What that person will see is quantum artistry and a film one today could only dream about. We see the two great partners in one of their finest films. Think about it...a film like this was made over a half century ago during a time when immortals like Irving Berlin, Gershwin and Cole Porter were writing timless songs for broadway plays and films like this one. That fact alone would make it a real treasure!!
" He says either..she says either" is merely the beginning of a peerless chain of tunes.."Slap the Bass", " Lets call the whole thing off" " They all laughed" ..and ... " They cant take that away from me"
Lets say that you seen many Astaire films and you agree that they are terrific. Now take a peek at some of them again...THIS TIME...pay no attention to Mr. Astaire..and just watch Ms. Rogers...she should have registered herself with the FAA because in a varied assortment of costumes...Ms. Rogers literally is in flight. What a wonder she is!
I might in a pinch , surrender a few Freed musicals..for a good cause ( VHS or DVD) but for films like " Shall We Dance" NO NO..they cant take that away from me!!!
SHALL WE DANCE is a somewhat frustrating film, because so many of the elements for a great film are there, but so many opportunities are missed. The movie has a great score, and several great classics of popular song were introduced in it, but this in part points out the problems in the film. The two finest songs are "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and the extraordinary "They Can't Take That Away from Me," but neither is well utilized. Instead of dancing to the former, Fred and Ginger do a novelty dance with roller skates, upon which they are stiff and which produce an irritatingly loud rasping sound. The latter song is one of the two or three greatest songs in any of their films, but an unspeakable outrage occurs: they do not dance to it. What could have provided the occasion for a great dance along the lines of "Never Gonna Dance" from SWING TIME or "Let's Face the Music and Dance." Instead, Fred sings this heartbreakingly beautiful song, and the music unexpectedly ends with no dance. When Fred and Ginger reunited in THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY, they try to correct this wrong by dancing to it, but this hardly corrects the error in the earlier film.
The supporting cast is first rate, but to me, at least, the parts played by Edward Everett Horton and Eric Blore, otherwise two of my favorite character actors, seem a bit formulaic, efforts at imitating their earlier triumphs in other Astaire-Rogers films.
The plot is pretty hard to swallow. Fred Astaire as Peter P. Peters, a ballet star who prefers to tap dance, is a stretch even by musical comedy standards. And the plot device that a photograph of a woman in dressing gown beside a man who is asleep would convince the world that the couple was married is impossible to swallow. All in all, a pretty disappointing film by the greatest dance team in the history of cinema. Great stars, great songs, but an exceedingly [slow] plot and not nearly enough dances. Worse of all, squandering an opportunity for Fred and Ginger to dance to one of the Gershwin brothers greatest numbers.
Still, it is Astaire and Rogers, and while the film is far from what it might have been, it is still a lot of fun. Not TOP HAT or even FOLLOW THE FLEET (which was flawed but featured absolutely stunning dances), but still quite decent.
