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Anchors Aweigh
original movie poster
Directed by	George Sidney
Produced by	Joe Pasternak
Written by	Natalie Marcin (story) Isobel Lennart
Starring	Frank Sinatra Kathryn Grayson Gene Kelly
Distributed by	MGM
Release date(s)	July 14, 1945 (U.S. release)
Running time	143 min
Language	English
IMDb profile

Anchors Aweigh is a 1945 musical comedy film, directed by George Sidney in which two sailors go on a four-day shore leave in Hollywood, accompanied by music and song, meet an aspiring young singer and try to help her get an audition at MGM. It stars Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Kathryn Grayson, José Iturbi, and Dean Stockwell.

Gene Kelly and Jerry Mouse (MGM)

The movie was written by Natalie Marcin and Isobel Lennart and directed by George Sidney.

It won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture. In 2001, Kevin Spacey purchased this Oscar statuette at a Butterfield & Butterfield auction and returned it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Anchors Aweigh was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Gene Kelly), Best Cinematography, Color (Robert Planck, Charles P. Boyle), Best Music, Song (for Jule Styne (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for "I Fall in Love Too Easily"), and Best Picture.

The movie is famous for a musical number where Gene Kelly dances with Jerry Mouse (voiced by Sara Berner). Kelly is live action while Jerry is animated. Tom Cat appears briefly in the sequence as a butler. Originally, the producers wanted to use Mickey Mouse for this segment, but Walt Disney refused to allow his character to be used in an MGM film. Film buffs are still puzzled over Disney's refusal to cooperate with MGM because Mickey Mouse had actually appeared with Jimmy Durante in MGM's 1934 comedy Hollywood Party and Disney even produced a short Technicolor animated musical novelty for the same film.^[1]

The film offers rare glimpses of the MGM studio, including the Thalberg Building, the backlot, the commissary, and one of the soundstages, as well as an on-screen performance by the studio orchestra. There is also a memorable scene at the Hollywood Bowl, where Sinatra sings "I Fall in Love Too Easily," after Iturbi and a group of young pianists have performed a spectacular arrangement of Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. In the audition scene with Iturbi, Grayson sings a special arrangement for soprano and orchestra of the waltz from Peter Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings. Many of the memorable scenes in this film were later featured in the That's Entertainment tributes to MGM.

The television show Family Guy directly lifted the scene in which Jerry Mouse dances with Gene Kelly. In Jerry's place is Stewie Griffin, though the viewer can see Jerry's reflection in the floor. The episode "Road to Rupert" aired January 28, 2007.

1. ^ Turner Classic Movies

• Anchors Aweigh at the Internet Movie Database

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