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Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Athena (1954)

A strait laced attorney (Edmund Purdom) running for public office gets involved with a girl (Jane Powell) who lives an alternative health conscious "back to nature" lifestyle that emphasizes exercise, vegetarianism and astrology. The premise for this lightweight MGM musical promises more than it can deliver. Its plot seems pregnant with humorous possibilities but the pedestrian script doesn't take advantage of them. The songs by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane (they penned the songs for MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS and Vic Damone even sings a song from that film) are an undistinguished bunch and the musical numbers (Valerie Bettis did the choreography) are awkwardly staged. Reputedly, the director Richard Thorpe (IVANHOE) disliked the script intensely and it shows. He doesn't even try. Powell overdoes the perky bit and by the time she chirps Donizetti's Chacun Le Sait, you've already lost interest. With Debbie Reynolds, Louis Calhern, Linda Christian, Evelyn Varden, Ray Collins, Virginia Gibson, Kathleen Freeman, Henry Nakamura and a young pre-HERCULES Steve Reeves as one of Powell's suitors.

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