DISC ONE
1. CHEEK TO CHEEK
I. Berlin
Accompanied by Leo Reisman & His Orchestra New York, June 26th, 1935, Brunswick 7486. (mx B:17732-1)
2. NO STRINGS
I. Berlin
As band 1. New York, June 26th. 1935 Brunswick 7466. (mx B: 17733-1)
3. ISN'T THIS A LOVELY DAY?
I. Berlin
Accompanied by Johnny Green & His Orchestra. New York, June 27th, 1935. Brunswick 7487. (mx B:17735-1)
4. TOP HAT, WHITE TIE AND TAILS
I. Berlin
As band 3. New York, June 27th, 1935 Brunswick 7487. (mx B: 17736-2)
5. THE PICCOLINO
I. Berlin
As band 1. New York, July 15th, 1935. Brunswick 7488. (mx B: 17810-1)
6. LET'S FACE THE MUSIC AND DANCE
I. Berlin
Accompanied by Johnny Green & His Orchestra. Los Angeles, January 30th, 1936. Brunswick 7608. (mx LA 1068-C)
7. I'M PUTTING ALL MY EGGS IN ONE BASKET
I. Berlin
As band 6. Los Angeles, January 30th, 1936 Brunswick 7609. (mx LA 1069-C)
8. WE SAW THE SEA
I. Berlin
As band 6. Los Angeles, January 30th, 1936. Brunswick 7609. (mx LA, 1093-6)
9. I'M BUILDING UP TO AN AWFUL LET-DOWN
F. Astaire / J. Mercer
As band 6. Los Angeles, January 30th, 1936. Brunswick 7610. (mx LA. 1094-A)
10. LET YOURSELF GO
I. Berlin
As band 8. Los Angeles, January 30th, 1936 Brunswick 7608. (mx LA 1095-A)
11. I'D RATHER LEAD A BAND
I. Berlin
As band 8. Los Angeles, January 30th, 1936 Brunswick 7610. (mx LA. 1096-A)
12. THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT
D. Fields / J. Kern
As band 6. Los Angeles. July 26th, 1936 Brunswick 7717. (mx LA 1134-A)
13. NEVER GONNA DANCE
D. Fields / J. Kern
As band 6. Los Angeles, July 26th, 1936 Brunswick 7718. (mx LA 1135-8)
14. PICK YOURSELF UP
D. Fields / J. Kern
As band 6. Los Angeles, July 26th, 1936. Brunswick 7717. (mx LA 1136-D)
15. A FINE ROMANCE
D. Fields / J. Kern
As band 6. Los Angeles, July 28th. 1936. Brunswick 7716. (mx LA 1133-0)
16. BOJANGLES OF HARLEM
D. Fields / J. Kern
As band 6. Los Angeles. July 28th. 1936 Brunswick 7718. (mx LA l137-A)
17. THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME
G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin
As band 6. Los Angeles, March 14th, 1937. Brunswick 7855. (mx LA1272-D)
18. THEY ALL LAUGHED
G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin
As band 6. Los Angeles, March 18th, 1937. Brunswick 7856. (mx LA 1273-0)
DISC TWO
19. BEGINNER'S LUCK
G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin
As band 6. Los Angeles, March 19th, 1937. Brunswick 7855 (mx LA 1274-0)
20. LET'S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF
G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin
As band 6. Los Angeles, March 19th, 1937. Brunswick 78S7. (mx LA 127S-C)
21. SHALL WE DANCE?
G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin
As band 6. Los Angeles, March 21st, 1937, Brunswick 7857 (mx LA 1276-0)
22. SLAP THAT BASS
G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin
As band 6, Los Angeles, March 21st, 1937. Brunswick 7856. (mx LA 1277-8)
23. A FOGGY DAY
G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin
Accompanied by Ray Noble & His Orchestra
Los Angeles, October 17th, 1937. Brunswick 7982. (mx LA 1465-A)
24. THINGS ARE LOOKING UP
G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin
As band 23, Los Angeles, October 17th, 1937, Brunswick 7983. (mx LA 1466-B)
25. NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT
G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin
As band 23, Los Angeles, October 19th, 1937, Brunswick 7983, (mx LA 1467-C)
26. I CAN'T BE BOTHERED NOW
G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin
As band 23, Los Angeles, October 19th, 1937, Brunswick 7982, (mx LA 1466-A)
27. CHANGE PARTNERS
I. Berlin
As band 23, Los Angeles, March 24th, 1938 Brunswick 8189, (mx LA 1608-A)
28. I USED TO BE COLOR BLIND
I. Berlin
As band 23, Los Angeles, March 24th, 1938 Brunswick 8189, (mx LA 1609-A)
29. THE YAM
I. Berlin
As band 23, Los Angeles, March 26th, 1938 Brunswick 8190, (mx LA 1610-A)
30. THE YAM STEP (EXPLAINED)
I. Berlin
As band 23, but add Ray Noble - Dialogue. Los Angeles, March 26th, 1938. Brunswick 8190 (mx LA 1611-A)
31. WHO CARES?
G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin
Accompanied by Benny Goodman & His Orchestra
Benny Goodman - Clarinet, leader;
Jimmy Maxwell, Ziggy Elman, Irving Goodman - Trumpets;
Red Ballard, Vernon Brown.
Ted Vesely - Trombones;
Toots Mondello, Les Robinson - Alto Saxophones;
Bus Bassey, Jerry Jerome - Tenor Saxophones;
Johnny Guarnieri - Piano;
Charlie Christian - Electric Guitar;
Artie Bernstein -String Bass;
Nick Fatool- Drums
Los Angeles, May 9th, 1940, Columbia 35517. (mx WCO 26BD7-A)
32. JUST LIKE TAKING CANDY FROM A BABY
F. Astaire/G. Shelley
As band 31, but add Lionel Hampton - Vibraphone
Los Angeles, May 9th, 1940. Columbia 35517 (mx WCO 26BD9-A)
33. LOVE OF MY LIFE
J. Mercer/Shaw
Accompanied by Perry Botkin & His Orchestra
Manny Klein - Trumpet;
Abe Lincoln - Trombone;
Jack Mayhew- Clarinet;
Perry Botkin - Mandolin, Guitar;
Charles LaVere - Piano;
Spike Jones - Drums
Los Angeles, September 22nd, 1940
Columbia 35815 (mx LA 2357-A)
34. POOR MR. CHISHOLM
J. Mercer/A. Hanighen
As band 33, Los Angeles, September 22nd, 1940 Columbia 35852, (mx LA 2358-B)
35. ME AND THE GHOST UPSTAIRS
J. Mercer/A. Hanighen
As band 33, Los Angeles, September 22nd, 1940 Columbia 35815, (mx LA 2359-A)
36. (I AIN'T HEP TO THAT STEP BUT I'LL) DIG IT
J. Mercer/Borne
As band 33, Los Angeles, September 22nd, 1940
Columbia 35852 (mx LA 2360-A)
_________________________________________________
Original 78s from the collections of Robert Altshuler and Michael Brooks.
Produced by Michael Brooks
The Columbia Years Series Producer: Joe McEwen.
The Columbia Years Series Coordination: Steve Berkowitz.
Restoration Engineer: Frank Abbey.
Mastered by Vlado Meller at CBS Records Studios, New York
Packaging Manager: Sandy Lorenzo
Art Direction: Josephine DiDonato.
Photos: The Lester Glassner Collection
This Compact Disc was manufactured to meet critical quality standards.
If you believe this disc has a manufacturing defect, please call our
Quality Management Department at (800) 255-7514. New Jersey residents
should call (609) 722-8224.
__________________________________________________
THE RECORDINGS
Between 1935 and 1938, Fred Astaire starred in six movies for RKO Radio
Pictures - five of them with Ginger Rogers - that were universally
acclaimed as the epitome of grace, style, wit, elegance, and musical
distinction. During the same period, Fred Astaire made a total of
thirty recordings for the Brunswick Record Corporation - all but one of
them featuring songs from these movies that were equally celebrated for
capturing the same special flair and flavor that distinguished the
films.
Fred Astaire was not merely a dancer who sang - with the light,
rhythmic voice one might expect - he was also a singer who, quite
possibly, introduced more standards than any other stage or screen
performer. What songwriters loved about him was that, despite his
admitted vocal limitations, he brought to each song a personal
involvement that never distorted either the meaning or the melody. His
phrasing was unsurpassed, his enunciation clear, and his taste
impeccable. As Irving Berlin has put it, "His heart was in a song
before his feet took over."
One major factor contributing to the special appeal of the recordings
Fred Astaire made for Brunswick was unquestionably his orchestral
accompaniment. Over a period of little less than three years, Fred was
supported by groups led by Leo Reisman, Johnny Green, and Ray Noble.
While each band had its own personality, each was also ideally suited
to the Astaire personality, and together the combination resulted in
some of the closest instrumental and vocal- and even instrumental and
dance - collaborations ever recorded.
Although Fred Astaire had begun his recording career in London as early
as 1923, the only American dance orchestra with whom he recorded before
1935 was the one conducted by Leo Reisman. Reisman led a "society"
orchestra, primarily identified with fashionable New York hotels, night
spots, and social affairs. His arrangements were unfailingly inventive
without being intrusive and were particularly well suited to provide,
on records, the backing for a fascinating group of singers that
included Noel Coward, Lee Wiley, Harold Arlen, and Clifton Webb.
In this collection, Reisman's band is heard on three selections, all
from the film, Top Hat. The leaders versatile string section is, as
usual, especially well used, whether the effect desired is silken
("Cheek To Cheek"), pizzicato (the Latin-flavored "The Piccolino"), or
woven contrastingly through the reeds and the brass ("No Strings").
As leader of the orchestra that accompanied Fred Astaire no less than
19 times, Johnny Green is, of course, the conductor most closely
identified with the singers recorded output. Like Reisman, Green led a
hotel-type dance band, but with the important added feature of his own
distinctive piano playing. In addition to recordings, Green was also
associated with Astaire in the mid-1930s as music director of Fred's
Packard Hour radio series. Years later, when he was at MGM, Green
conducted the studio orchestra for two Astaire films, Easter Parade and
Royal Wedding.
Some of the Astaire-Green collaborations deserve special comment,
particularly the way Fred's tap routines are spotlighted for dramatic
effect in "Let Yourself Go," the explosive taps-and-rumbling-piano
opening fairly bursts through the grooves, while the dancing finale, at
first blazing away like firecrackers, ends on a comic note as Fred,
heeding the admonition of the bandsmen to relax, winds down the number
to a slow-motion halt. "Bojangles Of Harlem" starts off with taps and a
honky-tonk piano leading up to a brassy fanfare, and concludes with
both a drum and tap "conversation" and a partly unaccompanied dance
solo. In another jazzy piece, "Slap That Bass," the emphasis is, as
might be expected, on alternate foot-tapping and bass slapping
(performed by a musician identified by Fred only as "Kenny"). "Shall We
Dance?" begins with Fred's flashing tap steps heard in the distance and
then corning closer and closer until they explode into Green's staccato
piano solo. Later, a lowdown trumpet accompanies a dance that builds to
the numbers ultimate blast from the brass section.
Two recordings in the set take on the flavor of a rehearsal. In ''I'd
Rather Lead A Band," we hear the band tuning up, the conductors
baton-rapping, Fred's vocal solo (with the instrumental identifications
followed by brief instrumental solos), and, at the end, Fred's final
words, 'All right, boys, rehearsal tomorrow at ten.' The other
rehearsal-type number is the bubbly polka, "Pick Yourself Up," in which
Fred interrupts his singing between the verse and the refrain to
attempt a tap routine that is apparently giving him trouble ("I'll get
that thing yet"). Later, during a second dance solo, Fred asks for and
receives encouragement from the musicians, which prompts him to
accelerate the tempo until, still dissatisfied, he concludes with a
self-deprecating groan.
In the more romantic, tapless selections, the voice of Fred Astaire and
the piano of Johnny Green create a remarkable rapport, as in the
excruciating plaintiveness of "Let's Face The Music And Dance" and the
deep pensiveness of "The Way You Look Tonight" (which, on the words
"With each word your tenderness grows," appropriately grows into a more
affirmative declaration). The piano and vocal solos on "Isn't This A
Lovely Day?" and ''I'm Putting All My Eggs In One Basket" are also
notably expressive, while the variation on the first five notes on
"They Can't Take That Away From Me," which serves as a signature at the
beginning of both Green's playing and Astaire's singing, becomes almost
part of the song itself.
Johnny Green also provides the proper sprightly backing for ''I'm
Building Up To An Awful Let-Down," written by Astaire and Johnny
Mercer, which is the one number in the collection unaffiliated with a
movie. It was originally sung by Binnie Hale and Jack Whiting in Rise
And Shine, a 1936 stage musical presented at London's Drury Lane
Theatre.
Another of the leaders whose bands accompany Fred in this collection,
Ray Noble has two distinctions He is the only one to have appeared in a
Fred Astaire movie (playing a sillyass Englishman in A Damsel In
Distress) and he is the only one whose voice is heard on a record
(playing a sillyass Englishman in The Yam Step). Ray Noble, was, like
Reisman and Green, a favorite of cafe society. In the early 1930s, he
made a number of recordings in his native London with a pick-up band
that won such high praise that he came to the United States to conduct
an orchestra organized for him by Glenn Miller.
Once the band broke up in 1937, Noble went to Hollywood where he
pursued a career as both actor and music director for a series of radio
programs. The English leaders affinity for the swing-band sound was
decidedly more pronounced than either Reisman's or Green's and,
accordingly, his arrangements placed far greater emphasis on the work
of instrumental soloists.
One of Fred Astaire's more personal expressions in the collection is "I
Can't Be Bothered Now," which finds him so preoccupied with dancing
that he refuses to be distracted by the "Paging Mr. Astaire"
announcements by the Noble bandsmen. Fred's footwork is also heard in
"Nice Work If You Can Get It" (with tap beats matched by drum beats)
and in both "The Yam" and "The Yam Step (Explained)." ''The Yam," is a
number in which Astaire taps and sings at the same time. Note also two
special Ray Noble touches: the clock chimes at the end of "A Foggy Day"
and the cascading saxes in "Change Partners."
__________________________________________________
THE FILMS
TOP HAT (1935)
Although it closely followed the formula of The Gay Divorcee, Fred's
first co-starring film with Ginger Rogers, Top Hat is generally
accepted as the model for all the Fred-and-Ginger movies. The glamorous
surroundings, the mistaken identity theme, the white, stylized
stage-like settings, the scatterbrained comedians, and the totally
illogical plotting of the story all helped to stomp Top Hat as the
quintessential example of the unique, magical world inhabited by Fred
Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It also had one other major ingredient: a
scintillating score by Irving Berlin.
In the film, Fred plays Jerry Travers, an American dancer who is in
London to star in a new musical revue. The night before the opening, he
spends the time in the hotel suite of his producer and friend, Horace
Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton), to whom he confides how happy he is
to be romantically unattached ("No Strings"). Suitably buoyed by the
song, Jerry performs a tap dance which ruins the slumber of Dale
Tremont (Ginger), who occupies the suite directly below, and she storms
upstairs. One look at Dale is all that it takes for Jerry to change his
mind about romantic attachments. The next morning, after Jerry has
driven Dale to a riding stable in the park, a sudden downpour forces
Dale to take shelter in a bandstand, and a sudden clap of thunder
forces her into Jerry's arms ("Isn't This A Lovely Day?").
Once they have danced together, it is now, of course, Dale's turn to
fall in love. That night, however, because she mistakes Jerry for
Horace (whose wife, Madge, just happens to be her best friend), Dale
becomes so enraged that she slaps Jerry's face. But even a slap cannot
be allowed to ruin the opening night of the new musical. In Jerry's
dressing room Horace reads a telegram from Madge urging them both to
join her in Italy at the Lido so that Jerry might meet her friend, Dale
Tremont. Bounding onstage with the telegram clutched in his hand, Jerry
describes his feelings at being invited to a gala formal party ("Top
Hot, White Tie And Tails"). He then proceeds to perform a tap routine
in which, using his walking stick as a rifle, he shoots down all the
top-hatted chorus boys.
At the Lido, Dale still thinks Jerry is Horace and she cannot
understand why Madge (Helen Broderick) is so anxious to have them dance
together ("Cheek To Cheek"). When Jerry proposes, though, that's really
too much, and Dale again slaps his face. Thoroughly confused and hurt,
the unhappy girl impulsively marries Alberto Beddini (Erik Rhodes), a
dress designer whose creations she models. But the marriage proves
illegal when Horace's valet, Bates (Eric Blare), admits it was he who
performed the ceremony disguised as a clergyman. The way is now clear
for the dancing lovers to become permanently united - but not before a
final exuberant dance by Jerry and Dale ("The Piccolino").
FOLLOW THE FLEET (1936)
Since the triumvirate of Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Irving Berlin
had proved so successful with Top Hat, RKO Radio insisted that the trio
be retained for Follow The Fleet. Rather than keep Fred in his
customary custom tailored attire, however, the studio decided to lower
his social status and limit his wardrobe by casting him as a
gum-chewing gob. The story selected to effect this transformation was
based on a play called Shore Leave, which had already been adapted as
the musical comedy Hit The Deck. No matter. With its somewhat altered
plot and a bright, original Irving Berlin score, the picture emerged as
a freshly-minted vehicle created specifically for the talents of Fred
and Ginger.
Aboard ship as the movie opens, Bake Baker (Fred) enumerates all the
questionable benefits of life in the United States Navy (''We Saw The
Sea"). Once ashore in San Francisco, he and his buddies head for the
Paradise Ballroom where Bake's ex-partner. Sherry Martin (Ginger), is
the featured singer ("Let Yourself Go"). Though Sherry is fired after
she and Bake win a dance contest, Bake promises to help her get a job
with a theatrical producer. Before he can do anything about it,
however, the fleet leaves port for the Canal Zone. While there, Bake
entertains visiting naval brass by leading the dance band and by
putting his fellow sailors through a topping close-order drill ("I'd
Rather Lead A Band").
After the fleet has returned to San Francisco, Bake does get Sherry an
audition but, by mistake, ruins her chance by putting bicarbonate of
soda in her drinking water. To make amends, Bake offers to stage a
benefit show to help Sherry's Sister, Connie (Harriet Hilliard), raise
money to recondition a dilapidated scow left her by her father (''I'm
Putting All My Eggs In One Basket"). The ship is saved when, to no
one's surprise, the show is a success, due mainly to Bake and Sherry's
dramatic, Monte Carlo number ("Let's Face The Music And Dance").
SWING TIME (1936)
When RKO bought the Broadway musical Roberta as a showcase for Irene
Dunne, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers, it used most of the original
Otto Harbach-Jerome Kern score, plus two additional pieces by Kern and
lyricist Dorothy Fields. Suitably impressed, the studio gave the new
team the responsibility of creating their first complete score together
for the next Fred-and-Ginger opus, Swing Time. The movie also provided
the stars with their first story to have a New York locale and the only
one in which Fred, even fleetingly, was romantically involved with a
girl other than Ginger.
The film starts off with Lucky Garnett (Fred) leading his vaudeville
dance troupe in his hometown just before he is to marry a wealthy local
belle. But his fellow dancers trick him into arriving late for the
wedding ceremony, and, finding himself penniless, Lucky, along with
sidekick Pop Cardetti (Victor Moore), hops a freight for New York.
Accidentally meeting Penny Carrol (Ginger) on the street, he follows
her into the dance studio where she works as an instructress. After one
lesson ("Pick Yourself Up"), Lucky and Penny get a chance to audition
for a nightclub engagement, but Lucky fails to show up because he lacks
the proper formal attire. Penny is furious but her anger soon melts -
and whose wouldn't? - when Lucky serenades her ("The Way You Look
Tonight"). It isn't long before the two do perform their audition
number ("The Waltz In Swing Time") and soon scale the dancing heights.
But, since Lucky still considers himself engaged to the girl back home,
he stifles his feelings toward Penny (''A Fine Romance"), thereby
causing a temporary rift.
In the Silver Sandal nightclub, Lucky scores a great hit in a blackface
dance routine ("Bojangles Of Harlem"). His elation, however, quickly
vanishes when his fiancee (Betty Furness) shows up, and things get even
worse when Penny considers this enough reason for her to agree to marry
band leader Ricardo Romero (Georges Metaxa). In the deserted nightclub,
Lucky and Penny take their final, anguished musical farewell ("Never
Gonna Dance") - before, of course, the ultimate, joyous reconciliation.
SHALL WE DANCE (1937)
During his stage career in both New York and London, Fred Astaire was
fortunate in having Ira and George Gershwin to create the scores for
two of his best-received musicals, Lady, Be Good/and Funny Face. He was
equally fortunate in having the brothers create the score for Shall We
Dance. The movie also put Fred and Ginger in their most glamorous
setting since Top Hat, and provided audiences with Hollywood's idea of
the utmost in luxurious living, in Paris, aboard a transatlantic ocean
liner, and in a New York hotel. Fred appears as Pete Peters (alias
Petrov), the star attraction of the Paris-based Russian Ballet Company,
presided over with fussy arrogance by Jeffrey Baird (Edward Everett
Horton). Having seen musical-comedy star Linda Keene (Ginger) in a
revue, Pete, naturally, decides to marry her - and he takes the first
step down the aisle by being on the same New York-bound steamer ("Slap
That Bass"). Pete loses no time in pursuing Linda mainly on the kennel
deck - and he eventually breaks down her resistance when he confesses
his love ("Beginner's Luck.")
Through a misunderstanding, Pete and Linda are thought to be married
and Linda's manager, Arthur Miller (Jerome Cowan), tries to maintain
the impression in order to keep her from really getting married and
retiring from the stage. One way is to arrange for Linda, while dining
at the Starlight Roof of a gleaming New York hotel, to sing and dance
with Pete ("They All Laughed"). Later, a faked photograph that makes it
appear as if the two are in bed together is accepted by everyone as
unassailable proof that they are, indeed, man and wife. To avoid
reporters, Pete and Linda spend the day in Central Park where they sing
and dance (on roller skates) about their phonetic incompatibility
("Let's Call The Whole Thing Off").
Now convinced that the only way they can make people believe they are
not married is to get married and then get a divorce. The couple have
the quickie ceremony performed in New Jersey and then take an
abbreviated honeymoon aboard a ferry back to Manhattan ("They Can't
Take That Away From Me"). Suddenly jealous when a seductive rival for
Pete's affection shows up, Linda disappears, and the lovesick Pete, who
is a star in a show on the Starlight Roof, hopes to find consolation by
having the chorus girls wear masks in Linda's likeness. When she sees
this demonstration of Pete's affection, Linda joins the shows finale
("Shall We Dance?''), and the two dance lovingly up to the final bow.
A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS (1937)
Because Shall We Dance had not proved quite so financially successful
as had the previous Astaire-Rogers movies, RKO decided that the time
had come for at least a temporary break in the partnership. The only
trouble was that studio contract player Joan Fontaine, the partner
chosen for Fred's next film, A Damsel In Distress, had the curious
qualification of being unable either to sing or to dance. But the movie
did have the comic presence of George Burns and Gracie Allen as well as
Ray Noble plus a script co-authored by P G. Wodehouse (who adapted it
from his own novel and play). And, once again, the brothers Gershwin
were called in to call the tunes.
Like Jerry Travers in Top Hat, Jerry Holliday in A Damsel In Distress
is a musical-comedy dancing star appearing in a London production.
After having accidentally met Lady Alyce Marshmorton (Joan), Jerry
entertains a street crowd by singing and dancing ("I Can't Be Bothered
Now"). Upon receiving an urgent letter supposedly from Lady Alyce,
Jerry and his press agent (Burns) and secretary (Allen) drive to
Totleigh Castle to do what they can to help this damsel in distress. At
first the girl's problem is that she thinks she loves someone her
family disapproves of, but pretty soon she confesses that Jerry is
really the only one for her. This admission quite naturally prompts the
smitten lad to burst into song ("Things Are Looking Up").
In the evening, Just before attending a formal ball at the castle,
Jerry strolls through the foggy garden and sings of his new-found love
("A Foggy Day"). Because of a planted story about his alleged
philandering, the poor chap is now barred from entering the castle, but
he manages to get in by posing as a member of a vocal trio ("Nice Work
If You Can Get It"). Later, when Lady Alyce is his forevermore, the
song is reprised for an exultant topping and drumming finale.
CAREFREE (1938)
Carefree reunited Fred and Ginger (it was the eighth out of ten films
they did together) and Irving Berlin, but some of the standard plot
developments of previous Astaire-Rogers films were strikingly altered.
For the first time, it was Ginger who fell for Fred before he fell for
her, and for the first time, Fred played a character other than a
dancer or musician. Primarily, the picture was a showpiece for Ginger's
clowning rather than Fred's dancing, though there was that memorable
routine in which Fred coordinated tap step with golf swings.
As for the plot, Dr. Tony Flagg (Fred), a psychiatrist, is urged by his
friend, Stephen Arden (Ralph Bellamy), to try 10 discover why Stephen's
fiancee, Amanda Cooper (Ginger), is always breaking their engagement.
Tony has a dinner prepared for Amanda at the Medwick Country Club that
is guaranteed to make her dream, and that night she does - all about
dancing and kissing Tony ("I Used To Be Color Blind"). Amanda, of
course, is afraid to admit this to the good doctor, and Tony, to get at
the truth, hypnotizes her. While still under hypnosis, Amanda goes on a
rampage through the streets and even insults the sponsors of her radio
program.
At a formal dance at the country club, Amanda obliges by singing and -
with Tony- demonstrating a new dance step ("The Yam"). Though the girl
now admits that she loves Tony, he doesn't believe her. Once again he
tries hypnosis, this time to convince her that she loves Stephen and
hotes him, with the result that Amanda tries to shoot Tony. That night
at the club, Tony, with another partner, tries to dance as closely as
possible to Amanda ("Change Partners".) Later, on the terrace, Tony
hypnotizes Amanda for the third time, but she still thinks she loves
Stephen and they make plans for their wedding. Just before the
ceremony, Stephen gets into a fight with Tony, and, aiming a punch,
accidentally knocks out Amanda. Which, at lost, brings her to her
senses - and to Tony.
- Stanley Green
__________________________________________________
After The Story Of Vernon And Irene Castle the team of Astaire and
Rogers decided to call it a day. Their last two movies together had
lost money, and both wanted to get away from the formula scripts that
had seemed so fresh and funny in the Depression years but now reflected
a bygone era.
Ginger Rogers mode four more films for RKO before 1940's Kitty Foyle
won her an Oscar. Fred went freelance, and after The Broadway Melody Of
1940 with Eleanor Powell for MGM, he crossed over to Paramount. Whilst
he was filming Second Chorus he cut two sides with the Benny Goodman
Orchestra, then enjoying a long engagement at the Cocoanut Grove of the
Hotel Ambassador in Los Angeles. "Who Cares?" revived his association
with the Gershwins, although, ironically, it come from a non-Astaire
musical Of Thee I Sing. "Just Like Taking Candy From A Baby"was written
by Fred and Gladys Shelley, and Lionel Hampton is brought in on vibes
to simulate the Benny Goodman Sextet within the full band framework.
Second Chorus starred Fred with Burgess Meredith, Paulette Goddard,
Charles Butterworth, and Artie Shaw and His Orchestra. Fred and Burgess
play two aging, trumpet-playing students who refuse to graduate as they
can make more money leading the college band. Unfortunately the script
portrays them as stupid, cross, and selfish; and these negative
elements make the film uncomfortable to watch today and quite
overshadow the comic talents of Butterworth and the generous footage
given to the Show band. "Poor Mr. Chisholm" was written by Johnny
Mercer and Bernie Hanighen for the Butterworth character, on eccentric,
mandolin-playing millionaire who wants to bankroll Show's swing
concert. "Dig It" by Mercer and Astaire's long-time rehearsal pianist,
Hal Borne, is used in the film as a vehicle for an Astaire-Paulette
Goddard dance routine, while "Love Of My Life," by Mercer and Artie
Shaw, acts as the mandatory love song Mercer and Hanighen's "Me And The
Ghost Upstairs" was played by Fred's college bond at a Halloween dance
with Fred's real-life dance director, Hermes Pan, making on anonymous
appearance clothed in white muslin as the ghost. Although all record
labels credit the song as coming from the film, it was actually cut
before release and it is doubtful whether any footage still survives.
- Michael Brooks
