The Gay Divorcee (1934)

The Gay Divorcee
Directed by Mark Sandrich
1934/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
Umpteenth viewing

Aunt Hortense: Be feminine and sweet. If you can blend the two.

Fred Astaire plays Guy Holden, an American dancer returning to London. He meets Mimi (Ginger Rogers) when she suffers a wardrobe malfunction at London customs. He isn’t too helpful and she gives him the brushoff. She meets him again at an English seaside resort where she has gone to sham an adulterous affair so that her husband will discover it and divorcer her.  A misunderstanding leads her to believe that Guy is the hired correspondent.

“The Continental”

All this is just a good excuse for the dance numbers which are the whole point. The “Night and Day” ballroom dance is so elegant and sublime that this movie would rank high with me even if that was all it contained. However, we have the almost equally delightful “The Continental” number and a nice tap solo for Fred to “A Needle in a Haystack”.

I find Alice Brady annoying but the always reliable Edward Everett Horton is along as Mimi’s lawyer; Eric Blore shows why he was the most popular comic butler in Hollywood; and Eric Rhodes is hilarious as the egotistical family-man correspondent.  I am crazy for Fred and Ginger.  Lately, I have taken to watching Ginger’s face while they dance.  She was quite an actress and puts her whole self into it.

“Night and Day”