Shakespeare -- Too Darn Hot ,and Too Darn Fast a Pace

According to TCM, today is the late Howard Keel's 100th birthday, so they are showing a day-long slate of his movies. I just finished watching the 1951 version of Show Boat, which had seen a couple times before. Now they moved on to the second movie he made alongside Katherine Grayson---Kiss Me Kate.

I've only seen clips of this movie, and given my current Shakespeare project, it seemed mandatory to give it my first viewing. So I'm about ten minutes into it, watching Ann Miller do her jazz strip tease and fan dance in front of the principals playing himself.

How much of an adaptation of Shakespeare is this really? Does it matter? For now I'm just watching movie. But it strikes me this is one of the most beautiful examples of the postmodern style. A multi-layered backstage musical about the making of a musical about a troop of theater performers who themselves are performing a version of Taming of the Shrew, all with music by Cole Porter  playing himself within the movie.  The Shakespeare scenes are performed, and described peripherally in the musical within the musical. This is how clever Hollywood got by 1953. Since then we've pretty much living the same move stylings over and over, just with more violence and explicit sex.

One thing to note is that I'm far behind the schedule I originally set for myself. The Shakespeare project looks to be a three year deal. I set the rules of this of course.