Yesterday we watched a deeply strange BDSM musical number from a 1933 Eddie Cantor vehicle, staged by Busby Berkeley. Twenty-years later, the same mind that brought us slavegirls-on-parade came up with a fascinating, nightmarish concept for an Ann Miller number in ‘Small Town Girl’ (1953) called ‘I Gotta Hear That Beat’. In it, a disembodied, headless orchestra plays their instruments from underneath the stage while La Miller ferociously dances around the various obstacles (trombones, saxes, violins ec.)–all in heels, natch. I’ve never tired of watching this number and I’ve never really gotten used to it either–it truly is a nightmarish vision of the subterranean not-really-dead jamming hard from a world beyond. And Miller is also a factor in the unsettling atmosphere. She is, without a doubt, one of the greatest dancers ever captured on film. But what is it about her that scares me? Is it the smile that never convinces you it’s real? Or the hard eyes that show more focus than charm, more determination than sparkle? Ann Miller may have been a truly lovely person, but were I looking to cast the role of a ruthless female executive who thinks nothing of ordering hits on business adversaries and, if she can’t find somebody to do the deed, has no trouble picking up the gun herself, I’d look no further. Actually, I prefer thinking of her as a ‘push-them-out-a-window’ kind of murderess. Maybe she killed all the members of the band that she’s dancing on top of?

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