The Dance finally made it before audiences.The story I found most astounding was Andre Previn who was brought in to score the second sequence about a piece of jewelry making the rounds. MGM didn't like the original score, but the sequence had already been shot. So Previn had to score a ballet which had already been shot with another man's music. No small feat indeed and more production delays.All this for what was really a film that should have had limited art house release. But MGM didn't do art house type films and they wanted their money back some how. The three sequences all have Kelly in them, MGM would have it no other way. The first casts Kelly as a Pagliacci type clown in a circus dance drama. The second is as I described before. The third has Kelly as a sailor who gets a magic lamp and a genie appears. It is the best of them.I'm sure Gene Kelly was disappointed in the lack of applause from a mass audience for Invitation To The Dance. It's a good film, but definitely for a special audience.

MartinHafer "Invitation to the Dance" is a personal film project by Gene Kelly. It consists of several different stories which are set to music and dance and there is no dialog. As for the stories, they are very broad and told through pantomime and dance. They consist of: "Circus"--A story filled with pathos about a clown (Pedrolino from the Italian Commedia dell'Arte--played by Kelly) who is in love with a pretty dancer at the circus. But she barely notices him. So, he does something really stupid and the audience is supposed to be brought to tears. I hate pathos."Ring Around the Rosy"--A rather cynical look at a faithless wife. The husband gives her a bangle for their anniversary and she soon gives it to her lover. He gives it to his model and folks keep passing it around until ultimately it makes its way back to the husband--who, inexplicably, takes it all in stride. Kelly is in this one less than the other segments."Sinbad the Sailor"--A sailor is on leave in a stereotypically olde tyme Arabian village. There he finds a genie--one that looks like a little boy. He has the boy magically don a sailor suit like himself and the two have a merry dance together. Later, they magically transport themselves into a picture book and more dancing ensues amidst a cartoon world. The kid, by the way, was an incredibly good dancer. Of all the segments, this one is probably the most approachable for the average viewer.I can easily see why "Invitation to the Dance" failed at the box office. While the quality of the dancing in this film is among the finest you'll ever see in a movie, there is no real plot. So, unless you are insanely devoted to modern dance, most potential viewers wouldn't bother seeing it in the first place. Then, if you did get someone to watch it who wasn't a dance-o-phile (like me), he would be bored to tears by it (once again, like me). While I can respect all the work that went into it, I cannot see it having much of an audience. This might explain why it so seldom is shown on television

didi-5 In what must have been a daring move in the 1950s, Gene Kelly created a film which was pure dance - three sequences (Circus, Ring Around The Rosy, Sinbad the Sailor).Although not a great grosser in its day, time has been kind to this film and although it is not that well known, this film should be as it has a large amount of charm.The first section, Circus, is a story about a clown and his unrequited love for the leading lady. A common love triangle presented in ballet, this is bittersweet and watchable.In Ring Around The Rosy, a bracelet is lost and found and there is a charming duet to watch ... while Sinbad the Sailor includes a mix of real life and animation in the story of the sailor and the genie.As good as any of Kelly's other work, this should be seen a lot more than it is.

harry-76 This is the result of many years of effort on the part of Gene Kelly to create an all-dance film. Since he was a major-studio rather than an indie production child, Kelly convinced his home studio, MGM, to finally take on the project.The final results, unfortunately, are mixed. The movie is simply average, with long stretches of off-timed and miscalculated action and uninspired choreography. Were Kelly to have collaborated in the writing, choreographing and direction departments, rather than taking everything on himself, things might have gone better.The project was simply too great a task for Kelly; with other imput he might have made a film with greater perspective and flair. The story in "Circus" is only fair, and there's more pantomime than dancing for Kelly as Pierrot. Unfortantely, Jacques Ibert's music doesn't help either. "Ring Around the Rosy" suffers from disjointed continuity, with awkward bridges and motivations. Too, the fine Tamara Toumanova as the Streetwalker provides a clash of styles when paired with Kelly as the Marine. Physically, their types don't match well, try as they will. Nor was this Andre Previn's finest compositional hour.Finally, Roger Eden's adaptation of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's score for "Sinbad the Sailor" makes for the most effective music in the film. Kelly at last gets to display his distinctive dancing manner, and does some impressive work (at age 44) in the interesting cartoon sequences. It's not Kelly at his best, though, and "Inviation to the Dance" remains an interesting curio, earnest on effort and short on realization. Both dance fans in general and Kelly fans in particular will value this video in their collectiona.