Daily Archives: June 21, 2022

Flying Down to Rio
Directed by Thornton Freeland
Written by Written by Cyril Hume, H.W. Hanemann, and Erwin Gelsey from a play by Anne Caldwell
1933/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Honey Hale: [watching a Carioca dance] What’s this business about the foreheads?
Fred Ayres: Mental telepathy.
Honey Hale: I can tell what they’re thinking about from here.

Fred and Ginger got their start here and bring the screen alive whenever they appear.

Bandleader Roger Bond (Gene Raymond) gets a yen for Delores del Rio when they meet in Miami. But it turns out she has been engaged since childhood to Raul Roulien, a friend of the family. This slows down Gene not at all.

Coincidentally, Raymond’s band gets a gig to open del Rio’s father’s hotel. Fred Ayres (Fred Astaire) and Honey Hale (Ginger Rogers) are members of the ensemble. Bad guys try to deny the hotel an entertainment license but the band gets the idea of having the entertainment in the air.

What makes this movie a must for me is that it is Fred and Gingers first movie together and they dance the Carioca divinely. The chorines on the wings of bi-planes are also an attraction. The actual plot is predictable and the principal actors are kind of dull.  It is certainly pre-Code by virture of the see-through costumes on many of the girls.

Producer Merion C. Cooper reportedly came up with the idea for the aerial title song number. He also did the world a gigantic favor when he married actress Dorothy Jordan who was slated to play Fred Astaire’s partner. He took her on a year long honeymoon and Ginger Rogers got the role.  The rest is history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYCu29Wu0SI

Hi, Nellie
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Written by Abem Finkel and Sidney Sutherland, story by Roy Chanslor
1934/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb page
First viewing/Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 8

Samuel N. Bradshaw aka Brad: Miss Krale, when you have less time and can’t stay so long, come in and see me. But, don’t make it too often! I’m a busy man.
Gerry Krale: Man?
Samuel N. Bradshaw aka Brad: You heard me.
Gerry Krale: Okay, Nellie.

One of many newspaper dramas of the early thirties and a pretty good one at that.

Samuel N. (‘Brad’) Bradshaw (Paul Muni) is the hard hitting managing editor of a big city paper. There is a scandal about the failure of a bank from which $500,000 had been stolen. This was blamed on embezzlement by Frank Canfield who has since disappeared. Not believing the embezzlement story, Muni plays this in his paper as a mystery. All the other papers come out with huge headlines blaming Canfield.

The newspaper’s owner is not pleased but Muni has a contract and cannot be fired. Instead he is demoted to write an advice to the lovelorn column under the name Nellie. Fellow reporter Gerry Krale (Glenda Farrell) who had been Nellie gets moved backed to the newsroom. In the end, the advice column leads Muni to the solution of his mystery.

This is a solid newspaper picture with such Warner Bros. character actors as Ned Sparrks, Douglass Dumbrille, and John Qualen adding to the fun. An entertaining film. Since this was included in the Forbidden Hollywood collection I’m going to consider it pre-Code though there is nothing naughty about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4Mb1LlDHAg