Kiss Me, Kate

Until a close-cropped nurse and a middle-aged baritone premiered a new musical a few blocks up the street, Kiss Me, Kate was Broadway's brightest show in late '48. But while Kate continued to prosper, the critics were no longer so enchanted with its blend of Elizabethan and backstage comedy. The show, they carped, had none of Rogers and Hammerstein's poignancy, bitter-sweet romance, or delicacy.

Now the release of a film version points up more that ever the obtuseness of this view. Still gaudy, still gustily good-natured and bordering on indelicacy, Kiss Me, Kate follows closely the Century Theatre version, and it is about as entertaining as a musical can be.

Preserving every melody of Cole Porter's finest score and most of the sly nuances of his brilliant lyrics, the movie could hardly miss being top-notch. All the popular favorites of the show, "Wunderbar," "So in Love," and "Were Thine That Special Face," are, as might be expected, given the full treatment. More surprising, however, Petruchio's lusty songs, "I've Come to Wive it Wealthily in Padua," and "Where is the Life that Late I've Led," escaped the Hollywood blue pencil.

Kate's familiar plot shuttles actor-producer Howard Keel between 'Broadway and sixteenth-century Italy. Keel plays Fred Graham, battling to produce The Taming of the Shrew with his fiery ex-wife in the title role. Wisely following note for note the lead of Alfred Drake who played the part on Broadway, Keel is robust in voice and bearing.

Putting a red wig on Katherine Grayson helps to hide her usual insipid manner. If she is not spirited enough to be a convincing shrew, however, she does seem ill-tempered while kicking about the stage in "I Hate Men." As Kate's younger sister, bombastic Ann Miller is wisely given the song, "Too Darn Hot." And in the show-within-a-show, Miss Miller taps through "Tom, Dick, and Harry," one of those songs typical of Porter--unimportant in his score, good enough to be a show-stopper anywhere else. Regrettably, Miss Miller must share. "Always True to You in My Fashion" and "Why Can't You Behave?" with newcomer Tommy Rall. Rall, a dancer with a repugnant personality, is one of the film's few liabilities.

To brace the plot, Bella and Sam Spewak, Shakespeare's collaborators on the book, provide two mobsters to luck backstage during the performance. Before they return to gangland, the thugs have stolen Porter's wittiest song, "Brush Up Your Shakespeare." Advice on love couched in the titles of Shakespeare's plays, the lyrics are studded with lines like "If she says your behaviour is heinous, kick her right in the Coriolanus."

As a test of 3-D drawing power, Kate has been filmed both plus and minus the extra dimension, New York showing the flat version and Boston the deep one. With all its opulence, however, the musical doesn't need 3-D. Kiss Me, Kate, in fact, needs nothing more at all.