The 12-Hour Film Expert by Noah Charney & James Charney

Author:Noah Charney & James Charney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2024-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

Astaire and Rogers Transform the Musical

They were secondary players in the RKO musical Flying Down to Rio (1933). Rogers, as a contract player, had been in several of the Warner Bros. musicals, but this was Astaire’s first film. He was an established star on Broadway and in London’s West End. He and his sister, Adele, had headlined shows written for them with songs by George and Ira Gershwin. But Adele had retired from show business to marry into British nobility, and Fred was on his own. He and Ginger have comic chemistry in their scenes together and have only one musical number here, but it defines the movie. The big production number, inspired by Busby Berkeley, with dozens of chorus girls strapped in formation to the wings of biplanes, pales in comparison with what happens next. Watching everyone dance “The Carioca,” Fred and Ginger decide to give it a try. Pretending to be awkward (even bumping heads at one moment), they are having comic fun, and their joy is infectious. They would wind up doing nine pictures together and set a new standard for how to make a musical.

The first big innovation in creating the modern musical is that most of the songs and dances are integrated into the daily lives of their characters, moving the story and their relationship. They are not just something that happens on stage. In The Gay Divorcee (1934), the first musical with their names above the title, we see the first of many dances that show Fred in romantic pursuit and Ginger needing to be persuaded. The song is Cole Porter’s “Night and Day.” At a nightclub he asks her to dance. At first she keeps turning away from Fred, but when he takes her by the hand she twirls into his arms and begins to move with him, first romantically ballroom dancing, and soon tap-dancing side by side. A few more times she tries to leave, but she can’t; Fred and the dance are too seductive. At the end she sits, quietly stunned, as Fred offers her a cigarette. This dance is not only pursuit and persuasion, it is barely concealed sex.

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