Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

didi-5 A piece of Hollywood hokum, this musical has Lucille Bremer as an heiress who has been sheltered all her young life in a convent, and Fred Astaire as an enterprising thief who (stay with us here) presents himself, and is accepted as, Yolanda's guardian angel! Of course his aim is to get all her money and disappear over the border, but he's foiled along the way by fate (or is it?). The good thing about this hard to swallow fable is that there are two or three really enterprising dance numbers, and they are worth your time. But there are no real story surprises - the 'twist' you can probably see coming a mile away and of course, there is always a happy ending and a quick resolve in an MGM movie.

moonspinner55 Canned magic from MGM and director Vincente Minnelli. Lushly-produced, if studio-bound musical about convent-school graduate who unknowingly inherits family fortune, and the con-artist who tries duping her out of it. Certainly an eyeful, "Yolanda" is tuneful and colorful yet aloof, never quite achieving its ambitions to be a romantic musical-comedy. The awkward prologue featuring South American schoolchildren gets the picture off to a clumsy start, although director Vincente Minnelli stages some beautiful production numbers. Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer are not magnificent together, but they are charming, and their "Coffee Time" number is glorious. Mildred Natwick is hilarious as Bremer's batty aunt and there's a humdinger of a fiesta sequence. The colorful costumes are knockouts, but the film's finale seems truncated, tampered with (the plot threads are tied up off-screen). The cinematographer was Charles Rosher, whose beautiful colors evoke the best parts of "The Wizard Of Oz". Unfortunately for him and everyone else, the confines of the studio are in evidence throughout and one feels boxed in by the wall-to-wall whimsy. ** from ****

Chamelea Extraordinary and ghastly, as though Eugene Ionesco had adapted "The Wizard of Oz" as an overlong "Touched by an Angel" movie-of-the-week special. Vapid music, tediously absurd characters, overheated mises en scène, and loathsome ethnic and religious caricatures unredeemed by any good dancing. Who'd have guessed that this stinker was hiding in Astaire's closet next to his top hat, tails, and that cute toreador outfit from "Broadway Melody of 1940"?

harry-76 Vincent Minnelli loves pure beauty, and in "Yolanda and the Thief" he's in heaven.Here he has the unbridled luxury of reveling in rich colors, stylish costumes, imaginative dream sequences, and a carnival dance scene that's breathtaking.With Arthur Freed and Harry Warren's tuneful songs, music supervision by Roger Edens and direction by Lennie Hayton, the score simply glows. Right from the start, "This is a Day for Love" spans a colorful countryside, moving into a processional and to a lovely convent setting. At midpoint, there's a fantasy through cobblestone streets, to a "magical" pond (from which a remarkable "apparition" emerges) to a multileveled plane with assorted choreographic groupings.This complex fantasy undoubtedly inspired Gene Kelly six years later in developing his great ballet sequence of "An American in Paris." The expansive MGM sound stages are fully utilized in both executions to their fullest.Then the show-stopping "Coffee Time" choreography by Eugen Loring, and deftly danced by Fred Astaire, Lucille Bremer and company, is a masterpiece of concept and execution.Starting off with a lone female trio stepping and clapping off-beat in 5/4, a startling 4/4 song is suddenly superimposed upon the "ground"--with dance and clap movements clearly continuing in 5/4. To add to the "tour de force, a slower pas de deux emerges in the irregular meter, only to be followed by the corps' return to the regular, with everything "taken out" in combined meters. It's really something to see this dance, which is obviously the result of many weeks of painstaking work from a number of departments, so smoothly executed. Astaire is on top of his form, with Bremer right there every step of the way. They make as beautiful a pair here as in the lovely "This Heart of Mine" number from "Ziegfield Follies." As for Minnelli, he must have been ecstatic throughout this picturesque production. Mildred Natwick shines in her hilarious role as Aunt, and Frank Morgan and Leon Ames provide able support. The script itself is a serviceable backdrop for the art departments' joining the music team in having a field day crafting a very beautiful production. As for Minnelli, this was certainly among his happiest hours in filmmaking.