Lovely To Look At
After getting a comment from reader Irene Done about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, I rewatched Roberta (1935). It was the team's third film, and it showed what they could truly do. For the first time, the dances were filmed as Astaire wanted, with full-on shots and little cutting.
The duo didn't have to carry the plot either (which is kind of nice, as they're allowed to know each other from the start and have a lot of fun)--Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott do.
The duet below is one of my favorites. It's "I'll Be Hard To Handle"--sorry you don't get to hear Ginger sing it first. Astaire and Rogers' dances explored many different aspects of love, but my favorites are often the numbers where they just show the joy of being together, and the joy of being alive.
Whenever I watch this I think about how incredibly hard they must have worked to give the appearance of making it up as they go along.
Note once they start the duet, it's all done in one shot. I believe the sound was done live, so you can actually hear the two laughing as they dance.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:13 AM
4 Comments:
Absolutely fantastic. I have always loved that Fred Astaire insisted on the full-body shots for dances. Whenever I see close-ups during a dance, I spend the whole time thinking, "But what are their feet doing?"
This is a truly great example of Astaire and Rogers. Thanks.
This is the kind of stuff that has the Gender Analyzer thinking you're gay.
Well okay -- but I'm a woman.
Anon. #1
I never noticed the sound before. That's wonderful.
I was going to say that it was probably a relief for them both whenever Ginger Rogers could dance in pants but given the width of those pantlegs, maybe not.
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