Shall We Dance | Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers | Last Immortal Gershwin Score

Shall We Dance | Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers | Shall We Dance (1937)

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Shall We Dance

	Shall We Dance Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers Turner Home Ent, 2005 average customer review:based on 27 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

To keep musical-comedy star Linda Keene from retiring to marry her manager Arthur Mille suggests to the press that she's already married to Petrov the ballet dancer. The two ultimately decide to marry so that they can have very public divorce and clear the air but true love blossoms between them.Running Time: 109 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 053939725520

Last Immortal Gershwin Score

"Shall We Dance," (1937), another musical-comedy-romance, was the seventh collaboration Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made for RKO Radio Pictures. It reunites most of the old gang, before and behind the camera, but it's easy to see inspiration is wearing thin: after this picture, Astaire went to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and Rogers pursued her ambition to do drama. Still, it's got a lot going for it: most importantly, it was the first, and only George and Ira Gershwin score for the Astaire-Rogers team; and it was, in fact, the last complete film score of the Gershwin brothers: George was to die quite soon, at a shockingly young age. And some of the Astaire/Rogers work to these immortal Gershwin melodies ranks with their finest.

Astaire is Peter P. Peters of Philadelphia, Pa, masquerading as Petrov, great Russian ballet star. Rogers is Linda Keane, popular cabaret dancer. He yearns to meet her, she feels otherwise; he manipulates his way onto a transatlantic crossing of the Queen Ann in order to do so. Rumors get started that they are secretly married, and even that she is pregnant, so when they get to New York, they actually get married, so they can publicly divorce. It's their usual silly script, thinner even than usual, and just what anybody would do in that situation, right? Edward Everett Horton, in his third and final appearance with the team, is on hand to play his usual fussbudget role, Jeffrey Baird. Eric Blore, in his fifth and final appearance with the team, is on hand to play his usual fussbudget role, Cecil Flintridge. Although in this picture, he gets what may have been his funniest riff ever in the Astaire films, the spelling bee at the Susquehanna police station. Rogers lacks her usual middle-aged female chum, and has to get by with Jerome Cowan as her impresario. William Brisbane plays the chinless Park Avenue wonder she's supposed actually to want to marry. One Harriet Hoctor contributes one real strange ballet specialty to the closing number. Ketti Gallion is Lady Denise Tarrington. The movie's notably slow getting off the mark: it's almost an hour til the stars' first dance.

Behind the camera, long time confederates of Astaire held sway. Doug Allen gets a screenwriting credit; Hermes Pan collaborated on choreography; Mark Sandrich directed; Pandro S. Berman produced, with his usual lavish hand for the gorgeous art deco scenery.

But it's the priceless music that hoists this film. Shipboard, in "Slap that Bass," Astaire does a famous jazz-influenced number to the mechanized rhythms of the spotless art deco-inspired engine. The instrumental, "Walking the Dog," is a wordless treat. In Central Park, the stars needed 150 takes to get that roller skated "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." Then there's "They All Laughed," "I've Got Beginners' Luck," "They Can't Take That Away from Me," and the title tune itself. There's seldom been a score as great as this one, so just ignore what passes for its plot; it's easy enough to do.

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Shall We Dance (1937)

Seventh Astaire-Rogers outing finds the formula still fresh, aided by a tip-top Gershwin score (including "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off"), and the return of series veterans Edward Everett Horton and Eric Blore, who, as always, supply delightful support. And just behold that dance on roller-skates!

Watch or be gunned down, the choice is yours

If I were the brutal dictator of my very own totalitarian state, I would force my loyal subjects to watch Shall We Dance every night of their lives. And my subjects would fall in love with me, having been given such tender treatment by their enlightened ruler. yes, they would come to see that, harsh as my methods can be at times, they are never without their heavenly logic. My subjects, thus edified, would be a happy population indeed! The watchmaker would whistle "They All Laughed" whilst tending his watches. The cobbler would tap the shoes that he was quaintly in the process of mending. The pornographer would... well, you get the idea.

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This is their best picture together.

With Fred and Ginger joined by George and Ira... This is their best picture together.

We begin in Paris, where Fred is Petrov the "Russian" ballet dancer who is really Peter P Peters of Philadelphia PA. Ginger is Laura Keen, American musical dancing star. They meet because Fred has seen her picture and fallen in love with her. He calls but at that moment Ginger has had her fill of adoring male fans and it doesn't help matters that Pete puts on a fake Russian accent "("I must go to Moscow...") and manages to so disorient Ginger that she packs her bags and sets sail for America.

Edward Everett Horton, who is Fred's perfect comedic foil here as in others of their films, plays the ballet impresario Jeffery Baird--dithering and droll as ever. He and Fred book on the same ship as Ginger ("The Queen Anne") a deco delight of the seas with teardrop shaped windows and other streamlining that would make the Normandie and Isle de France blush. After a gangway encounter that does not go terribly well, Fred tries to make amends. At first Ginger is icy but as always, she begins to melt...

For a time, however, Fred more or less disappears and is AWOL from ballet rehearsals. That is because he loves modern music and to prove it we get "Slap that Bass" one of Fred's very best solo numbers, as he picks up the rhythms of the black combo and combines it with the sounds of the ship's engines to create what is a "look ma no hands!" kind of a tour de force tap dancing solo.

Also on board a lot of zaniness occurs as Fred, along with Ginger's manger named Arthur Miller (!), played by Jerome Cowan in one of his best rolls, fool Horton into thinking in one scene that he is seasick, and in another that the ship is on fire and in danger of sinking. Both are hilarious.

Back to the wooing, there was never such sophisticated courting music as George's captivating "Walking the Dog" (except perhaps for the similarly engaging incidental music by the pool in "The Philadelphia Story"). Fred woos Ginger by endearing himself to a passel of pooches, and her little dog, too.

Once he knows and she knows that they have fallen for one another he sings the marvelous "Beginners Luck" at the ship's rail. This is one of several moments in the film where they do not feel that they have to go into their dance in order to convey the meaning of the song. And it is a great introduction to one of the many Gershwin standards they introduce in this picture.

Confusion is rife however due to a ruse that Horton created to get a designing woman, former ballet dancer Denise AKA Lady Tarrington, off Fred's trail. Horton has said that Fred is married and Lady T. being a loose lipped kind of a gal buys the story and spreads the word. Everyone on two continents and on the liner jump to the not unlikely conclusion that the wife in question is Miss Keen. When word leaks out, Ginger leaves in a hurry, taking off in the mail plane, catapulted from the deck of the liner--way to travel!

Stateside, Horton and Eric Blore as the hotel manager get into a mistaken identity bit of dialogue that is priceless. Soon, Ginger introduces the wonderful "They All Laughed", wearing the only flawed gown in the film, what we here at home call The Amoeba Dress. She thinks she is done but Fred leaps up and tells the crowded night club that now he and she are going to dance together for the first time in public. Here is one of their "make it up as we go" numbers and from Ginger's first timid twist onward it works beautifully. They combine Fred's ballet steps with Ginger's Broadway hoofing and it all blends like a good cocktail.

One wishes that Ginger had switched out the wardrobe, however and worn the fringed gold lame dress she had on in Paris...

More confusion ensues...Poor hotel manager Blore keeps changing the locks on Fred and Ginger's adjoining suites as he wails, "Mrs. Petrov are you Miss Keen? Miss Keen are you Mrs. Petrov?" Hiding out from the paparazzi Ginger and Fred make for Central Park where they engage in the latest craze of roller skating to the witty and unforgettable Po-TAY-toe, Pa-TAH-toe song, "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off". This kind of dance novelty was one of Fred's fortes and they both are wonders on wheels.

In order to be able to stop the rumors they decided to get married in order to get divorced to prove that they aren't married--this is after all a screwball comedy, so they go to New Jersey to wed where Fred asks what the grounds are for divorce in this state and the Justice of the Peace answers, "Marriage." On the way home on the Ferry they get out of their marvelous car and Fred sings the lovely "They Can't Take That Away From Me". Ginger's eyes well with tears and we know that they are both deeply in love even as they are going ahead with their plan to divorce.

Papers need to be served and this winds Blore in jail where one of the funniest comic bits ever filmed occurs between him and Horton, its' appeal rivals the famous "Whose on First?"

The whole cast assembles for a review in which Ginger is not to appear, so Fred dances with Harriet Hocker who is flexible indeed while the rest of them engage in a shushing contest with the audience. Ginger is reunited with Fred when she sees that since he cannot dance with her, he is dancing with scores of girls with Ginger masks. The set is great, lots of mirrors that open and close and a lot of business with the masks until Fred finds the one and only dancer who is really Ginger, all of this to the peppy "Shall We Dance?"

Fred and Ginger have the last laugh and keep us smiling, too.

Yes, friends, this is another RKO Radio Picture.

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Astaire and Rogers - 5 stars, film - 3 stars

By the time of "Shall We Dance", the 7th outing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Rogers had become a star in her own right. The Gershwins wrote a great score which sustains the film but there is a sense of deja vu about the script and the supporting players which was reflected in the box office at the time. After the classy peak of "Swingtime", "Shall We Dance" was the inevitable anti-climax. Also, there is less dancing which might have been simply because of Roger's availability.

For me, the highlights are the orchestrations and "Slap that Bass" when Astaire lets loose in the engine room of a ship with a jazz band in support. "They all Laughed" is thrown away with the stars on roller skates which diminishes their artistry into simply athleticism. The gimmick wastes them.

The print of the film is good and there are some worthwhile extras. The featurette about the music provides interesting information about the Gershwins but the commentary is boring and the commentators are fans of each other as much as of Astaire and Rogers. The musical short is corny but the singers are in fine voice. The cartoon is a gem, one of those ones when all the toys come to life. There are excellent characterisations of famous stars such as Bing Crosby and Eddie Cantor.

The DVD is best value if purchased as part of an Astaire /Rogers Collection.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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