For his big London comeback shows in 2009, Michael Jackson dreamed up something clever. He had a short black-and-white film made to play on the giant screens behind him during “Smooth Criminal.”
The idea was simple and a little magical. Using old movie footage from the 1940s, Michael would appear to step right inside those classic films. There he is in his crisp white suit and fedora, walking around inside a smoky, glamorous world that was filmed long before he was even born.
In one part, a famous leading lady tosses him her glove. Michael catches it. A second later, one of the toughest-looking men in movie history comes after him in a chase.
So who are these two legends?
The woman is Rita Hayworth, one of the great screen stars of the 1940s. The glove comes from her most famous film, “Gilda,” made in 1946. If you’ve ever seen a photo of old Hollywood glamour, chances are her face was somewhere in the mix.
The man chasing him is Humphrey Bogart, maybe the coolest tough guy the movies ever produced. He’d been gone for decades by 2009, and so had Hayworth. Yet through the magic of old footage, there they both are, sharing a scene with the King of Pop.
Michael steps inside a 1940s movie for “Smooth Criminal”
Watch the glove toss and the chase for yourself. It’s a few seconds of real movie magic, with Michael woven right into footage that’s older than rock and roll itself.
The bittersweet thing is that no London audience ever got to see it the way Michael planned. The shows never took place. He was gone before opening night.
But the scene didn’t vanish. It lives on in the “This Is It” film, which means fans around the world can still watch exactly what those London crowds were supposed to witness every night.
It says a lot about how Michael thought. He wasn’t content to just stand on a stage and sing a hit. He wanted to pull you into a whole little movie, to make you forget for a moment that you were even at a concert.
A glove from one legend. A chase from another. And Michael right in the middle of it all, decades after those two stars had taken their final bows.
Go watch the clip above and see if you can spot them both.