in the citadel film series book the film of gene kelly and anchor aweigh be describe a a kingpin of a musical . i sure can not do good than that . it such an important film in both the career of gene kelly and frank sinatra . kathryn grayson do not do too badly with this either . louis b. mayer have lent gene kelly out to columbia where harry cohn have an inspiration to let kelly choreograph his own number and because of it and cover girl become a classic . so if mayer do not learn a lesson and producer joe pasternak do and allow kelly artistic control . when anchor aweigh be finish and fred astaire at last have a dancing rival for monarch of cinema dance . the main number everyone talk about with gene kelly here be the dance with jerry mouse . originally kelly want to do the number with walt disney mickey mouse and but disney wasn not lend mickey out to nobody . mickey would have to wait until who frame roger rabbit to do an outside film . not to worry because mgm have it own animated rodent one half the team of tom and jerry . kelly a dancer always strive to do something new and different on screen a do fred astaire . for the next dozen year and these two be allow all kind of artistic control and be praise for their work even if the film themselves weren not up to snuff . it be like each inspire the other to big and good creativity and kelly for mgm and astaire for mgm and any number of other studio . in anchor aweigh and kelly get sinatra to dance a bit . in fact frank sinatra always give credit to gene kelly for show him how musical should be do a he give credit to both burt lancaster and montgomery clift for their help in earn him be oscar for from here to eternity . when frank sinatra have half of his contract buy from rko by mgm he insist on a little artistic creativity on his own . he would become friend with the songwriting team of jule styne and sammy cahn . in his autobiography sammy cahn tell about how sinatra insist that they write his song for this film . louis b. mayer give in and the team write some really fine ballad for him to sing . one of my favorite sinatra number come from anchor aweigh and i fall in love too easily . frank sings it accompany himself on the piano at an empty hollywood bowl . it sinatra at his best . with jule styne and later with jimmy van heusen and sammy cahn richly earn the title of have put more song lyric in frank sinatra mouth than any other person . they be lifetime friend and cahn always credit sinatra with this milestone boost in his career . on a bet styne and cahn say they could write a song just use a chromatic scale . they prove it in anchor aweigh when kathryn grayson put her soprano to work on all of a sudden my heart sings . she also do some classical number . here sing in fact be the basis of the plot . two sailor on leave through a combination of circumstance meet up with kathryn grayson and her orphaned nephew dean stockwell . try to fix her up with sinatra and kelly say he can get her an audition with jose iturbi . they spend the film try to accomplish just that . my only disappointment in anchor aweigh be that pamela britton and who play the waitress brooklyn never get a number herself . she have get rave review from her performance a meg brockie in brigadoon on broadway and that what bring her to hollywood . i have a suspicion she have a number that be cut and somewhere in mgm vault it might still be . anchor aweigh be a great example of why musical just aren not make any more . all that creative talent be under contract to metro goldwyn mayer . if you have to pay market value for it and the cost might retire some third world country debt . but the film result would be extraordinary .