Swing Time (1936)

To cuff or not to cuff? Another silly, but fun, film. I found it was best not to think too much about the plot.

Lucky (Fred Astaire) is about to get married, but his band members are concerned marriage will get in the way of the band's future. The film opens with Lucky's band members very skillfully tricking him out of getting to his wedding on time just by drawing cuffs onto the pant legs of a man in a magazine and telling Lucky that cuffed pants are in. Lucky has to go off and get his pants cuffed (minutes before the wedding, we are led to believe), discovers his pants are un-cuffable, and misses his wedding. He is then told that he has to raise a whole lot of money before he can be allowed to try to marry his spurned fiance again. So Lucky goes off to New York with the band to play and gamble, and he meets Penny (Ginger Rogers).

Penny is a dance instructor and wants nothing to do with Lucky after he annoys her on the street. Lucky pretends to need dance lessons, though, messes with her for a while, and then before you know it, they are an amazing team.

Lucky starts to think that maybe he doesn't want to raise all that money to marry his old fiance. I appreciated that Astaire and Rogers sang and danced to "A Fine Romance," a song that I love, during a snowy getaway together. Not the most exciting dance ever, but fun. And they got to wear fantastic hats.
Then suddenly, over an hour into the film, blackface? Why? Apparently the scene is some loved tribute to Mr. Bojangles, and we're supposed to be really excited that Astaire can dance with shadow selves. Hmmm... It's just always a bit hard to forgive these moments. I know the film is old, but people still could have had more sense.

Fun film, but two stars. Not my favorite Astaire and Rogers plot.

Roberta (1935)

Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers... of course I had to see this movie. Huck Haines (Astaire) travels with his band, The Wabash Indianians, and his friend John Kent (Randolph Scott) to Paris for a gig. Unfortunately, almost the second they step off the ocean liner, the owner of the club where they were supposed to play becomes horrified to learn that they are in fact Indianians and not Indians. The band tries to woo the club owner with a bizarre act in which they become a human piano...but to no avail.

With no more gig, John and Huck rush off to find John's aunt Roberta, who just happens to own a fashionable clothing store in Paris. Roberta is delighted to see her favorite nephew and says that she will try to help them find a new gig through her connections. It turns out that the band doesn't need Roberta's direct help, though, because out in the lobby they find the Comtesse Scharwenka (Ginger Rogers) complaining loudly and obnoxiously about a dress that has not come out quite right. The Comtesse is merely pretending to be Polish nobility to make her singing act more intriguing. Really she is from Indiana and happens to be the long lost close friend/next door neighbor of Huck. And she can get the band back into the very night club from which they were tossed for not being Indians. And I haven't even mentioned that Irene Dunne plays Stephanie, who works for Roberta. Stephanie and John fall in love at first sight, complications to follow. One of the largest complications seems to be that John is a "hick" with an attitude about fashion, and Stephanie is a Russian princess in exile. Hmmm.

The dancing was, as usual, exciting, especially a very cool tap dance pictured above and a dance to "I Won't Dance." And then there was the highly entertaining fashion show. My favorite quote from the fashion show is actually from my roommate Barbara: "Oh, a bird died." There were a lot of fur and feathers.

Other good fashion quotes from without the movie include:

"It's more stimulating to the imagination if clothes clothe." (John is VERY against skimpy dresses, and this fact leads to some of the plot twists of the movie.)

"[Women] can pack their own junk." (about a dress with pockets)

The movie also swung towards schmaltzy, though. Stephanie sings mournful songs, Roberta dies, everyone is tragically misunderstood. All except Huck and the Comtesse, that is. Two stars for my favorite dancers. Not sure I could watch again.

The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Ohh, wonderful wonderful silly movie.
Guy meets girl...

Mimi (Rogers) gets the end of her dress stuck in her aunt's trunk as her aunt locks it. Guy (Astaire) comes by and saves her by quite shockingly ripping her dress. He is smitten. She runs away. He spends weeks in London standing on the sidewalks and starting at every woman's face to find her until he finally rear-ends her car by accident.

Girl runs from guy...

Every silly dance movie needs a high speed car chase.

Guy pursues girl...

Lucky thing that Guy thought to buy a "Road Closed" sign at a sporting goods store. What a good way to bring a high speed car chase with one's beloved to a halt.

Girl starts to fall in love...

After losing Mimi again, Guy happens to find her at an ocean resort. She is there to try to secure a divorce from the geologist husband she hasn't seen for years. He is there with his lawyer friend who is helping Mimi to secure the divorce. But of course Guy does not know Mimi is the woman his friend is helping. Guy is charming and sweeps Mimi off her feet.

Girl becomes convinced guy is a gigolo (rather, a correspondent)...

The plan that Mimi's lawyer has concocted to secure her divorce involves her spending the night with a hired male "correspondent" and then getting caught by some detectives. Guy unknowingly says the code phrase to Mimi that the correspondent is supposed to use to find her, and Mimi is furious that Guy is not really interested in her but is there for a job. One of many many similar jobs.

Everyone dances...

They even twirl up onto chairs and over tables.

Happy ending...

Dancing solves all problems, of course!

I hope I get to see this again. It's now my favorite Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire movie. Four stars!

Brigadoon (1954)

This is an interesting entry for me. Regrettably, probably boring for you, dear reader. Let me apologize in advance.

I came home this evening and settled down to relax for a while. I flipped on the TV and my Tivo was recording Brigadoon (or trying to, it's having problems communicating with the digital cable box). In it, two hunters stumble on a quaint Scottish village seemingly undisturbed by modernity.

About 40 minutes into the movie we come to this scene:
Gene Kelly (reading from a large book, apparently the family bible of the lass he's smitten with):
"listen to this! Married - Elizabeth Lange to Andrew Campbell July 2nd, 1719"

He goes on to read that the birth date of his new girlfriend is October 10th, 1732 (a libra!). This was odd for Gene Kelly, but, since I've seen this movie once or twice before, this didn't get me wondering what was up in Brigadoon, it got me thinking about my genealogy project.

For the past month I've been looking up family genealogy online and bothering my relatives and Kimberly's with questions about their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.

So, as Gene Kelly and his buddy went racing around the countryside tap-dancing with men in argyle tights and shirts with gigantic balloon sleeves, I went and found a little pamphlet that I received in the mail from my grandmother earlier this week.

The pamphlet was printed in 1901, updated in 1907 (my neighbor didn't think that was possible because it has staples but who knew staples had been invented in the 17th century? God bless Wikipedia). It contains information relating to the genealogy of the Cunningham Family, my maternal grandmother's family.

As Gene Kelly comtemplated life without his beloved Fiona and his buddy got drunker and drunker off a flask of what is presumably some vintage 1764 scotch, I settled down to try to decipher the tiny lines of print full of dates and abbreviations in that hundred-year-old pamphlet that read, in part "Edward, b. 1823; d. 1889; one of the most eminent of the American merchants in China; m. 1858, Fanny Helen, dau. of George B. Cary of Boston" - that, without a doubt, is my great-great-great grandfather and great-great-great grandmother - Ned and Fanny!

Now this little book just goes back from there - so as Gene Kelly, torn between the bucolic life in the Scotch highlands and the life he knows in New York City, decides to make his sacrifice for his wee lass Fiona (played by Cyd Charisse) I started to plot my family tree backwards...to John Adams Cunningham, Andrew C, James C, William C - back to the original Andrew who, it turns out, is Scottish. Back to kilts and Brigadoon!

In fact, evidence suggests that Andrew must have been born in Scotland sometime around 1654, well before Brigadoon was enchanted by the prayers of a lunatic priest to only appear (spoiler alert) once every hundred years.

What does this mean? It means:
a. I am not descended from Gene Kelly
b. Cyd Charisse could be some kind of distant relative
c. I can wear a "kiss me, I'm Scottish" shirt now, if I want to.
d. all of the above.

Now if only my ancestors had handed down Cyd Charisse's dresses to me...that would be really awesome!



Four stars. Will watch again right now.

Correct answer is D.

Tea for Two (1950)

Three stars - one for Uncle Max, one for the tap dancing one for Eve Arden.
Won't watch again - unless maybe in mute.

It seems to have been Doris Day Day on TCM this past Saturday. This early Doris flick is based on the broadway show "No No Nanette" it has a very silly premise that a girl and her guardian bet that she can't say "yes" to anything for 48 hours. Hilarity Ensues!

Featuring S.Z. Sakall - aka Sasha from Casablanca and the cook in Christmas in Connecticut. I'm getting so close to this man with the charming thick german accent combined with bumbling antics that make him non-threatening that I'm going to adopt him as my official vaguely-jewish honorary uncle. In fact, in the movie, he plays Uncle Max who is suprisingly BAD with money...what? What kind of vaguely jewish uncle is he?

Besides dear darling Uncle Sasha-Max, the best part of the movie is the tap dancing.*

Robert Osbourne of TCM tells me the songs all came from the vast library Warner Bros had purchased in anticipation of the advent of sound movies. Meaning, in Robert-Osbourne's euphemistic double-talk, that this music sat around for, oh, about 30 years and no-one cared to use it till now.

All the songs are pretty sappy and forgettable, but the dancing is great. Comparable to White Christmas.

I find it irritating that Nanette has to say "no" to anything she's asked, but sometimes she turns right back around and says "but I'll do it anyway!" - she a really bad cheater and it irks me, since that's the whole premise of the movie. If I were her Uncle Max, I'd have spanked her.

In typical DD fashion there is NO kissing, NO hugging, no emotion or sensuality of any kind. No stocking scenes, even! However, when the hero and heroine want to express their feelings and they can't dance, they lean their heads together and harmonize! Rapture!

*Strike that! Eve Arden is better than the tap dancing and I almost forgot! She gets a star of her own (I've had to revise to three stars). It's worth watching just for her reaction to DD. If the whole movie could be from her perspective, you'd have a classic. Just goes to show - a bitter and beautiful brunette is far more entertaining than an innocent blonde ANY day of the week. Even Doris Day Day.