← It's Always Fair Weather
It's Always Fair Weather poster

It's Always Fair Weather · reception & legacy

1955 · Stanley Donen

How It's Always Fair Weather has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

MGM barely promoted it and audiences in 1955 shrugged at a musical this sour about reunions, TV, and advertising — it lost money and effectively ended the Kelly–Donen partnership. Now it's routinely reclaimed as the great melancholy MGM musical, the bittersweet hangover to On the Town.

What's debated

The perennial fan debate: is this secretly the smartest, most adult thing the Freed Unit ever made, or is a cynical musical about disillusionment a contradiction that can't fully land?

Its footprint

Gene Kelly tap-dancing on roller skates to 'I Like Myself' is the endlessly clipped, gif-ed image, with the trash-can-lid dance and the split-screen CinemaScope trio number close behind — it's a go-to exhibit for 'they don't make them like this anymore' posts.

Where it stands

A cinephile's musical more than a casual one — beloved-but-underseen, the 'actually my favorite Kelly film' pick that musical die-hards press on people who've only seen Singin' in the Rain.

★ Did you know? Comden and Green originally conceived it as a direct sequel to On the Town, reuniting Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin as the sailors ten years on — when that casting fell through, the characters became new GIs played by Kelly, Dan Dailey, and Michael Kidd.