My Favorite Gene Kelly Performances

He got his start on Broadway. He actually played the title role in the original Broadway production of Pal Joey. He eventual made his film debut playing opposite the legendary Judy Garland...talk about starting at the top. He had a reputation for being difficult to work with...Tony Martin once said that he could always tell when his wife, Cyd Charisse, had been working with Kelly or Fred Astaire at the studio. He said that when she was working with Kelly, she would come home with bruises all over her body. This tension never showed onscreen though. He was best known for musicals but made some serious dramas as well. He eventually started taking control of his career, spending more time behind the camera. he was a driving force behind the first MGM musical to actual do on location filming in Manhattan. He won an Emmy, an Honorary Oscar and received one competitive Oscar nomination. And now my favorite performances of the singular sensation Gene Kelly.

I like him in The Three Musketeers. He's so impressive physically in that role, just as he always was as a dancer.

The Three Musketeers will definitely be on this list.

20.

Danny McGuire, Xanadu




Kelly was the best thing about this dreadful 1980 musical where he played a former jazz musician whose connection with a muse (Olivia Newton-John) finds him opening a nightclub with a penniless artist (Michael Beck). As bad as this movie is, Kelly is terrific, he even gets to put on roller skates again.

19.

Alec Howe/Black Arrow, Du Barry was a Lady



In his 2nd film appearance, Kelly plays a dual role of sorts...Alec Howe is a dancer in love with a nightclub singer (Lucille Ball), But when hat check guy Louis Blore (Red Skelton), bumps his head and the whole story goes fantasy mode, Alec becomes a dashing villain called Black Arrow.

18.

Billy Boylan, Forty Carats



Again, Kelly was the best thing about this lame 1973 comedy playing the ex-husband of a real estate agent (Liv Ullmann) having an affair with a man young enough to be her son (Edward Albert).

17.

Robert Manette, Christmas Holiday



Cast radically against type, Kelly played a compulsive gambler and alleged murderer who becomes involved with a young nightclub singer (Deanna Durbin). Kelly was great in this, but this was not the way his fans wanted to see him and they stayed away.

16.

Private Eddie Marsh, Thousands Cheer



Kelly was part of an al star cast in this forgotten gem playing an acrobat turned army pilot who falls for a pretty colonel's daughter (Kathryn Grayson).

15.

Tommy Albright, Brigadoon



It's not a very good movie, but Kelly is still charming as a traveler who runs into an enchanted village that comes to life for one day every 100 years and falls for one of its inhabitants (Cyd Charisse).

14.

Joseph Brady, Anchors Aweigh



Kelly received his only Oscar nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor playing a sailor who competes with his best friend (Frank Sinatra) for the attention of a pretty movie extra at MGM (Kathryn Grayson).

13.

D'Artagnan, The Three Musketeers



Michael York will always be my favorite, but Kelly was definitely my #2 D'Artagnan, the dashing swordsman who longs to be a musketeer in this 1948 version of the Alexandre Dumas classic.

Anchors Aweigh is my favorite Gene Kelly movie so far on your list. I've seen it a couple times, I should watch it again, it's great fun.

12.

Pinky Benson, What a Way to Go!



Kelly was a lot of fun in this all-star episodic comedy playing a struggling nightclub entertainer who marries a wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine) who has no problem that Pinky is struggling. Pinky does an act where he sings and dances in clown makeup but gets to the club late one night and doesn't have time to put on the makeup. He does the song sans makeup and is a sensation and before you know it, he becomes an obnoxious, self-absorbed movie idol. This character is darker than he sounds, but Kelly really seems to be enjoying himself.

11.

E K Hornbeck, Inherit the Wind



In this thinly disguised mounting of the famed Scopes "Monkey Trial" Kelly is charismatic as a wisecracking reporter who has been assigned to cover the trial.

I love the movie Xanadu. It's a fun fantasy movie with some great music.

I thought I had at least heard of every Gene Kelly movie, but somehow I haven't heard of Forty Carats. Was this a movie that was released in theaters, or a TV movie?

I rarely hear anyone mention Thousands Cheer, but it's a great hidden gem.

Brigadoon would have been much higher on my list. It's one of my favorite Gene Kelly movies.

It was a theatrical film, I actually saw it in an actual theater for the first time.

10.

Serafin, The Pirate



Kelly was slick and sexy as an actor who pretends to be a legendary pirate in order to romance a Spanish heiress (Judy Garland).