Yolanda and the Thief (1945)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Vincente Minnelli

Writers:

Jacques Théry (story) and
Ludwig Bemelmans (story) ...

Release Date:

23 April 1946 (Sweden)

Genre:

Fantasy | Musical | Romance

Tagline:

M.G.M.'s magic musical in Technicolor

Plot:

Johnny Riggs, a con man on the lam, finds himself in a Latin-American country named Patria. There, he...

Plot Keywords:

Angel | Con Man | Guardian Angel | Fiesta | Harp

Cast

Fred Astaire	...	Johnny Parkson Riggs
Lucille Bremer	...	Yolanda
Frank Morgan	...	Victor Budlow Trout
Mildred Natwick	...	Aunt Amarilla
Mary Nash	...	Duenna
Leon Ames	...	Mr. Candle
Ludwig Stössel	...	School Teacher (as Ludwig Stossel)
Jane Green	...	Mother Superior
Remo Bufano	...	Puppeteer
Francis Pierlot	...	Padre
Leon Belasco	...	Taxi Driver
Gigi Perreau	...	Gigi (as Ghislaine Perreau)
Charles La Torre	...	Police Lieutenant
Michael Visaroff	...	Major Domo

Runtime:

108 min | Argentina:110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:G | Argentina:Atp | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | USA:Approved (PCA #10928)

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Quotes:

Aunt Amarilla: Right now we will have lunch, as only Gaston can prepare it.
Yolanda Aquaviva: I am hungry.
Aunt Amarilla: Good. I've planned something a little special. Fresh caviar, which was flown here from Russia, avocados flown here from California, and roast pheasants - they fly here themselves.

Movie Connections:

Featured in That's Entertainment! III (1994)

Soundtrack:

Yolanda

Vincente Minnelli unbound in garish, one-of-a-kind musical phantasmagoria

If Yolanda and the Thief isn't the damnedest thing ever committed to film, it's hard to say what is. Vincente Minnelli took a wisp of whimsey from Ludwig Bemelmans and turned it into this overblown fantasy musical that pushes the flap of the envelope wide open.

Most musicals – the best of them, anyway – grow out of show business lore and derive their pluck and sass from the raffish traditions of show-must-go-on troupers. But Yolanda and the Thief invents a Latin-American Ruritania (called Patria, or fatherland) out of stereotypes which verge on the offensive but stay simperingly coy. It's a kind of squeaky-clean utopia of the clueless Lost Horizon sort run by a benevolent family of oligarchs called the Aquavivas.

Their only daughter (Lucille Bremer), having reached her majority, leaves the convent school where she is allowed to wear full Hollywood makeup. The vast family fortune becomes hers to administer with the help of a dotty aunt (Mildred Natwick, and the best thing in the movie). Alas, the good sisters have not equipped her to cope with the wicked ways of the world, as personified by a couple of American con-artists (Fred Astaire and Frank Morgan) who arrange an introduction and plan to abscond with a sizeable chunk of her assets. Astaire poses as an angel for the impressionable girl, and almost gets away with it, except he – inevitably – falls for her. Plus, on the fringes of the action, a real angel operates....

Harmless enough piffle, but get a load of the musical numbers. Full-tilt phantasmagorias that look like Busby Berkeley on acid or crystal or absinthe, they get bigger and more grandiose and ever loonier, with colors so brash that sunglasses are in order (was this the first head movie?). The set and costume designers must have had field day, what with Minnelli extending them a carte blanche they certainly never had before and would never have again until the debut of the music video. But the songs stay resolutely uninspired, which takes the starch out of the dancing (even much of Astaire's). It's safe to say nobody strode out of the theaters in 1945 whistling snappy tunes from Yolanda and the Thief.

It's not exactly fun to watch but you can't take your eyes off it, either. A one-of-a-kind Technicolor extravaganza, it makes you wonder how – not to say why – it ever got made. Astaire's reputation must have taken a nosedive after its release, and as for Bremer? She makes you long for Ginger Rogers – even the very late Ginger Rogers.