Page "Gene Kelly" Paragraph 20

Stanley Donen, brought to Hollywood by Kelly to be his assistant choreographer, received co-director credit for On the Town.

According to Kelly: "... when you are involved in doing choreography for film you must have expert assistants.

I needed one to watch my performance, and one to work with the cameraman on the timing .. without such people as Stanley, Carol Haney and Jeanne Coyne I could never have done these things.

When we came to do On the Town, I knew it was time for Stanley to get screen credit because we weren't boss-assistant anymore but co-creators.

" Together, they opened up the musical form, taking the film musical out of the studio and into real locations, with Donen taking responsibility for the staging and Kelly handling the choreography.

Kelly went much further than before in introducing modern ballet into his dance sequences, going so far in the " Day in New York " routine as to substitute four leading ballet specialists for Sinatra, Munshin, Garrett and Miller.