Take Me Out to the Ball Game

This wonderful MGM musical has super songs, ravishing Technicolor and extraordinary talent both behind and in front of the camera. The movie is enchanting, not just for Gene Kelly's great all-stops-out Irish solo and the fabulous trio of Kelly, Frank Sinatra and the underrated Jules Munshin, but also for a delightfully no-nonsense Esther Williams as the girl who inherits a baseball team. It's really a practice run for On the Town and, eventually, the great Singin' in the Rain, with star Kelly and director Stanley Donen providing the original story, and taking over both choreography and some directing chores from Busby Berkeley (who was unwell at the time), thus continuing the great cinematic tradition of choreographers turning to direction.