Kidd was unusually well-respected, and his judgment was granted deference by the leading dancers of his era. British critic and biographer
Michael Freedland said at the time of his death that "when
Gene Kelly danced through the street with a dustbin lid tied to his feet in the 1955 film ''
It's Always Fair Weather'', the man who usually planned his own routines did it to Kidd's order". He once said that "in choreography, ordinary movements from real life are taken and extended, so they become dance movements, yet the relation to reality must always be there. It's important for me to know who the characters are and what their function is in the script. I must be able to illustrate either their activities, their emotions, or their changes in mood by the way they dance, all the while keeping the dance movements footed in reality and yet making the movements sort of odd and eccentric." This philosophy was reflected in the early scene from
The Band Wagon, when Fred Astaire walks down a railroad platform singing "By Myself." His walk was not quite a dance, and epitomized Kidd's style. In a 2012 appreciation of his work,
Dance Teacher stated that "Kidd drew from the vocabularies of ballet, modern, social dance and acrobatics. But above all, his choreography stemmed from realistic movements and gestures. Following in the tradition of
Agnes de Mille and
Jerome Robbins, who developed the integrated musical, Kidd created dances that helped to carry the plot and flesh out the characters. He put the story first, communicating it through dance." Kidd once said that "every move, every turn should mean something. Dancing should be completely understandable." In
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers he employed leading ballet dancers, but insisted that his dancers avoid ballet dance moves, and instead focus on "work movements like ax wielding". In choreographing
Seven Brides, Kidd once said that he "had to find a way to have these backwoods men dance without looking ridiculous. I had to base it all around activities you would accept from such people—it couldn't look like ballet. And it could only have been done by superbly trained dancers." Yet he was able to integrate into the cast
Russ Tamblyn, a non-dancer MGM contract player who was assigned to the film, by using his talents as a gymnast and tumbler in the dance numbers. As in his choreography for both the Broadway and
1955 film adaptation of
Guys and Dolls, and in the "Girl Hunt Ballet", Kidd's choreography in
Seven Brides exuded masculinity. One history of the musical theater observes that "Kidd forged dances, and shows, in which men were men, leaping high, stout hearted, and passionate about their dolls". He choreographed "for the little guy, the working guy, the guy defined by his job and the movement that job entailed". Although Kidd drove his dancers hard, partly because he himself was capable of doing all the dance steps that he required of them, his personal style was gentle.
Nanette Fabray, who performed in
Love Life, could only make dancing turns to the left side because of a hearing problem. Rather than insisting she turn to the right, as many choreographers would do, Kidd "found that fascinating, and he made all the other dancers turn to the left".
Julie Andrews recalled that the "Burlington Bertie From Bow" number in
Star! was physically demanding, and she balked when Kidd asked her for a retake, saying she had a bad back. Andrews recalled that "he looked crestfallen. Then he said 'I wasn't trying to be mean. I just knew that when you saw it on film, you wouldn't be pleased.' I always thought that was a nice way to say 'Once more. ==Awards==