Given free rein in choreographing Anchors Aweigh, Gene Kelly was eager to do the unexpected. But what? “How about doing a dance with a cartoon?” collaborator and friend Stanley Donen asked. How about it indeed.

 

Kelly’s live-action fancy footwork with an animated Jerry (of Tom and Jerry) remains a milestone of movie fantasy. Frank Sinatra and Kathryn Grayson also headline this wartime tale of two sailors on leave in Hollywood. Sinatra’s I Fall in Love Too Easily, the exuberant Kelly/Sinatra We Hate to Leave and other highlights helped Anchors Aweigh weighed in with an Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture, plus four more Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Actor (Kelly).