The Gay Divorcee (1934)

The Gay Divorcee
Director: Mark Sandrich
USA 1934
107 min
Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Alice Brady, Eric Rhodes and Eric Blore, among others.

Mr. Monotony with Judy Garland

I saw Easter Parade (1948) the other day. What a lovely film! Not as perfect as The Band Wagon (1953), but not really far from it. I love to see Fred Astaire playing grouchy and sometimes almost rude, as his character is every now and then in both movies mentioned. And I can't help but fall in love with Judy Garland, even though I know it's a cliché to love her. (I like Marilyn Monroe too! Ha!)

I found a cut out scene on the extra material. Usually that kind of extra material is quite boring (the reason why the scenes where cut out can be quite obvious), but I always watch them if it's from an old movie. It feels like taking a trip back in time - "This wasn't in the movie! It's magic!"

However, this scene was not boring. In fact, I can't understand why it was cut out - the film couldn't suffer too much of being two and a half minutes longer, could it? It is however a song and dance number with Judy Garland and a swinging song called "Mr. Monotony". I know I talk a lot about Cyd Charisse's legs, but there was nothing wrong with Garland's either!

I will only include the finished version of the song. There was a lot of re-takes that were fun to watch (isn't it awfully interesting to see the actors/actresses go in and out of character?), but if I would have included those it would have reached a time of 25 minutes. Just buy the DVD, and don't complain!

Here's Judy Garland with "Mr. Monotony"!

The Band Wagon (1953)

The Band Wagon
Director: Vincente Minnelli
USA 1953
111 min
Starring: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray and Jack Buchanan, among others.

Can you believe that I actually saw this film for the first time just yesterday? I have trouble believing that myself. Well, anyway I had to write something about this crazy Technicolor delight!

The year before The Band Wagon, Singin' in the Rain (1952) became a box-office success. There are some interesting likenesses between the two movies:

• Adolph Green and Betty Comden are the persons behind both the films' scripts.
• Both films take place in the world of entertainment during eras of extensive changes: Singin' in the Rain takes place in Hollywood during the change from silent films to talkies, The Band Wagon on the stage, where the audience now wants more than top hats and tap dancing.
• In both movies the first attempt of trying something new becomes a great failure, and only when the persons involved go for something they can and like does it become a success at a second attempt.

Now, do not misunderstand me: Both movies manages on their own, and The Band Wagon is not a blatant copy of Singin' in the Rain. Oh no. I just find comparisons very interesting. No that I finished that off, I can go on with the rest of the film!

The film begins with an auction, where the top hat of the once popular Tony Hunter (Fred Astaire's alter ego: his career was beginning to fade at this time) is sold on auction - no bidders. In the next scene we see a couple of men in a train discussing celebrities, and how they remember the glory days of Tony Hunter. Behind a newspaper is Tony Hunter himself, joining the discussion by stating that he wouldn't go to see Tony Hunter even if he was given $5 for the effort. (That is called self-distance, my friends.)

After having sung the sad "By Myself" (mostly sad because he looks so jolly while singing it) he meets his friends on the platform, the scriptwriting couple Lester and Lily Marton (Betty Comden and Adolph Green's alter egos) played by Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray. I instantly loved Fabray for her exploding energy, Jesus! Oh, and Ava Gardner makes a cameo!

That shoe shining routine is wonderful, but I can't see that it would have made it into a film today...

Lester and Lily has an idea for a Broadway show that they want Tony Hunter to star in to bring his career back on tracks. They also have a popular ballet dancer in mind, Gabrielle Gerard (Charisse, complete with her fabulous legs), and a famous director/actor by the name of Jeffrey Cordova (Buchanan). Cyd Charisse as a ballerina can only look right when wearing a dress red as sin.

I read somewhere that Cordova is a parody of Orson Welles, but I feel that he is a general spoof on all over ambitious directors. He is without a doubt the most hilarious character in the film, and the scene where he imagines Lester and Lily's play as a sort of modern interpretation of Faust is painfully hysterical.

Immediately when Tony and Gabrielle meet they get on the wrong foot with each other because of either ones insecurities if they can live up to the other one's talent. A little dance in Central Park later, they do however come to the conclusion that they can meet half ways and make it a success.

Cordova's Faust play becomes a huge failure as the audience look like they have had a seizure after leaving the theatre. The gang re-writes the whole thing, and the rest of the film contains of a series of entertaining song and dance numbers, including the famous and weird "Triplets" act.

But my absolute favorite scene in the entire film is, as anyone probably could guess, the film noir spoof "The Girl Hunt". It starts of in a black alley with a cool-as-ice Fred Astaire and a cynical narration. Out of nowhere a lady in distress pops out, some gang members beat him senseless and leaving clues behind them. And of course, Cyd Charisse as the femme fatale who is "selling hard, but I wasn't buying". Oh, can it get more perfect than this? Pure joy, all through the scene. Charisse must be Astaire's best dance partner after the Ginger Rogers era, such delight to watch.

I guess all this comes down to this: I adored this film after the first viewing. I will put it in my perfect-films-to-watch-when-I'm-sick-or-when-just-generally-feeling-sorry-for-myself-list, among Gone With the Wind and Singin' in the Rain. But the latter one is a little overused for the moment, I know everything in and out in that film. The Band Wagon simply gets to take it's place for a while.

Now - pic spam! (I want her legs!)

Swing Time (1936)

Swing Time
Director: George Stevens
USA 1936
103 min
Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Victor Moore, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore, Betty Furness and Georges Metaxa, among others.

See it on YouTube: link






Lately I have been most too masculine in my choice of films, so I felt I had to watch a Fred & Ginger picture to remind myself and my readers that I am, in fact, still a lady.

I have a DVD box set with four of the couple's RKO pictures, bud sadly this one is not included. Therefore Swing Time was a new experience for me. A lovely experience, in fact, and I think it for the time being is my favorite Fred & Ginger film.

The plot is quite similar to Top Hat (1935) - but who cares about the plot in films like these? Oh, you do? Me too. But it's no disappoinment, the similar factors are those you don't care about anyway. Like re-using actors: if you like the actor, why complain that they have similar roles in another picture? Nice to see more of them.

I'm talking about the refined, eccentric and lisping Eric Blore and the middle aged, urbane cool older friend of the leading lady, Helen Broderick. Broderick even appeared with Astaire on Broadway with The Band Wagon!

Then we have the essential slimy Italian, this time played by Romanian actor Georges Metaxa. He has that kind of a role that Ginger for some reason always ends up almost marrying, because Fred has let her down in some way. In Top Hat she misunderstood him to be already married, in Swing Time she finds out he already has a fiancée. Good enough reason to take a pause from Fred, but why throw yourself in the arms of greasy narcissists? I think she need a few lessons in womanhood.




That much for the plot. I'm confusing, I know, but I don't find it important enough to straighten out (plus you all have probably already seen the film). Now to the good stuff!

The songs are wonderful. Fred sings "The Way You Look Tonight" while accompanying himself on the piano and Ginger washes her hair. (With whipped cream, from what I read in the trivia section on IMDb.) They both sing the jolly "Pick Yourself Up" during a dance class. Fred gives a minstrel show singing "Bojangles of Harlem" with three giant shadows dancing behind him. Itäs all very entertaining and joyful.




But my favorite part of Swing Time is the winter section, with heavy snowflakes filling every inch of the screen. Ginger gets disappointed when she tries to have a romantic moment with Fred, but the fact that he is in love with one woman and engaged to another (without any of them knowing it) destroys his sense for romantic settings.
They sing "A Fine Romance", a song I only have heard Marilyn Monroe sing before, and it's such a lovely scene. The camera work is perfect; the snowy landscape seems almost unreal. (Maybe it was? Was it filmed in a studio? All I know is that winters in Sweden can look just like that, and it's wonderful.)

I hope I look as cute as Ginger Rogers do when I'm angry.

The last scene is simple but superb. That hysterical laughter everyone breaks out into has to be for real, I can't believe anyone can fake such a thing. (For is it anything that really enoys me with feel-good films is that fake laughter the actors are forced to squeeze out, it's unbearable.) I guess it was the last scene filmed, and everyone was tired and silly. That's my explaination. And even if it was fake it got to me, and I found myself with a creepy smile by the end of the film.