Original Vintage Old Movie Film Theater Posters Movie Memorabilia Collectibles For Sale
"Anchors Aweigh" 1945
Original Lobby Card movie poster (11x14”)
Starring Frank Sinatra & Gene Kelly

Great vintage lobby card from 1945, with a terrific close-up scene. Exceptional graphics and color on this vintage set.  Excellent condition.

* See enlargeable image above

In their first film together, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra are two sailors who use their leave time to pursue Kathryn Grayson, entertain a young boy, and dance, dance, dance... Highlights include Sinatra singing "I Fall in Love Too Easily" and Kelly's Mexican hat dance and duet with Jerry the mouse.

MGM was intent on making the most of its hot new properties Kelly and Sinatra in this affable sailor saga. The stars' characters were created with maximum screen impact in mind, and were to be retained (with minor adjustments) in "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" and "On The Town". Gene Kelly plays Joe "Sea Wolf" Brady, the twinkle-eyed Irish womanizer who never quite seems to get a woman. Clarence "Brooklyn" Doolittle, Sinatra's screen persona, was put together as a blatant attempt to pander to his bobbysoxer following. He is the bashful, slightly geek ingénue, pushing his cuteness for all it's worth - "the romantical type fella".

"Anchors Aweigh" set the pattern for a whole assembly line of MGM musicals to come, and one could almost say it established an art-form. Kelly did the choreography, and his first-ever 'dream ballets', two of them, are on display here - the famous pas de deux with Jerry The Mouse, and the Zorro interlude. The dance sequences are brimming with innovative ideas - mixing human action with animation, artistic use of slow motion, 'playing' the items on the craft stall and bouncing on the beds in the servicemen's hostel.

Young Mister Sinatra, under a separate contract from the others, sings numbers specially written for him by Jules Styne and Sammy Cahn. By far the best of these formulaic boy-crooner ballads is the final one, "I Fall In Love Too Easily". Throughout the film, Frank sings in his upper register, aiming for a light ballad sound, and consequently not doing any justice to that reedy baritone voice.

Anchors Aweigh (MGM, 1945). Lobby Card (11" X 14").
The superb pairing of Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra resulted in on-screen magic in this musical comedy about two sailors on leave in Hollywood. A huge hit, Anchors Aweigh features fun dance scenes, including a ground breaking scene with Kelly dancing with the "Tom & Jerry" cartoon mouse (courtesy of MGM's animators Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera). 

Note: Cvtreasures stamp Not on original