Athena

The robust smash hit of 7 Brides For 7 brothers literally spawned this star struck mini musical of 1954....and if one has a closer look in reels 1 2 and 3 (instead of 4 5 and 6) one can almost hear the board room pitch quoting the 7 Brides box office as the excuse to rush ATHENA into production: "That what they want! healthy boys and girls with an appetite for life living on some farm. The boys flex their muscles and the girls tend their.......er......garden." and so we have what is a lively and funny musical for the 20 year olds market that was called the teen market very soon after........quite rightly predating the AIP Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello frolics ten years later in Muscle Beach Party etc. Athena is good fun and well made. The muscle contest at the end to the tune "Jealousy" is well coded with beefcake antics....and all filmed from what might be called the bulging cossie angle. Hilarious! I would be fascinated to see the missing ten minutes as reported on the IMDb that the original running time was 115 minutes as opposed to the 95 mins only now available. I wonder was edited out and where can the footage be seen?

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 '50s and '60s -- until these 'isms' 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.

On 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 Martin's score for ATHENA isn't top notch, but it's good and it deserves to be better known than it is.

Then we have the coded gay sensibility that slumbers in every film musical but occasionally awakens in '50s Hollywood in the 'Is There Anyone Here For Love?' number in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES, in the 'Put 'Em Back' number from L'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.

Which turns out to be revealing. Jane Powell was always pretty, peppy and efficient, and I'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 Pigeon's daughter? George Brent's? Fred Astaire's sister? Or that she was in love with Peter Lawford, Cliff Robertson or (in this picture) Edmund Purdom? It's as if she'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 'I Never Felt Better' number out from under Janie, making it the best in the film.

Need 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 there's the fact reported by Esther Williams in her memoir "Million Dollar Mermaid" that she and Charles Walters originally dreamed up ATHENA as a swimming musical for her. Do seek it out. It's not entirely successful, even on its own terms, but it's worth a look.

Jane Powell is Athena. Her sister, Minerva, is played by Debbie Reynolds. One is named after the Greek goddess of wisdom; the other is named after the Roman goddess of wisdom. They have five others sisters named after figures from ancient mythology, and they all live with their grandparents (named Ulysses and Salome) in an enclave that celebrates vegetarianism, healthy living, exercise, astrology and a lifestyle designed to create healthy individuals. Those familiar with Jack Lalanne might recognize some tenets of his lifestyle.

To those on the "outside", like the characters played by Vic Damone and Edmund Purdom, this can be confusing or kooky. But there is no denying the allure of these comely beauties who also happen to be surrounded by bodybuilding hunks like Steve Reeves.

This quirky film falls under the musical comedy umbrella, but it seems to offer something different---an outlook on the world. Although it bears a resemblance to another film released in 1954---"Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", its depiction of an alternate culture separate from the rest of the world is similar to another film musical released that year: "Brigadoon".

The unique soundtrack includes songs by Martin and Blane that fit the unusual narrative and allow the cast to demonstrate their vocal talents.

This film is not for everyone, but I find it charming and enjoyable.

I caught this film on TCM the other day and I must say I was strangely enthralled by it. There was something magical about the atmosphere created in this film with the sets and the star fields. Jane Powell's singing of "Love can change the Stars" was especially mesmerizing and it made me want to immediately go and get "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers". Steve Reeves was especially notable in this film. The weightlifting competition was yet another treat to behold. The song and dance numbers were lively and Debbie Reynolds was a dynamo. All in all, I taped this film and have reviewed it many times since.

On a visit some weeks ago to my local Hollywood Video store, I noticed this title available among the VHS tapes in the Musicals section. Since I knew it had not been produced in CinemaScope (and therefore wouldn't suffer from the dread "formatting") and being a Jane Powell fan from 'way back, I rented it. It is certainly an odd concoction for a very conservative major studio of the mid-Fifties era; studio bound; directed by the pedestrian Richard Thorpe; packed with a cast selected to appeal, presumably, to the the younger members of its potential audience; and not as overflowing with musical numbers as I had hoped.

Jane is as pretty as ever, in overlit but warmly rich Eastmancolor, chirrupping in her matchless colortura; Debbie Reynolds lends her usual lively support; Vic Damone, despite his eminently listenable baritone, once again demonstrates why he never became a top boxoffice draw; and Edmund Purdom is perfectly cast as an unlikely stuffed-shirt suitor to Jane's way-out-there Athena. One can only imagine the chasm of misunderstandings that would bedevil their future marital bliss. With the elegant Louis Calhern as an unlikely patriarch, health and fitness obsessed, and the lovable Evelyn Varden as his woozy mate, convinced that astrology is the key to happiness. Add a passel of pre-steroid Muscle Beach denizens, including the handsome Steve Reeves and Ed Fury, before their emigration to Italy to appear in all those Hercules epics, and you've got a brew that's not really indigestible but doesn't really coalesce as its makers may have hoped.