BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Mathster The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

bsmith5552 "Easter Parade" was another of those "rich and famous" musicals that MGM was known for. It was filmed in glorious Technicolor and the songs were written by the legendary Irving Berlin. Although he was given second billing, star Fred Astaire dominates the film. Judy Garland received top billing but takes a back seat to Astaire here.It's 1912 at the time of the Ziegfeld Follies with the story of Broadway dancer Don Hewes (Astaire), his split with his partner Nadine Hale (Ann Miller) and his discovery of unknown dancer Hannah Brown (Garland) to replace her. Into the mix comes Hewes' rich friend Jonathon Harrow III (Peter Lawford). You see Hewes is using the unsuspecting Hannah to make Nadine jealous and show her that he can team with any dancer. An eternal quadrangle develops between the four principles.Irving Berlin penned a number of classic tunes for this one including the title tune, I Love a Piano, Shaking' the Blues away, Steppin' Out With My Baby, Girl on a Magazine Cover among others.Fred Astaire gets two solo numbers, one in a toy store and a production number (Steppin' Out With My Baby) without Garland. She gets to sing a few forgettable numbers as well as the entertaining "Couple of Swells" in tramp costume with Astaire. Ann Miller, complete with those incomparable legs, has two spectacular numbers, "Shakin' the Blues Away" and "The Girl on the Magazine Cover".Judy Garland had by this time started her descent. No longer did she have Vincent Minnelli to make her look beautiful and she was having affairs with several prominent personalities. Fred Astaire literally carried her throughout this film. She would make only two more MGM films before being terminated by the studio.Also in the cast in his first film is Jules Munchin as Francois the waiter and Clinton Sundberg as Mike the barber. Also of note, is Richard Beavers the unbilled singer in the "Girl on the Magazine Cover" number. He had a great voice but never really made it in movies. And. it was a good thing that Peter Lawford didn't pursue a career as a singer as his "crooning" of "A Fella With An Umbrella" will attest.

Zoooma Not a great Fred Astaire musical. He was perfection in every step. But Judy Garland, while good, looked wooden in her dancing alongside his genius. The best number was the drum dance which was right in the beginning. Almost all flat from there. Great to watch Astaire (as always) and Ann Miller is an exceptional dancer but overall the film lacks a certain joie de vivre. Maybe that it's set in 1912. I dunno. Or that there's more pizazz and not so much elegance. Second time I have seen this, first time in at least 10 years, not sure I'll ever seen it again... although because it's an Astaire film, I just might be tempted. As a man, watching men dance I can do without, but when it comes to a certain few, it's amazing to see such perfection and Fred Astaire is perhaps the best of the best!6.4 / 10 stars--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener

moonspinner55 In both comedies and dramas, Judy Garland always had a tendency to rely on her girlish indignation (audiences must have enjoyed watching her rigid-side thaw and soften under the tutelage of a persistent male). In Charles Walters' "Easter Parade", she's a bit more flexible than usual after initially getting her feathers ruffled by hoofer Fred Astaire, who needs a replacement for sassy Ann Miller after Miller moves onto Broadway. Pairing Garland with Astaire was an inspired idea, however the teaming never quite catches fire (the plot mechanisms surrounding them being far too trite). Impertinent Ann Miller easily steals the show, however Astaire's jazzy opening number is one of his best. Peter Lawford, that perennial hole in the screen, rounds out the romantic foursome, though it's almost impossible to care who ends up with who. ** from ****

chaos-rampant This was modeled after the cycle of Warner Bros musicals in the 30's; so for the first part we get various backstage tribulations about the effort to stage a show, usually a search for love that can inspire dance, with the eye-popping show in question as the second part.It starts with the miraculous dance pair breaking it off. She wants to be a star on her own right; he sets out to prove that he can get any girl to dance as well as she can. He plucks the first girl he sees out of a chorus line in a bar, just like he did with her the first time. She turns out to be a disaster, humorously rendered as her not even knowing which foot is left.So how to make headlines once more? Of course he grooms her into the image of that first woman, and she turns out great; but only because, unbeknownst to him, he was seducing out of her the love that can make a difference. So eventually the two rival shows are made to spin at the same time, vying for headlines and our attention. The new pair visits the opponent to strut their newfound triumph under her nose, but she's cunning enough to seduce a dance out of her ex-partner that will break them apart.Naturally, this being an MGM production, the finale is drenched with the wistful sentiment about wholesome values one is led to expect. The two of them stroll happy together on the Easter Parade, as promised in the beginning.So generally speaking this may seem like ordinary stuff for the time. Two things make it stand out however. One is Fred Astaire, such heavenly, chattery legs. Put simply, there is no Michael Jackson without Astaire. The other is a kind of soft Vertigo at the heart of the candy-colored spectacle about an obsession with cultivating an image, less morbid this go round, less dangerous, but potent the right amount if we keep in mind how it mirrors across the sparkling surface of a deeply troubled Judy Garland.We know how MGM cultivated the young star in the image of the chaste teenage girl that she's also saddled with in the opening of this film. In the finale she manages to lift herself out of the confines of that image and asserts herself as a sexual, dynamic woman, likely mapping to some part of her struggle in real life to pursue her heart. Among her many lovers, she counted Frank Sinatra, Welles, Mankiewicz, and Tyrone Power. She had enough pull in Hollywood by this time to get then husband Vincente Minnelli fired from this.Our loss here is that Chyd Charisse broke an ankle and could not appear. Ann Miller as replacement acquits herself pretty well as the scheming diva. Her last on-screen glimmer decades later would be Mulholland Dr., where she reflects on the bygone Technicolor glories here.