JohnHowardReid
Copyright 11 October 1934 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall, 15 November 1934 (ran 2 weeks). U.S. release: 3 October 1934. U.K. release: 13 April 1935. Australian release: 2 January 1935. 13 reels. 107 minutes. (Available on an excellent Warner DVD).U.K. release title: The GAY DIVORCE.SYNOPSIS: Dancer falls in love with intending-to-be-divorcée, but she mistakes him for her professional co-respondent.NOTES: Prestigious Hollywood award, Con Conrad and Herb Magidson, Best Song ("The Continental"), defeating "The Carioca" from Flying Down To Rio, and "Love In Bloom" from She Loves Me Not.Also nominated for Best Picture (It Happened One Night); Art Direction (The Merry Widow); Music Scoring (One Night of Love); Sound Recording (One Night of Love).The stage musical opened on Broadway, 29 November 1932 (ran 248 performances). Astaire, Rhodes and Blore repeat their stage roles in the movie.Negative cost $520,000. Initial domestic rental gross: $1,077,000. Initial foreign rental gross: $697,000. Initial net profit: $584,000.COMMENT: Not transferred intact from Cole Porter's stage hit (it uses only one of Porter's songs, "Night and Day"), this adaptation has a lively first half-hour, but after an exciting car chase, the story- line becomes boring and predictable and drags on far too long. True, the musical numbers are a wow, but the extremely forced comedy in between forces actors like Horton, Blore and Rhodes to ham and mug away with some incredibly thin and tepid material. Blore is even reduced to reciting the menu — which he does delightfully — but it's a bit like asking Laurence Olivier to give a dramatic reading from the phone book. Film editing is a bit jumpy, and the sound track burps at each reel change.OTHER VIEWS: Anyone who can give this delightful feast of musical nostalgia anything less than 99% must have a soul of lead. Why, after the car chase, the sparkling Betty Grable comes on, singing and dancing the famous "Knock Knees" number with Edward Everett Horton! And anyone who could deride "The Continental", a production number whose sheer delight is sustained through nearly 15 minutes of top-flight Terpsichore's, isn't a critic's boot-lace. It isn't the climax of the film, either, as there is a very amusing sequence after this in which the plot is deftly rounded out to everyone's satisfaction.
mmallon4
I had a period in which I was infatuated with the greatness that is Fred Astaire & Ginger Rodgers. Prior to this I often heard of them but I was occupied with later film musical of the 50's. When I checked them out for myself I got it, oh boy did I get it. When together dancing or not, Fred and Ginger are in a world of their own and everyone else ceases to exist. Just look as Night & Day (my favourite Astaire and Rodger's number), what could be more spellbinding? The Gay Divorcée is my favourite Astaire & Rodgers picture. This was their first film together as lead and yet a feel it gets everything right and I consider it a much better film than Top Hat which itself I find overrated.I find the humour of The Gay Divorcée is more creative than that of Top Hat. Take the sequence in which Astaire finds Rodger in London by near impossible luck, then the two engage in a car chase into the country side (how often do you get a car chase in a 30's musical), and then in a wacky races type moment he goes ahead or Rodgers and gets road closed sign out of nowhere in order to stop her. Astaire's stalker attitude could come off as creepy but he is charming enough to get away with it, making this moments morbidly funny. This whole sequence is so surreal and plays like a live action cartoon, as if the filmmakers are making fun of the film's own highly improbably mistaken identity plot. This is much more clever than the handling of the mistaken identity plot in Top Hat. I don't mean to completely undo Top Hat, I think it's a good movie, just whatever Top Hat did I can't help but feel The Gay Divorcée did much better. I've always championed Astaire's unsung abilities as a comedian. His timing and line delivery is easily on par with the likes of Cary Grant; I wish he could have appeared in some non musical comedies. Ginger Rodgers usually had a female companion throughout the series and I think Alice Brady is the best of them all with her histrionics; the sound of her voice alone cracks me up. The Gay Divorcée may have slipped through the recently instated production code. If not then it certainty feels like a pre-code film, with sexual tension throughout and an air of scandalousness to the whole thing.Fred and Ginger, they where gods!
weezeralfalfa
This was the second film pairing of Fred and Ginger, and their first as the starring couple. Already, Fred had enough clout to demand that the dance scenes, in particular, be devised and filmed according to his specifications, which were quite different from those of the competing popular dance-oriented musicals of Warner, choreographed by the innovative Busby Berkeley. Fred insisted that all dance routines be filmed in one shot, if possible, and show the dancer's entire body throughout. No zooming in on one body part, such as the face or legs, as often done at times in the Berkeley films. No overhead shots of interesting geometric patterns of masses of dancers or single couples: a staple of the Berkeley films. Songs and dances were to be integrated into the screen play, helping move it along, rather than being stage productions that had little or nothing to do with the screenplay, as in the typical Berkeley film. Fred always had at least one solo dance(two in this film), usually did most of the solo singing, usually with a back and forth duet or two with Ginger, and usually included at least one purely romantic partnered dance, along with one or more novelty, comedic or pure energy partnered dances. He very rarely did duet vaudeville-styled dances with other males, exceptions occurring in the later "Broadway Rhythm of 1940" and "Ziegfeld Follies", for example. Throughout his RKO period, he always worked closely with choreographer/dance director Hermes Pan, who had been the assistant choreographer in the previous "Flying down to Rio", which included Fred. Pan would leave RKO soon after Fred, to serve as dance director for many of Fox's musicals during the '40s, then to MGM during the '50s, again as dance director/choreographer, including the occasional Astaire musical. Typically, Fred and Pan worked up the dance routines, Pan taking the role of Ginger, then brought Ginger in to learn her part. Unlike Fred, who did virtually no other films without Ginger during this period, Ginger was usually busy taking part in various non-musical films. For example, 5 films were released including her in '34 vs. just this one including Fred. Besides the presence of Ginger and Pan, Fred had several advantages in this film to ease his responsibility as the featured male. He, as well as Erik Tonetti and Eric Blore, reprised their roles from the Broadway play this screenplay is based upon. Although only Porter's classic "Night and Day" was retained from among the original songs from the play, the humorous complicated plot of the play was mostly retained.Besides "Night and Day", 4 new songs were composed by others, of which only "The Continental" is memorable as a song: so memorable that it won the Oscar as The Best Original Song, and was played to death during the extremely long dance production it was the center piece of. It wasn't until the much more varied ballet production in the '51 "An American in Paris" that a slightly longer dance production was staged. Here, it includes several segments featuring Fred and Ginger as the exclusive or main dancers, interspersed with segments with many dancers, sometimes acting as if they were in a Berkeley film. As in the long "Carioca" dance production, in the previous "Flying down to Rio", the lyrics were periodically sung by 3 soloists, beginning with Ginger. In addition, Fred comes up with a very imaginative way of fooling Tonetti into thinking that he and Ginger were still upstairs, when they go down to join the other dancers.Early in the film, Fred does two solo dances, to "Don't Let it Bother You" and "Needle in a Haystack". The second of these has him dancing around his room, including on the furniture, though not on the ceiling, as in the later "Royal Wedding". The point of the lyrics is that he desperately wants to find Ginger, whom he briefly interacted with, by chance, with no clue where to find her."Let's K-nock K-nees" is a fun romantic novelty song and dance, begun by a very fresh-faced 18 y.o. Betty Grable, while trying very hard to 'put on the make' with the puzzled middle-aged E.E. Horton, who eventually joins in(I'm surprised this passed the censors). Later, it's taken over by a squad of male and female dancers, with Betty and Horton again dominating near the end. Unfortunately, Betty would make little further progress toward becoming a leading lady until 6 years later, when she moved to Fox, and lucked out as a last minute replacement for the ailing Alice Faye.Fred is still trying to woo the non-receptive Ginger, as they happen to be alone on a danceable floor at a beach. Fred begins to sing the lovely "Night and Day". Ginger tries to leave, but Fred keeps pulling her back, 'forcing' her to dance with him. During the dance, it appears she tries to leave several times, but Fred pulls her back. But at the end, she looks enthralled with Fred briefly, but then becomes angry again, as she mistakenly believes he is the man she expecting to show up, relating to her desire to divorce her estranged husband. This is one of the best of the Fred and Ginger romantic dances, through their film series, with Ginger's periodic reluctance actually adding to its interest.The supporting actors E.E.Horton, Erik Rhodes and Eric Blore, as well as Ginger's scripted aunt, Alice Brady, are all great in contributing humor to the screenplay. Ginger's acting, which largely consists of trying to resist Fred's advances, is also superb. I really miss Alice's humor and Grable's independent number in the subsequent Fred & Ginger films.
