Of all the unanswerable questions in the universe, there’s one that brings the brightest minds of Broadway and Hollywood to their knees: What makes one musical or movie musical a hit and another a flop? A veritable ocean of cocktails flows over this question. But during the 1940s, the Hollywood folks with the magic touch were in the so-called “Freed Unit,” the division of the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from which producer Arthur Freed turned out some of America’s greatest movie musicals.
Freed’s keen eye saw that a Broadway hoofer named Gene Kelly could be a star—and that his charm could create screen magic with Judy Garland. And so began, with the 1942 film For Me and My Gal, Kelly’s prolific MGM career, glittering prominently even in an age of gold. The Freed Unit was a rotating team that included directors Busby Berkeley and Vincente Minnelli, plus a roster of stars from Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra to Kathryn Grayson, Esther Williams, and of course Garland. Kelly could sing and dance—and write—but he also choreographed and directed films, most memorably On the Town (1949) and Singin’ in the Rain (1952), with Stanley Donen.
