Athena (1954)

Athena: Directed by Richard Thorpe. With Jane Powell, Edmund Purdom, Debbie Reynolds, Vic Damone. The story about two sisters in love. Everything should be wonderful, but father doesn’t approve of his daughters’ physically underdeveloped fiancés.

“ATHENA is a strange movie in many ways, some of which still resonate today. As a satire of a certain kind of Southern California lifestyle it was ahead of its time. Astrology, numerology, exercise, body-building, vegetarianism, non-smoking, environmental allergies, animal rights, contemporary art and architecture are all parodied or touched on here, and all became joke punchlines in the u0026#39;50s and u0026#39;60s — until these u0026#39;ismsu0026#39; became part of mainstream culture. Here for the first time in movies we see familiar aspects of American life as we take it for granted in 2004.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOn a completely different front, it was the lack of tuneful, memorable original scores that began to kill the movie musical in the 1950s and the exceptions were few: ROYAL WEDDING, CALAMITY JANE, GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES, SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, GIGI, then much later, THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE. Can you think of others? Those that were as good or better were either revues of old song catalogs (SINGING IN THE RAIN, THE BAND WAGON) or else were filmed versions of hit Broadway shows. On the other hand I LOVE MELVIN, HIT THE DECK, LUCKY ME, TWO TICKETS TO Broadway, Texas CARNIVAL, GIVE A GIRL A BREAK, SMALL TOWN GIRL, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, THE GIRL MOST LIKELY, THE GIRL RUSH and others like them presided over the slow death of a great film genre. Blane and Martinu0026#39;s score for ATHENA isnu0026#39;t top notch, but itu0026#39;s good and it deserves to be better known than it is.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThen we have the coded gay sensibility that slumbers in every film musical but occasionally awakens in u0026#39;50s Hollywood in the u0026#39;Is There Anyone Here For Love?u0026#39; number in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES, in the u0026#39;Put u0026#39;Em Backu0026#39; number from Lu0026#39;IL ABNER and throughout ATHENA, which even has an appearance by physique god and gay icon Steve Reeves, along with a gaggle of other adorable, glossy-haired muscle studs who were almost certainly gay to a man (for the right price, anyway). Somehow, ATHENA weaves these various skeins in a way that is simultaneously entertaining and mind-blowing, awful yet kinda terrific. All this and Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds in the same picture.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhich turns out to be revealing. Jane Powell was always pretty, peppy and efficient, and Iu0026#39;ve always preferred her operetta-style singing voice to those of Jeanette MacDonald, Deanna Durbin or Kathryn Grayson. And yet more than some others, this role reveals a certain detachment, a lack of affect. Having now watched six or eight Powell films over a short period (via the Universite de TCM), it gradually dawned on me that for all her niceness and professionalism she never really seems to connect to her material, her surroundings or her co-stars. Did she ever make you believe she was Walter Pigeonu0026#39;s daughter? George Brentu0026#39;s? Fred Astaireu0026#39;s sister? Or that she was in love with Peter Lawford, Cliff Robertson or (in this picture) Edmund Purdom? Itu0026#39;s as if sheu0026#39;s starring in a film in her own head where the other actors are her creations. Compare her to Debbie Reynolds here, whose talent and personality seem so much more engaged and energetic — this may be a construction (Debbie was an ambitious and hard-working gal) but she is more immediate, more alive than Powell, and she effortlessly steals the u0026#39;I Never Felt Betteru0026#39; number out from under Janie, making it the best in the film.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNeed more reasons to check out this curious and curiously enjoyable musical? Well, there is the very handsome Edmund Purdom, whose stiffness is for once used well in a film, and who manages, in his sly, quiet way to be very sexy and charming. Then there is dishy, bitchy Linda Christian, who loses Edmund to Jane, but who is so much more believable as his consort. As she must have seemed in real life: after husband Tyrone Power died, she briefly married Purdom. And then thereu0026#39;s the fact reported by Esther Williams in her memoir u0026quot;Million Dollar Mermaidu0026quot; that she and Charles Walters originally dreamed up ATHENA as a swimming musical for her. Do seek it out. Itu0026#39;s not entirely successful, even on its own terms, but itu0026#39;s worth a look.”