“On the Town is my favorite picture because there we made the musical comedy a pure form, or we thought we did....” --Gene Kelly.
Stanley Donen was 25 when he directed On the Town with Gene Kelly. It is one of the best musicals ever made. Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin, three sailors with three girlfriends, discover New York by day, and by night. With dance and song numbers in such unlikely locations as the subways, museums, and atop the Empire State Building, On the Town broke new ground in the film musical, integrating the music into the plot as a specifically cinematic form.
Among its most exhilarating numbers are the opening “New York, New York, It's a Wonderful Town,” Ann Miller's tap routine “Prehistoric Joe,” and “We're Going on the Town” sung by the six leads as they swing out into a New York street to sample the city's night life.