Flying Down to Rio (1933)

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