Thanks to the mega surprise success of SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, and the income of $7m in rentals (wow!) MGM lurched into a series of 'robust' macho musicals: ATHENA, ROSE MARIE, HIT THE DECK, and the best of all: IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER. KISMET today, 50 years later, it is best enjoyed knowing it came from that mindset and is a product of a lavish budget itself: $2.6m. Like all those above it made money, but only just. In 2004 it is the production values and the music/dancing that is sensational and compared to modern film production quality is positively a masterpiece. I am sure even Madonna has seen this because the Market Place dance number is certainly recycled into her music video imagery. Dolores Gray is suitably brassy and the absolutely awesome NIGHT OF MY NIGHTS number with Vic Damone is one of the most visually enchanting set pieces committed to film ever. Try and see it in cinema scope, as pan/scan TV prints cut the sides off and the impressive visuals are crippled. It's quite rude too.

Some might refer to this as a rhinestone, but those cynical people can have their opinion. When you just lay back and listen to the soundtrack, just feel the shivers that rush up and down your spine as Vic Damone sings of a "Stranger in Paradise", Ann Blyth warbles "Baubels, Bangles and Beads", and together, the two of them declare, "And This is My Beloved". That is romantic music at its best, and when you put it in this exotic setting, you have a movie that, like a York Peppermint Patty, will take you far away from your troubles and leave you singing in your mind.

One of many versions of the classic tale of a beggar/thief who sings of "Fate" and "The Olive Tree", this colorful MGM musical may look like a Maria Montez/Sabu movie, but there is nothing wrong with that, and the movie is so much more. It is romantic. It is witty. It is beautiful to look at. And most importantly of all, it features one of the most beautiful of all Broadway scores that doesn't date even if the plot to some might seem like an opera that Wagner never got his hands on.

The storyline focuses on the wise beggar Hajj (Howard Keel in another one of the Alfred Drake musical roles he took to the silver screen) and his lovely daughter Marsinah (Blyth) who find romance in the most unexpected of Bagdad places: the palace! Keel wins the lusty eyes of Lalume (the succulent Dolores Gray),wife of the Wazir, while Blyth meets a young man (Damone) she assumes is a gardener who is really, of all people, the caliph! The young man is in danger of loosing his throne to usurpers (most obviously, the evil Wazir, played by "Family Affair's" Mr. French, Sebastian Cabot) but ultimately, as Keel sings, fate will take care of that. Gray makes her entrance in the most luscious of ways, singing "Not Since Ninevah" with a chorus of female Asian warriors "Bagdad! Don't Underestimate Bagdad!" she sings, leading into the fiery production number that practically stops the whole show even before it barely starts. And then when she breaks into "Bored", you know you've got the type of female that could never just settle for being the Wazir's wife; The insinuations are obvious, especially when Keel and Gray duet on "Rahadlakum" The romantic entanglement of Blyth and Damone doesn't stop the show cold like some young romances do; In fact, it spruces it up with their other musical number "Night of My Nights".

Nearing the end of the Arthur Freed/Vincent Minnelli era (MGM was slowly dissolving their contract player list),"Kismet" didn't do as well as they had hoped, but like their 1948 pairing, "The Pirate", I think it holds up better today. It might not fare so well on stage (revivals in both L.A. and New York's concert musical series have gotten mixed reviews for the comic material),but oh, what a pleasure it is to hear.

Kismet is not the best of the MGM musicals, the songs sound plain bad to modern ears and hence a reason why the musicals died a celluloid death. Even the story and direction is heavy handed with little fun injected.

Howard Keel plays the opportunistic poet and beggar Hajj in old Baghdad. His daughter Marsinah falls for the young Caliph who is wandering in the market in disguise as a commoner.

Hajj gets mistaken as man who has the power to inflict curses and rewind them which brings him to the attention of the powerful Wazir who wants the Caliph to marry someone else.

The directing and scenery in Kismet is pedestrian, you would not even think that this was directed by Vincente Minnelli. The film also has an unfortunate mix of the middle east and far east, one of the dance sequences at the end was more Thai influenced.