Song-and-dance man Tony Hunter (Fred Astaire) is caught between his fading film career and an uncertain future when his friends Lester and Lily Marton (Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray) offer him the chance for a Broadway comeback. Their show about a children's book author who moonlights as a writer of detective stories spirals out of control when Broadway wunderkind Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan) signs on as director and co-star. While Tony struggles with this stressful comeback vehicle that could end his career forever, he also finds himself falling in love with dancer Gabrielle Gerard (Cyd Charisse), a partnership that might sustain him for life. But first, the show must go on! In many ways, The Band Wagon was the summation of director Vincente Minnelli's love of musicals. Where most of his other musicals (Meet Me in St. Louis, 1944; An American in Paris, 1951; Gigi, 1958) forged new ground for the genre, this film embraced the best that could be accomplished within its limitations. More than any other backstage musical, it celebrated the accomplishments of performers at their best. Eighteen Howard Dietz/Arthur Schwartz tunes from their past productions were chosen for The Band Wagon but Freed felt something was missing and went to the songwriters for a new addition. "In the script this director, Buchanan, is saying that practically anything you can do will work if it's entertaining. I want a 'There's No Business Like Show Business,'" Freed told the pair. Forty-five minutes later they returned with The Band Wagon's most famous number, "That's Entertainment." The Band Wagon is the most frequent rival of Singin' in the Rain (1952) for honors as producer Arthur Freed's best musical. In some ways, the pictures are mirror images of each other. Both are about song-and-dance men whose careers are jeopardized. Both feature a production that starts out as a disaster and becomes a hit. And in both films, saving the production and the leading character's career parallels the personal salvation he finds through love. The Band Wagon, however, is the darker of the two films, set on a fading Broadway with a focus on old age and retirement to add to the leading character's professional and personal problems

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