Astaire/Rogers #2: The Gay Divorcee (1934)

The following is the second in a ten part series on the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.  Enjoy.  For the first installment in this series, please go here.  And now, on with the show.

1934's The Gay Divorcee, produced by RKO, the home of the first nine of the eventual ten Astaire/Rogers films, like many comedies of the time, including several other Astaire/Rogers films, plays under the assumption that if only everyone would just be honest with who they are and what their motives are, the ridiculous antics that inevitably ensue from such misunderstandings, could all be nipped in the proverbial bud.  Of course, if everyone did come clean with who and what they are, and what they are after, then we would never get to watch these said ridiculous antics that inevitably ensue - nor would we see the song and dance numbers that go hand-in-hand (or foot-to-foot) with the ridiculous antics - and considering that is pretty much the whole reason we are watching a film like this in the first place, that would be a shame - a shame indeed.

And speaking of said assumptions and misunderstandings, The Gay Divorcee is about a famous dancer (Astaire, of course) who falls for a pretty lady (Rogers, of course) while traveling in Europe, only to have every advance rebuffed.  Hell, he doesn't even know the girl's name.  But, not to fear, for Fred is an intrepid and determined little bastard, and get the girl he most certainly will.   After several funny, meet cute incidents, Fred and Ginger finally hook up in a London hotel, where her lawyer has hired a professional gigolo to come and act as her lover, so when her husband shows up, he will grant a divorce (marriage law must have been fun back then).  Fred, unbeknownst to any divorce schemes - unaware that she is even married in the first place - follows her to her room, where she promptly mistakes him for the hired gigolo.  The fact that Ginger's lawyer, and Fred's best friend, are the same person - played wonderfully by Fred and Ginger stalwart, Edward Everett Horton - just makes things even more confusing for the wouldbe couple.

But storyline aside - and really, though I mock it in my opening salvo, I do enjoy the screwballesque story here - the real reason we are watching this film is to see Fred and Ginger kick up there proverbial heels - and this one has some good ones.  First and foremost is Cole Porter's famous "Night and Day," sung and danced by Fred and Ginger overlooking a beach at night.  This number is the only holdover from the Broadway Musical.  The musical incidentally, was called the Gay Divorce, but apparently, the Hays Office would not have that, and made them add an extra e at the end.  Presumably, a divorce cannot be lighthearted and funny, but a divorcee can.  But even though the rest of Cole Porter's stage musical songs were left out, they were replaced quite nicely in the film.  One notable song is "Let's K-Knock K-nees," and it is most notable for not only excluding both Fred and Ginger (others should get some spotlight two one supposes) but being headlined by a then-still-unknown seventeen year old Betty Grable.  Sure, seven years later she would be the biggest box office star, and the best-selling pin-up girl of WWII, but here, she is still an unknown teenage girl.

The big number though, is the one that (almost) finishes the film.   "The Continental" is an elaborate seventeen and a half minute long number (the longest in a movie musical until Gene Kelly takes it a minute longer for his big ballet number in An American in Paris seventeen years later) that involves a huge chorus dancing along with Fred and Ginger.  The song would go on to win the very first Best Song Oscar ever awarded.  A great way to close out any show, and a great way to show off the talents of Fred and Ginger.   And, I suppose, we should feel lucky that we had such a number at all.  In fact we should be glad we had this film at all.  After Flying Down to Rio, Astaire was reluctant to partner with Rogers a second time.  After a partnership of nearly twenty-seven years (Fred was just six when they began), Fred had recently stopped performing with his older sister Adele, because of her marrying, and also because of Fred wanting to make a name for himself, instead of being in the shadow of another dancer.  Because of this, Fred was wary about committing to what might become another dancing partnership, but obviously, he was eventually convinced, and the second of ten team-ups did occur.  

And, on top of all this, The Gay Divorcee is the first of two Astaire/Rogers films to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, the second being the following year, and arguably, the duo's most famous film, Top Hat.  But before we get to Top Hat, the duo's fourth film together, we must first talk about Roberta, which was actually headlined by Irene Dunne, with Astaire and Rogers receiving second and third billing respectively.  But not right now.  Howzabout next time around?  Until then, see ya in the funny papers.

Astaire/Rogers #1: Flying Down to Rio (1933)

The following is the first in a ten part series on the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.  Enjoy.

Fred Astaire began dancing on the stage when he was just five years old, partnering with big sister Adele.  Comparatively a late bloomer, Ginger Rogers entered Vaudeville at sixteen, as a spur of the moment addition to Eddie Foy's traveling show.  In 1933, these two hoofing talents came together for the first of what would eventually be ten films as dancing partners - all but the final one, at RKO.  This inaugural film was called Flying Down to Rio, but unlike their successive nine celluloid partnerships, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were not the stars of the film.  The film was actually a starring vehicle for the beautiful Mexican actress, Dolores Del Rio.  Fred and Ginger were merely supporting players for her and male lead, Gene Raymond.  Nothing but a goofy musician and a smart-mouthed singer, respectively, to Raymond's suave, womanizing band leader, and Del Rio's Brazilian debutante.  But that didn't stop director Thornton Freeland from putting them out there on the dance floor together - and, as they, whomever they may be, are prone to say, a legend was born.  Well, that and the fact that they pretty much steal the film out from under Del Rio and Raymond.

Though Astaire was a well known and well renowned star of the stage in 1933, this was only his second film - the first being a small part as himself in the Joan Crawford/Clark Gable vehicle, Dancing Lady, earlier the same year - while Rogers was already an established comedic and musical actress, albeit as a second banana type - such precoders as A Shriek in the Night, Hat Check Girl, and most notably, 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933, were already under her tight belt.  Not so incidentally, this not only marks the first pairing of Astaire and Rogers, but also the first, and only, time where Ginger actually got billing above Fred.  But it is not the billing we are looking for in an Astaire/Rogers musical, it is, of course, the dancing, and even though we have to wait a good third of the way into the film before we finally get that dancing, get it we finally do.  Granted, we have to sit through the silly antics of love child Raymond, trying to put the moves on spitfire Del Rio, before this happens, but happen it finally does.  And please don't get me wrong, for I can watch Dolores Del Rio do just about anything, at anytime, but the film doesn't exactly have a strong script or a very powerful director.  But I digress.  We are here to talk about the dancing of Fred and Ginger.  The many and multifaceted Latin charms of Dolores Del Rio are another story for another day.

For cinematic history's sake, the first time any of us ever get to see Astaire and Rogers dancing together, it is a Brazilian number (we are in Rio after all) called the Carioca.  The number was written, specifically for the film, by Vincent Youmans (music), and Gus Kahn & Edward Eliscu (lyrics), and is choreographed by Dave Gould and Hermes Pan, the latter of whom became Astaire's long time regular choreographer.  The number is a blend of the Samba, Maxixe, Foxtrot and Rumba, and is danced with the dancers foreheads together.  A rather strange dance, and certainly not one of Astaire and Rogers' best moments, but still fun to see these two great hoofers getting to play at meet cute.  The highlight of the film though, is the final, titular number.  Sung by Fred Astaire on the ground and danced by Rogers and a slew of chorus girls, while all tied to planes flying over the Rio de Janeiro nightclub that most of the action takes places.  Why the number is set up like this, is a somewhat convoluted scenario involving a mostly unseen trio of Greek gangsters, who have gotten the club's owner to seemingly lapse on entertainment permits.  How exactly it solves this problem by having the dancers in the air, while the band and singer are still performing outside the club, I have no idea, but it is a fun set-up to see Rogers and all her girls high-kicking it over the streets of Rio.  Of course, all these air acrobatics are done on the ground, using rear projection - and trust me, it shows, quite hilariously at times, most notably when one chorus girls plummets to what at first appears to be her death, only to be caught by an apparently lower flying plane of chorus girls.  Even with the obvious fakery abounding, it is a rather spectacular number - even if Fred and Ginger are several thousand feet apart through the duration.

And in the end, even though it is Del Rio's film, it is a final shot of Astaire and Rogers, who close the film out - a pair of slightly known second bananas, who steal the film out from under its stars, and cause enough of a commotion to warrant them doing another nine films together, this time as the bonafide stars of the screen.  Eventually the pair would split up (rather amicably, as opposed to tabloidish rumours to the contrary), and Rogers would go on to more dramatic fare, winning an Oscar in 1940 for the title role in Kitty Foyle, while Astaire would partner up with many more leading ladies, such as Rita Hayworth, Judy Garland and Cyd Charisse, eventually receiving his one and only Oscar nomination, at the tender age of seventy-five, for The Towering Inferno.  But all of this came well after these two great hoofing legends first made history - or perhaps, prehistory - in Flying Down to Rio.  Next up for the duo would be The Gay Divorcee, the following year.  That film would co-star the great comic character actor, Edward Everett Horton, who would go on to co-star in several more Astaire/Rogers musicals.  But that is a story best left for the second installment of our Fred and Ginger story.