The legs have it

Manohla Dargis composed a wonderful appreciation of Cyd Charisse for today's editions of The New York Times. Here's my favorite part of the article:

"It’s impossible to imagine the Hollywood musical without her. Like the greatest American movie dancers, she showed how appearing on screen isn’t just a matter of mouthing words, but also moving through and holding space. And she was a stunning physical specimen, at once lean and beautifully curved, with a wasp waist that seems to have been naturally designed for a man’s hand to rest gently in its slope."

Last night I rewatched "The Band Wagon" and that incredibly sexy scene from "Singin' in the Rain" (a movie which, Dargis perfectly observes, "could certainly have been produced without her. But it surely would not have been as magnificent without the erotic jolt she gives [Gene]Kelly.") and marveled once again at the charismatic Cyd and those magnificent gams. And I also realized the answer to why Hollywood doesn't make great musicals these days; it's because we no longer have Gene, Fred and, now, Cyd.