Event

CFS Presents "Easter Parade" in 35mm

EASTER PARADE
Directed by Charles Walters 1948
When Broadway star Fred Astaire gets dumped by his current dancing partner, he sets out to make a dancing star out of the next person he sees, which happens to be Judy Garland. Despite the relatively breezy plot, "Easter Parade" has a palpable intensity culminating from years of studio pressure put on Judy Garland since her days as a child performer. Easter Parade is wired, and the film features some of Garlands best work (and Astaires too), all the more impressive because it transcends the environment that created it ironically, M-G-M billed it as the happiest musical ever made. The last film Garland would make for musical maverick Arthur Freed ("Singin in the Rain," "The Band Wagon"), "Easter Parade" was M-G-Ms highest grossing film of 1948 and Garlands most critically successful film until "A Star is Born" in 1954. With seventeen songs including Steppin Out with My Baby, Were a Couple of Swells, and It Only Happens When I Dance With You, which Irving Berlin wrote specifically for Judy Garland. (JA)
103 min M-G-M 35mm from Warner Brothers

Preceded by: Adventures of Bunny Rabbit (Erpi Classroom Films, Inc., 1937) 9 min 16mm