Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

judith-mcgee1025 Vincente Minnelli's "Yolanda and the Thief" never fails to fascinate me; the Technicolor, extraordinary art direction, costume design, orchestration (unfortunately the Arthur Freed-Harry Warren songs are not up to the task) and the extraordinary photography of Charles Rosher are compelling and wonderful. In defense of Lucille Bremer, the role of Yolanda was probably an unplayable one and no matter how coached she couldn't quite pull it off. Could anybody have played this part? I don't think so. (Unfortunately it appears to have ended her career at MGM.) In the dream sequence, "Angel" and "Coffee Time" she is excellent; otherwise she struggles with the part and it shows. The more veteran performers - Astaire, Frank Morgan and Mildred Natwick shore up the enterprise. As with the equally baroque "The Pirate", "Yolanda and the Thief" pushed the limits of the film technology and audience sensibilities of the time and I think they were worth it thanks to Arthur Freed (producer) and Vincente Minnelli (director).

bkoganbing One of Fred Astaire's lesser musicals from the Forties is Yolanda And The Thief. A charming film in spots, but somehow the whole package just doesn't ignite.Part of the problem is Lucille Bremer. After a few films in the Forties she never caught the fancy of the movie going public. She sang beautifully with Trudy Erwin's voice in this film and was a graceful partner for Fred. But when not dancing and singing she was too cloying as the naive young girl from the convent and heir to the Aquaviva fortune.Fred Astaire and Frank Morgan are a pair of likable grifters traveling by train through the South American country of Patria. They read about Bremer returning home from the convent where she was raised since her parents died. They decide she's an easy mark.But what a scam they work, they hear Lucille in the garden praying for her guardian angel and Fred assumes the guise. But something works on his conscience and even more so on his libido. He's falling for the sweet young thing. Yolanda And The Thief came from the Arthur Freed unit at MGM and Freed supplied the lyrics to a most forgettable score with Harry Warren's music. I will say the sets and color cinematography have an Oz like quality to them. I expected to see Judy Garland's companions pop up any minute. Another good thing about the film is the portrayal of Leon Ames as another stranger in this strange land who seems to be constantly popping up.But Yolanda And The Thief ain't anything close to the Wizard Of Oz.

writers_reign It's a given that the best musicals, be they stage or screen, feature the best music, best lyrics and best books; think of (to confine ourselves to movies) Meet Me In St Louis, A Star Is Born (Garland version), Young At Heart, High Society. All with strong books, flesh-and-blood characters, great music, great lyrics. It's possible to get away with one weak element, usually the book, again think of the Astaire-Rogers series, barely a credible book between the lot of them but more than redeemed by the scores and, of course, the dancing. Astaire fared badly also with the book of Royal Wedding but again the score cancelled it out but when you have a weak book, weak music and weak lyrics - think Astaire in Second Chorus - then you don't even have a weak prayer. Yolanda And The Thief is weak in all three departments. Arthur Freed was arguably the worst lyricist Harry Warren was ever saddled with. But hold it a minute, isn't that the SAME Arthur Freed who produced all those classic MGM Musicals and ran, in fact, the Freed Unit? You got it in one; Freed is like the only boy on the block who owns a cricket bat, ball and set of stumps so even though not terribly gifted either he gets to play or no one does. To be fair to Freed he'd just worked with Warren on This Heart Of Mine heard in Ziegfeld Follies - this was Astaire's first MGM movie and actually shot before Yolanda though released after - and turned in a serviceable lyric albeit far inferior to Warren's melody but here he seems to be anticipating the 'modern' musicals that make a virtue out of dreary, uninspired lyrics. The book is a joke and somehow Minnelli and Freed combine to make even Astaire's dancing seem pedestrian. What id did have (apparently) was lavish colour, hardly surprising given Minnelli's penchant for colour but the print I saw was washed out so I'll have to take it on trust. I'm glad I saw it but I'd pay good money to see Astaire in The Passing Of The Third Floor Back.

bmacv If Yolanda and the Thief isn't the damnedest thing ever committed to film, it's hard to say what is. Vincente Minnelli took a wisp of whimsey from Ludwig Bemelmans and turned it into this overblown fantasy musical that pushes the flap of the envelope wide open.Most musicals – the best of them, anyway – grow out of show business lore and derive their pluck and sass from the raffish traditions of show-must-go-on troupers. But Yolanda and the Thief invents a Latin-American Ruritania (called Patria, or fatherland) out of stereotypes which verge on the offensive but stay simperingly coy. It's a kind of squeaky-clean utopia of the clueless Lost Horizon sort run by a benevolent family of oligarchs called the Aquavivas.Their only daughter (Lucille Bremer), having reached her majority, leaves the convent school where she is allowed to wear full Hollywood makeup. The vast family fortune becomes hers to administer with the help of a dotty aunt (Mildred Natwick, and the best thing in the movie). Alas, the good sisters have not equipped her to cope with the wicked ways of the world, as personified by a couple of American con-artists (Fred Astaire and Frank Morgan) who arrange an introduction and plan to abscond with a sizeable chunk of her assets. Astaire poses as an angel for the impressionable girl, and almost gets away with it, except he – inevitably – falls for her. Plus, on the fringes of the action, a real angel operates.... Harmless enough piffle, but get a load of the musical numbers. Full-tilt phantasmagorias that look like Busby Berkeley on acid or crystal or absinthe, they get bigger and more grandiose and ever loonier, with colors so brash that sunglasses are in order (was this the first head movie?). The set and costume designers must have had field day, what with Minnelli extending them a carte blanche they certainly never had before and would never have again until the debut of the music video. But the songs stay resolutely uninspired, which takes the starch out of the dancing (even much of Astaire's). It's safe to say nobody strode out of the theaters in 1945 whistling snappy tunes from Yolanda and the Thief.It's not exactly fun to watch but you can't take your eyes off it, either. A one-of-a-kind Technicolor extravaganza, it makes you wonder how – not to say why – it ever got made. Astaire's reputation must have taken a nosedive after its release, and as for Bremer? She makes you long for Ginger Rogers – even the very late Ginger Rogers.