This must be judged one of the lesser examples of Fred and Ginger's work. Not that it's so poor it should be avoided. It's mostly that here they don't get together and dance often or intricately enough. The story makes little sense, but then none of their plots ever did. They're beside the point. But, anyway, this is the one in which Astaire imitates a Russian ballet dancer.
George Gershwin was finally seduced into writing songs for a movie but the producers were wary. George had a tendency to write classical music, the kiss of death, even with jazz elements. He had to telegram the producers with a reassuring message that he was determined to "write hits." As it turned out, the tunes were pleasant enough, including "Slap That Bass" (in the simulacrum of a ship's engine room), and the title tune. Two of the songs became standards: "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off". (You say tomayto and I say tomah-to.) In many ways, the most inventive tune has no lyrics at all. It's called "Promenade" and appears when Astaire and Rogers walk their dogs on the deck of an ocean liner.
And if you've ever wondered what the design style known as Art Deco was, you should definitely check this movie out because the style is here in all its extravagance in the production design by Van Nest Polglase, who by this time was having trouble with the bottle -- the white sets and furniture, the frosted glass with etched deer, the uninterpretable curlicues, and all the rest of it. It's often claimed that it Polglase's sets, all the telephones and their cords were white. It's a bloody lie. The telephones here are silver.
Anyway, Gershwin did manage to avoid anything resembling classical music -- a good idea since neither dancer was trained in ballet -- except for one number featuring Harriet Hoctor, a former Ziegfield Follies entertainer. OMG, what a woman. She dances well enough, fingertips aflutter, more skillfully and more flamboyantly feminine than Ginger Rogers, but then she does this THING with her back. En point, she bends backwards into such a lengthy arc that her head almost touches the floor -- and then she repeatedly taps the top of her head with the toe of her ballet slipper. It's a shtick that belongs in an out take from "The Exorcist." There's an earlier number with Astaire and Rogers on roller skates but I could never find much grace in roller skating.
It begins slowly. It's an hour almost before the two leads dance together. And the end has dozens of women dancing around wearing masks of Ginger Rogers' face. The movie didn't make as much money as earlier outings. Time for something new -- but what? The pair tried a musical biography of a pair of real dancers whose time had long passed, Vernon and Irene Castle. Maybe what they needed was a stronger and funnier plot line. Rogers never got one in a musical. Astaire had only one, "The Bandwagon" in the early 50s. I remember when Ginger Rogers passed away. She merited one or two lines in Newsweek, hardly a whisper. It was fifty years or more since her heyday and Americans have little interest in vernacular history.
George Gershwin was finally seduced into writing songs for a movie but the producers were wary. George had a tendency to write classical music, the kiss of death, even with jazz elements. He had to telegram the producers with a reassuring message that he was determined to "write hits." As it turned out, the tunes were pleasant enough, including "Slap That Bass" (in the simulacrum of a ship's engine room), and the title tune. Two of the songs became standards: "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off". (You say tomayto and I say tomah-to.) In many ways, the most inventive tune has no lyrics at all. It's called "Promenade" and appears when Astaire and Rogers walk their dogs on the deck of an ocean liner.
And if you've ever wondered what the design style known as Art Deco was, you should definitely check this movie out because the style is here in all its extravagance in the production design by Van Nest Polglase, who by this time was having trouble with the bottle -- the white sets and furniture, the frosted glass with etched deer, the uninterpretable curlicues, and all the rest of it. It's often claimed that it Polglase's sets, all the telephones and their cords were white. It's a bloody lie. The telephones here are silver.
Anyway, Gershwin did manage to avoid anything resembling classical music -- a good idea since neither dancer was trained in ballet -- except for one number featuring Harriet Hoctor, a former Ziegfield Follies entertainer. OMG, what a woman. She dances well enough, fingertips aflutter, more skillfully and more flamboyantly feminine than Ginger Rogers, but then she does this THING with her back. En point, she bends backwards into such a lengthy arc that her head almost touches the floor -- and then she repeatedly taps the top of her head with the toe of her ballet slipper. It's a shtick that belongs in an out take from "The Exorcist." There's an earlier number with Astaire and Rogers on roller skates but I could never find much grace in roller skating.
It begins slowly. It's an hour almost before the two leads dance together. And the end has dozens of women dancing around wearing masks of Ginger Rogers' face. The movie didn't make as much money as earlier outings. Time for something new -- but what? The pair tried a musical biography of a pair of real dancers whose time had long passed, Vernon and Irene Castle. Maybe what they needed was a stronger and funnier plot line. Rogers never got one in a musical. Astaire had only one, "The Bandwagon" in the early 50s. I remember when Ginger Rogers passed away. She merited one or two lines in Newsweek, hardly a whisper. It was fifty years or more since her heyday and Americans have little interest in vernacular history.