Astaire & Rogers Ultimate Collector's Edition (Flying Down to Rio The Gay Divorcee Roberta ...

Buy This Item Astaire & Rogers Ultimate Collector's Edition (Flying Down to Rio The Gay Divorcee Roberta ...  List Price: $99.98  Available from Amazon  $46.49  on 11-27-2008     Features Actors: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers Format: Black & White, Collector's Edition, DVD-Video, Original recording remastered, NTSC Language: English Subtitles: English, Spanish, French Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.) Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Number of discs: 11 Rating: Studio: Warner Home Video DVD Release Date: October 24, 2006 Run Time: 1008 minutes Average Customer Review:   33 Reviews 5 star:  (32) 4 star:    (0) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:  (1) See all 33 customer reviews...   (33 customer reviews) Reader Reviews Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers comprised what is without compare the greatest dance team in the history of cinema. Even today the pair represents the height of romantic elegance, and their dancing together still generates an onscreen excitement that has been seen since. Tragically, the Astaire-Rogers films have not previously been available on DVD, but this first of two sets will make all of their films available to the public. The success of Fred and Ginger was both unlikely and unanticipated. In the early 1930s, as advances in recording technology made the production of musicals more possible, studios that had not previously been in the business of producing musicals tried their hand at it. RKO was rather late in attempting to make musicals, and worked hard in 1932-1933 to acquire musical talent. Two of their first acquisitions were Astaire and Rogers. Fred Astaire was a famous stage performer, but unfortunately as the "straight" man of a brilliant comic dance team consisting of Adele and Fred Astaire. The center of the act was Adele, and many wonder how second fiddle Fred would fare following Adele's retirement to marry into British royalty. Happily, Fred found success on Broadway in the Cole Porter musical THE GAY DIVORCE (when it became a film the title was changed to THE GAY DIVORCEE when the Hays Office declared that divorcees could be gay, but divorces were always tragic), and it led to his signing by RKO (his famous screen test results--"Can't sing, can't act, balding, can dance a little"--are unfortunately mythical). RKO lent him out briefly to MGM for THE DANCING LADY (with a leaden footed Joan Crawford as his partner) while they were assembling the crew to make FLYING DOWN TO RIO, into which they threw him along with their other new musical talent. RKO was also lacking in women who could dance, so they bought the contract from Warner Brothers of a second lead actress with a background in the Charleston named Ginger Rogers. Though only 22, she had already appeared in some twenty-odd films, including several musicals. She had achieved some fame opening the hit film THE GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 singing its most famous song, "The Gold Diggers Song (We're in the Money)." Almost as an afterthought, Fred and Ginger were partnered in FLYING DOWN TO RIO as secondary leads after the stars of the film, Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond. Once the film came out, however, the leads were ignored, and the wise-cracking Fred and Ginger were the hits, especially their dance number "The Carioca." Although Fred was leery about teaming with a new partner after years of being identified with his sister, the greatest dance team in the movies was born. FLYING DOWN TO RIO-- Today this film is remembered exclusively for its pairing of the two future legends. Although they weren't actually yet a team, every scene they have together show a natural chemistry. The airplane numbers at the end are unintentionally quite funny. THE GAY DIVORCEE--Filming Fred's huge Broadway hit THE GAY DIVORCE was an obvious next step in RKO's attempt to produce its own string of musicals. Because of the success of their pairing in FLYING TO RIO, putting Ginger Rogers into the film was a no brainer. A new set of songs was produced, though the big hit from the stage play, "Night and Day," was kept. Otherwise the script followed the stage play almost entirely and one of the most popular actors from the play, Erik Rhodes, who was hysterical as paid correspondent Rodolfo Tonetti, reprised his role in the film. An absolutely perfect group of character actors was added to the mix. This film became the blueprint for all of the best Astaire-Rogers films. In a wonderful example of the weird logic of the censors, they were forced to change the title of the film. Divorces, they were moralistically told, could never be gay, though divorcees could be. Thus, THE GAY DIVORCE became THE GAY DIVORCEE. The film is remarkable on a number of levels. No film previously made featured so much extraordinary dancing. Most film dancing had focused on spectacular, heavily choreographed spectaculars, such as the productions we associate with Busby Berkeley. But Astaire insisted that his numbers be filmed with the camera only slightly above the angle of his and/or his partner's body and that his feet be visible at all times. This gives his numbers an intimacy that had never previously been seen in the film musical. The film also features many interior design innovations that would become even more famous in TOP HAT (e.g., Venetian blinds are so called not because they have any connection with Venice, but because they were used in the clean, new, and white Venice of TOP HAT). The dance numbers are all great, but none more so than "Night and Day." I remember reading a number of years back a film critic who wrote that the entire prior history of film would have been justified by their performance of "Night and Day." I don't disagree. ROBERTA--Many are perplexed that in the follow up to THE GAY DIVORCEE Fred and Ginger take second billing to Irene Dunne. Surely they proved in that film that they were the stars of any film that they appeared in. The mystery is resolved when one realizes that work on ROBERTA began before the release of THE GAY DIVORCEE. Unfortunately, Irene Dunne and Astaire-Rogers were not a great match. Dunne's singing style was quite mannered and didn't mesh with the remarkably natural style that both Fred and Ginger employed (it isn't often noted that they didn't sing at all like the vast majority of thirties vocalists--their singing voices were a complete extension of their talking voices, while most vocalists of the period had much more mannered styles). Still, it is a pretty good film with a lot of good moments. There is one great tragedy: Fred and Ginger do not dance to "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," the best song in the film. They would later try to correct this in THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY, but by then the time had passed. This is far from one of my favorites of their films, but I do enjoy rewatching it from time to time. TOP HAT was the fourth film that the two made together, and I will confess that it is probably my favorite movie. It was an enormous box office success in 1935, and was largely responsible for the two of them being the biggest box office stars for the year. It features a spectacular comic cast, with such stellar supporting characters as Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, and Helen Broderick. It also featured the Oklahoman Erik Rhodes in one of the two great roles he would play as an Italian Lothario, both in Astaire-Rogers's vehicles (the other one being THE GAY DIVORCEE). The plot was improbable, the sets gorgeous but surreal (with Venice looking more like a hospital ward than an ancient city), and the jokes numerous but extremely and delightfully corny. Most of all, it was riddled with great songs and superb dancing. The songs were also magnificently integrated with the plot. For instance, the first number is Fred's marvelous "No Strings (Fancy Free)," in which he declares that he is completely free of any romantic entanglements, ironically waking up in his enthusiastic dancing Ginger Rogers, with whom he would fall in love at first sight. Later, Fred gets a telegram asking him to come to Venice, and he carries it onto a theater stage, tapping it with his cane as he sings, "I just got an invitation in the mail." The musical highlight of the film, however, is the almost inconceivably gorgeous "Cheek to Cheek," with a beautiful song giving way to a dramatically romantic dance (the filming of which was made difficult by the propensity of Ginger's beautiful feathered-dress to shed). FOLLOW THE FLEET (1936) was a tad of a comedown from TOP HAT. The plot is weaker, the supporting cast not as strong, and the Randolph Scott/Harriet Hilliard (later Harriet Nelson of OZZIE AND HARRIET) distracting. But the dance numbers are glorious, especially "Let's Face the Music and Dance," one of the greatest numbers Fred and Ginger ever did together. Ginger's beaded glass dress had a tendency to cut up Fred's ankles, so completely the number was a challenge. SWING TIME, found them back in top form, with a great story, a fine supporting cast, and an extraordinary collection of songs. The score was primarily by Jerome Kerns and Dorothy Fields, and included such masterpieces as "The Way You Look Tonight," "Pick Yourself Up (Dust Yourself Off, and Start All Over Again)," and "A Fine Romance." Dance highlights also include Fred's blackface tribute to Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, "Bojangles of Harlem," and the spectacular "Never Gonna Dance." The latter involved Fred and Ginger dancing separately up facing staircases, arriving at the top at precisely the same moment. This proved difficult, and Ginger's shoes cut her feet badly as the takes were repeated. The results, however, are amazing. SHALL WE DANCE? is a good, but not great film, not as good as what came before, but a shade better than what would come later. Sadly, we can tell in retrospect that the possibilities in the pairing were beginning to wan. Nonetheless, there are many very good things in this film, though for the first time the songs were better than the dances. The score includes two of the Gershwin's greatest songs: "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and "They Can't Take That Away From Me," to which they tragically did not dance. CAREFREE--This is not a great musical though it is a very good comedy. It is a commonplace that this is the film that Ginger completely stole from Fred. I think that is true. It also foreshadows her subsequent career, in which she would establish herself as a truly great comic actress. The musical numbers aren't up to the level of their other films, but the film is a complete delight simply because of Ginger's great comic performance. THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE--It is pretty much a toss up between this film and THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY for the dubious distinction of being the weakest Astaire-Rogers film. Today it is fairly baffling why there would have been a demand for them to portray another dance team and largely just recreate their dances. Today the Castles are remembered almost exclusively for having been portrayed by Fred and Ginger. For a long while, it appeared that this was going to be Fred and Ginger's last film together and it was their last at RKO. But ten years later Judy Garland had to pull out of . . . THE BARKLEY'S OF BROADWAY, and Ginger stepped in to take her place. Ironically, the film was to be a follow up to the unexpected success of Fred and Judy's EASTER PARADE, ironic because Fred was in that one only because Gene Kelly had injured himself before filming began, causing Fred to come out of a relatively brief retirement. While we ought to be grateful that they made one last film together, it failed to recapture the magic of their RKO films. I rarely watch it and only this with some sadness.  Comment (1) | Permalink |  function showYesNoCommunityResponse(uId,result,value) { var msgLayer = getElement("thanks" + uId); if ( result == "SUCCESS" ) { msgLayer.innerHTML = "Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided to other Amazon.com readers and reviewers. Your vote will be counted and will appear on the product page within 24 hours."; } else { showVoteErrorResponse(msgLayer,result,value); } } (Report this)

Astaire & Rogers Ultimate Collector's Edition (Flying Down to Rio The Gay Divorcee Roberta ... List Price: $99.98 Available from Amazon Price: $46.49 Updated on 11-27-2008.

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