Some day, Hollywood might find the secret ingredient to resurrect the good old-fashioned charm of Golden Age musicals, a stunt French director Michel Hazanavicius achieved with "The Artist". And it's even possible that a new generation of composers, choreographers or lyricists would emerge and make musical sequences that would rival with "Cheek to Cheek" or "Singin' in the Rain". And maybe, maybe they will even find faces as glamorous as Ginger Rogers or legs as agile as Fred Astaire. Still, there's one thing Hollywood will never duplicate from the old days: Fred Astaire himself.
Ginger Rogers was unique but Fred Astaire's uniqueness even more.
Astaire was the mystery guest in a "What's My Line?" episode and Dorothy Kilgallen asked if he was a singer, he retorted with a modest and urban "yeah" but John Daly warned that the answer could be misleading, to which Bennett Cerf asked if he wasn't a dancer too. Finally when they guessed him right, Dorothy said she believed he was actually one of the best singers out there and Bennett Cerf stated he was the best of everything. And that just sums it up: Astaire was a natural talent and a national treasure: that man could act, he could sing and dance and had the facetious little smile of a naughty little boy with an early receding hairline. Ìn his first scene in "Top Hat" in a sinister London gentleman club where noise is strictly prohibited, Astaire makes folding a newspaper without making the cracking noises a gag worthy of the best silent comedians.
Fred Astaire's comedic flair is so natural that the attempt to write a storyline between the musical interludes seems almost worthless. But for the sake of "talking about the film", let's say that Astaire plays Jerry a tap dancer who comes to London to play in show produced by his friend Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton). An impromptu tap dance routine awakens the neighbor below Dale (Rogers), and so we get the obligatory meet-cute and the start of quid-prod-quo where she'd take him for Horace who's the husband of her friend (Helen Broderick) and naturally their conversations are written in such a way the misunderstanding will never be cleared until the end. Anyway, they meet again in Venice where Dale accompanies her dandy fashion-designer, a caricatural Italian named Beddini (Erik Rhodes) and one mistake too many leads to a rushed marriage... and I kept thinking, why making it so damn complicated?
That's the paradox of Mark Sadrich' film, Astaire is such a gifted actor for comedy that you put him in any serious storyline and he can just transcend it through his charming playfulness and his sense of humor,, he's so good at not taking things seriously that there's no plot muddled enough that would stop him to play his usual self... the film tries way too hard with all these mistaken identities, these rivalries that I felt the dancing moments were sidetracked by the plot, not the opposite. Yes, it's the first time that the talking moments feel like fillers.
And naturally, the magic finally operated with perhaps one of the greatest musical moment after "Singin' in the Rain" , "Cheek to Cheek" one that became such a staple of American pop culture it was used not in one but countless films to define Hollywood, naturally, you all think of "The Green Mile" but how about "The Purple Rose of Cairo" with Mia Farrow's marveled eyes .... The magic of Astaire is so great that you wouldn't even notice that Rogers is reluctant at first and is finally smiling in the great finale. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought it would be the final number. The scene is so magical that it was shown countless times through the dazzled eyes of viewers, and that's how anyone would watch that scene.
Now, would it be unfair to review the film on the basis of that scene only? I would say that it would be unfair to consider it the only worthy dancing moment, there's a fun solo number with Astaire. "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" where he uses canes as arrows, and the famous Picolino... but the "Cheek to Cheek" does capture the magic of old Hollywood and is certainly the reason why "Top Hat" is the most famous collaboration.
Now, I didn't see "The Gay Divorcee" but I watched "Swing Time" and I wrote that on my review:
" I didn't pick "Swing Time" because it's the most celebrated Astaire-Rogers film (or is it "Top Hat"?), I picked it because of its inclusion in the American Film Institute's Top 100 Movies (the latest edition). I had never heard about it so when I saw the title on the list, I was like "OK, but why not "Top Hat"?". Not that I've seen it either, but the film was listed in AFI's Musicals List and "Cheek to Cheek" among the Top 100 most iconic songs, not to mention that the dance sequence was a staple of Hollywood, used in many contemporary movies to define the Golden Age."
I maintain my opinion on "Cheek to Cheek" but I still can understand why "Swing Time" was selected.
Ginger Rogers was unique but Fred Astaire's uniqueness even more.
Astaire was the mystery guest in a "What's My Line?" episode and Dorothy Kilgallen asked if he was a singer, he retorted with a modest and urban "yeah" but John Daly warned that the answer could be misleading, to which Bennett Cerf asked if he wasn't a dancer too. Finally when they guessed him right, Dorothy said she believed he was actually one of the best singers out there and Bennett Cerf stated he was the best of everything. And that just sums it up: Astaire was a natural talent and a national treasure: that man could act, he could sing and dance and had the facetious little smile of a naughty little boy with an early receding hairline. Ìn his first scene in "Top Hat" in a sinister London gentleman club where noise is strictly prohibited, Astaire makes folding a newspaper without making the cracking noises a gag worthy of the best silent comedians.
Fred Astaire's comedic flair is so natural that the attempt to write a storyline between the musical interludes seems almost worthless. But for the sake of "talking about the film", let's say that Astaire plays Jerry a tap dancer who comes to London to play in show produced by his friend Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton). An impromptu tap dance routine awakens the neighbor below Dale (Rogers), and so we get the obligatory meet-cute and the start of quid-prod-quo where she'd take him for Horace who's the husband of her friend (Helen Broderick) and naturally their conversations are written in such a way the misunderstanding will never be cleared until the end. Anyway, they meet again in Venice where Dale accompanies her dandy fashion-designer, a caricatural Italian named Beddini (Erik Rhodes) and one mistake too many leads to a rushed marriage... and I kept thinking, why making it so damn complicated?
That's the paradox of Mark Sadrich' film, Astaire is such a gifted actor for comedy that you put him in any serious storyline and he can just transcend it through his charming playfulness and his sense of humor,, he's so good at not taking things seriously that there's no plot muddled enough that would stop him to play his usual self... the film tries way too hard with all these mistaken identities, these rivalries that I felt the dancing moments were sidetracked by the plot, not the opposite. Yes, it's the first time that the talking moments feel like fillers.
And naturally, the magic finally operated with perhaps one of the greatest musical moment after "Singin' in the Rain" , "Cheek to Cheek" one that became such a staple of American pop culture it was used not in one but countless films to define Hollywood, naturally, you all think of "The Green Mile" but how about "The Purple Rose of Cairo" with Mia Farrow's marveled eyes .... The magic of Astaire is so great that you wouldn't even notice that Rogers is reluctant at first and is finally smiling in the great finale. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought it would be the final number. The scene is so magical that it was shown countless times through the dazzled eyes of viewers, and that's how anyone would watch that scene.
Now, would it be unfair to review the film on the basis of that scene only? I would say that it would be unfair to consider it the only worthy dancing moment, there's a fun solo number with Astaire. "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" where he uses canes as arrows, and the famous Picolino... but the "Cheek to Cheek" does capture the magic of old Hollywood and is certainly the reason why "Top Hat" is the most famous collaboration.
Now, I didn't see "The Gay Divorcee" but I watched "Swing Time" and I wrote that on my review:
" I didn't pick "Swing Time" because it's the most celebrated Astaire-Rogers film (or is it "Top Hat"?), I picked it because of its inclusion in the American Film Institute's Top 100 Movies (the latest edition). I had never heard about it so when I saw the title on the list, I was like "OK, but why not "Top Hat"?". Not that I've seen it either, but the film was listed in AFI's Musicals List and "Cheek to Cheek" among the Top 100 most iconic songs, not to mention that the dance sequence was a staple of Hollywood, used in many contemporary movies to define the Golden Age."
I maintain my opinion on "Cheek to Cheek" but I still can understand why "Swing Time" was selected.