Fred Astaire in his first scene peeks out from
behind a newspaper and made me realize again what a deft comedian he was in
addition to being the screen's greatest dancer. How else could he have lasted
so many years?The formula for these was simplicity itself, and stood for at
least a half-dozen big hits (it was increased expense of making them that
brought slippage with Carefree and Vernon/Irene Castle). Top Hat was, in
fact, RKO's biggest smash up to 1935. What the company got from Fred and Ginger
was welcome mat to lushest venues showing movies, the Music Hall (among many) in persistent pant for their next. Further secret to success was funmakers
like Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, Erik Rhodes --- these were as essential
to the series as music underscoring it. Farce conventions can irritate; as
Buster Keaton once complained, the trouble with farce was you keepwanting
someone to walk in and clear confusion with a single line of
explanation, but that relief won't come, at least not till nearly an end. Let's
just say you'll need a big patience for mistaken identities. The dances are
sublime and naturally complicated. Did merchandisers really imagine a public
could duplicate Fred/Ginger moves? --- and yet they pushed the
"Piccolino" as something manageable at home. Not by me! Watched on
Amazon prime HD, and a stunner.
Donald Benson considers some of the fabulous music behind the Astaire/Rogers series:
It's a bit boggling how many all-time song standards came out of these films. Busby Berkeley and others had their share, but the Astaire-Rogers scores are still a big chunk of the pop and jazz songbooks.
Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans and the Gershwins all did original scores for the series. They also did film versions of stage hits by scored by Jerome Kern ("Roberta") and Cole Porter ("The Gay Divorcee", which ended up with only one Porter song).
Did RKO have a music business to capitalize on song hits? And were these now-legends significantly more expensive than other Hollywood composers at this point in their careers?
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Donald Benson considers some of the fabulous music behind the Astaire/Rogers series:
It's a bit boggling how many all-time song standards came out of these films. Busby Berkeley and others had their share, but the Astaire-Rogers scores are still a big chunk of the pop and jazz songbooks.
Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans and the Gershwins all did original scores for the series. They also did film versions of stage hits by scored by Jerome Kern ("Roberta") and Cole Porter ("The Gay Divorcee", which ended up with only one Porter song).
Did RKO have a music business to capitalize on song hits? And were these now-legends significantly more expensive than other Hollywood composers at this point in their careers?
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