Gene Kelly Promo for 'Invitation to the Dance'

A few years ago I shared the soundtrack LP to Gene Kelly's 1956 film Invitation to the Dance, with music by Andre Previn, Jacques Ibert and Rimsky-Korsakov. At the time, I forgot that I had this M-G-M promotional record for the film, which I came across a few days ago while looking for something else (which I never found).

This is a 10-minute interview of Gene Kelly transcribed onto a 12-inch, 33-1/3 RPM record pressed on red vinyl. The interviewer is the very radio-announcery Dick Simmons. And indeed the record would have been sent to radio stations in the hope that they would play this lengthy promo, or excerpts anyway.

The other side of the record contains Kelly's remarks sans the questioning from Simmons. This would have been sent out with a transcript, allowing DJ to use his own voice to query Gene, as if he were there in the studio. Golly!

Lobby card

Did it work? Sure, it did, to some degree, even if it was played only on relatively small stations at odd hours. The news director would say something like, "Gene Kelly's Invitation to the Dance is opening in town this weekend, and we had a chance to ask Gene how he got the idea for this all-dance, no-talk musical. Here's what he had to say."

In the end, Invitation to the Dance wasn't very popular, and didn't lead to more examples of the type. The studio, despite this promotional push, had little faith in the film, shelving it for four years.

FYI - the soundtrack LP is still available via the link above. Also a note that there is some background rustle on the transfer of this promotional record.