Shall We Dance
Directed by Mark Sandrich
Written by Allan Scott, Ernest Pagano et al
1937/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
Repeat Viewing
[box]The way you hold your knife/
The way we danced till three/
The way you changed my life/
No they can’t take that away from me — Ira Gershwin, “They
Can’t Take That Away from Me”[/box]
I love the ’30’s. Every year some new Astaire/Rogers bliss.
The film opens in Paris. Petrov (Fred Astaire) is a famous ballet dancer. His real name is Pete Peters, he longs to dance to swing music, and he loves Broadway star Linda Keene (Ginger Rogers) from afar. Linda longs to get away from co-stars who paw her and decides to return to New York and marry her stuffy millionaire boyfriend. When Pete finds out about this, he decides to book a ticket on the same ship. His manager (Edward Everett Horton) tells Pete’s lady friend that Pete can’t take her with him because he is married. After some initial resistance, Pete and Linda get friendly on the ship. All this blows up when the jilted lady in Paris tells the press about Pete’s “marriage” and the rumor mill turns that into a marriage with Linda. Linda and Pete spend the rest of the film having misunderstandings and patching them up. With Eric Blore as a hotel concierge.
This was the first of the Astaire/Rogers films to be scored by George and Ira Gershwin. We get some of the great standards of the 30’s set to some outstanding dance sequences. There is “Who Has the Last Laugh” danced by an embarrassed Ginger with Fred at a party celebrating her engagement to another guy and “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” danced on roller skates. Fred also has a fantastic tap solo to “Slap That Bass” and rhythm set to the rattle of engine room of the ocean liner. The comedy lacks some of the pizzaz of the pair’s earlier outings but all in all this should not be missed.
“They Can’t Take That Away From Me” was nominated for the Best Song Oscar but, somehow, lost to “Sweet Leilani” from Waikiki Wedding.
Clip – “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” (followed by their dance to the same song from The Barkleys of Broadway)
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