Yolanda and the Thief

Imagine if Pufnstuf married Mary Poppins at MGM in 1945. Hmmm. This eyegoggling Technicolor extravaganza set in South America is basically the movie version of the box of chocolates Forrest Gump's Mum warned us about. Unsuspecting viewers might be initially puzzled at the setting and the ideology of the characters. But if you are willing to be patient and be generous about the casting and look forward to a sumptuous feast of color MGM musical effervescence... Well YOLANDA is possibly one of the three top visual treats from that studio. WIZARD OF OZ and THE PIRATE are my votes for the other two. This puts us firmly in a fantasy mode of dreamy musicals with some bitter edges and sexual undercurrent. Read the other comments on this site for YOLANDA they quite well describe some odd things and mostly agree on the film's triumphs: the art direction and the 'Coffeetime' dance number. For me there is an extra musical bonus: The song called "I've An Angel": its breathtaking romantic excitement, the swoon-worthy sexual beauty of Lucille Bremer emerging from her bath to dress in ultra sheer imagery of famed Vargas Girl style.. and the song itself hummed and sung as she bathes, dresses, leaves the house and rushes through the night for a possibly breathless encounter. YOLANDA has many delights, like that chocolate box itself, and it is over ripe and heady. But I am so happy it exists, so delicious a cinematic fruit salad. It cost a mammoth $4million dollars in 1945 and did not return its cost. Made in the days when 'Art for Arts sake" the MGM motto on the ribbon over the growling lion logo, actually meant what it said. YOLANDA (and THE PIRATE) are both genuine art musicals. Know that and you will enjoy.

When Yolanda and the Thief is good it is great, but when it is not so good it does significantly underwhelm, a case of having a lot of style and not enough substance. Like The Belle of New York, Yolanda and the Thief is one of Astaire's weakest films, but has a number of virtues that is enough for one to stick with it.

Yolanda and the Thief does look glorious, with positively exotic colours, lavish cinematography and opulent costumes. In this regard, the best and most interesting scene visually is the dream sequence, which looks really stunning. The songs are not enough and they are not the most memorable in the world, but they are pleasant and fun and don't drag the film down too much, the best song being the riotous Coffee Time.

Vincente Minnelli directs very imaginatively, his sense for storytelling has been much stronger in his other films but in terms of style and visual imagination he triumphs. Choreographically, Yolanda and the Thief dazzles as much as the visuals, especially in the dream sequence, which is very colourfully and elegantly choreographed and superbly danced, and Coffee Time, which has the most energy the film ever gets. Fred Astaire is in a different role to usual(very like Three Little Words, except his performance is better in that) and while it does seem like an ill fit at first, he plays it with real grace, suavity and charm while his dancing is magnificent as always. Lucille Bremer proves herself one of his most elegant partners and she dances exquisitely, while Mildred Natwick has fun as the Aunt.

The story however struggles to sustain the running time, is very predictable even for a 40s musical and strains credibility quite badly. The opening sequence is unnecessary and clumsily handled and the ending felt abrupt and under-explained. The script manages to be even thinner and the attempts at humour are leaden and unfunny, while the film shamefully wastes Frank Morgan and Leon Ames, two very reliable actors when with good material but their roles here do nothing for their talents at all. Outside of the musical numbers the film also struggles maintaining momentum, and while her dancing is delightful Bremer seemed very overtaxed and cold in her acting.

All in all, one of Astaire's weakest but has enough to partially recommend it. 6/10 Bethany Cox

This is an extraordinary film for 1945. The story, a fantasy, is sort of sappy and the music is forgettable. Frank Morgan and Fred Astaire play themselves. And yet there is an overall quality about the film, a box office disaster, that makes it highly enjoyable. Perhaps it's the way Vincent Minelli handled the production. Perhaps it's Lucille Bremer's almost dazzling beauty. The dance numbers are a whole cut above the usual tap dance routines we expect with Astaire. The special effects are haunting at times.

It's Astaire's "Invitation to the Dance." Well worth watching.

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.

I'd always been curious about this one, especially considering its rather unhappy reputation as a major disappointment in the Fred Astaire/Vincente Minnelli canon, and it's fairly easy to see why. Turner Classic Movies scheduled it recently and I tuned in to watch something that certainly made me glad Technicolor was invented but which fell somewhat short of its intended mark.

The story is absolute piffle, almost redeemed by Mildred Natwick's genuinely funny portrayal of a dotty aunt. (Check out the sequence where she welcomes Yolanda home from her years at a convent school.) M-G-M stalwarts Leon Ames and Frank Morgan (Was he in every single class "A" Metro production from the late Thirties through the early Fifties?) lend reliable support with the little they're given to do. And Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer get (only) two opportunities to display their dancing compatibility. Astaire, of course, managed to complement all of his dancing partners with his patented style and grace (even the miscast Joan Fontaine in "A Damsel in Distress") but, as a matter of personal opinion, I think that Ms. Bremer runs a very close second to the gorgeous Cyd Charisse as one of his most elegant and beautiful co-stars. She's too old for her role in this one, admittedly, but she's nevertheless quite charming and a prime object for the luscious Technicolor cinematography of Charles Rosher.

The real star of this misbegotten show, however, is the opulence of the very artificial art direction, set decoration, and costuming. It's Hollywood at its most baroque and Minnelli keeps his cameras gliding through it all as if on angels' wings. If you're not looking for one of the Arthur Freed's unit's bona fide musical classics, this one will provide a phantasmagoria of color and motion that's rarely been equaled.