Movie #164........................."An Unfinished Dance"

Movie #164 "An Unfinished Dance" is a bit hoaky, but if you like ballet dancing, you'll like this. It's so exciting to see Cyd Charisse, so young, doing straight ballet (for those who don't know Charisse, she's the dancer in green in the featured dance with Kelly in "Singin' in the Rain" --- who can forget rubberlegs!) Anyway, here's the story (it's so old netflix didn't have it) Margaret O'Brien is an 8 year old dancer in a company where she idolizes (from afar) the prima ballerina (Cyd) and along comes the prima prima ballerina, the star. Because Meg sees her as a threat to her idol, she plans to turn off the lights for a distraction and accidentally opens the trap door (that is some trap door that would be triggered by a lightswitch, but it's a hoaky movie, what do you expect). As a result, she causes a career-ending accident for the main ballerina, which opens up doors for Cyd. Meanwhile, Cyd becomes engaged to this guy who wants her to quit! And she goes along with the idea! What is with that? Margaret after hating the prima prima lady, starts to like her and idolize her for her bravery, because the woman continues to stay in ballet, mentoring the younger set, one of which is Margaret. When Margaret goes up for a duet spot with Cyd, the prima chooses her to get it --- but jealousy ensues. Elinor Donaghue (from "Father Knows Best" and "Andy Griffith Show") wants the part so she threatens to tell the prima prima that Margaret had something to do with her accident. I won't say how it turns out, but there's lots of cool costumes, great dancing, and crying, of course, my little Margaret O'Brien (who forever will be Tutti to me!) I liked this because I enjoyed watching the little girls dance, esp. Margaret and Elinor. It isn't something that you can learn just for a movie (not even you can do that, Meryl Streep!) And there must be some fancy editing going on to let us believe these two little female stars can do all the dancing that is required of them in this movie. A fun old movie (1947) about ballet, if anyone is still interested in that!