I hope you had a chance to view Robert Osborne’s excellent Private Screenings interview with Stanley Donen earlier this month. If you missed it, you’re in luck because the channel will air it again on Wednesday, December 27th. As part of a twenty-one movie tribute to this multi-talented man, tonight’s programming features some of director Donen’s best work, films he made with Gene Kelly.

On the Town (1949) marked Stanley Donen’s directorial debut, which he co-directed with top billed Gene Kelly, who shared the screen with Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, Jules Munshin, and Vera-Ellen (among others). A ballet by Jerome Robbins had inspired an Adolph Green-Betty Comden written Broadway hit in 1944, complete with music from Leonard Bernstein. Green and Comden then wrote the screenplay after MGM (bought and) brought it to Hollywood, where Arthur Freed headed the production. The musical was well received by moviegoers and critics alike, and earned associate producer Roger Edens and Lennie Hayton an Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture. The story follows the exploits of three sailors (Kelly, Sinatra, and Munshin) on leave in "New York, New York" during which they meet and commingle with three beautiful and talented ladies, respectively: "Miss Turnstiles" (Vera-Ellen), a cab driver (Garrett), and a museum anthropologist (Miller). A sightseeing tour of the Big Apple is (a bonus) also included!

Singin’ in the Rain (1952), which is arguably the best musical ever made and recently appeared atop the American Film Institute’s list of the 25 Greatest Movie Musicals, was also co-directed by Donen and Kelly, written by Green and Comden, produced by Freed, and scored by Hayton (who earned another Oscar nomination). Besides featuring the famous titled number, splendidly sung and splash danced by Kelly, the film is notable for: Donald O’Connor’s unforgettably acrobatic "Make ‘Em Laugh" routine, making Debbie Reynolds ("All I Do Is Dream of You") a star, the Kelly-O’Connor-Reynolds "Good Morning" song and dance sequence, the Kelly-O’Connor "Moses Supposes" dancing (on a desk!) duet, and Academy Award nominated Supporting Actress Jean Hagen’s hilarious dumb blonde (silent movie actress with an obnoxious voice) caricature. Utilizing a copious number of songs from the Freed-Nacio Herb Brown catalogue, the background story involves Hollywood’s reluctant then challenging transition from silent to talking pictures. Millard Mitchell as a studio boss, and dancers Cyd Charisse & Rita Moreno (though only very briefly) also appear.

Also on this evening’s schedule: It’s Always Fair Weather (1955), the last (and least) of the three Donen-Kelly co-directed musicals – a mature follow-up of sorts to their first – which earned Green and Comden (who also wrote The Band Wagon (1953)) the second of their two unrewarded Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Academy Award nominations, featuring an Oscar nominated Score by Andre Previn and co-starring Dan Dailey, Cyd Charisse, Dolores Gray, and Michael Kidd; plus Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949) with Sinatra, Esther Williams, Garrett and Munshin (among others), which Donen-Kelly co-wrote, Living in a Big Way (1947), which also features Kelly dancing Donen-designed sequences, and lastly This Time For Keeps (1947), one choreographer Donen did with swimming star Williams (and the only movie in the night’s lineup absent Kelly).