Shall We Dance?

  Were it not for Top Hat and Swing Time,Shall We Dance would be my favorite of the Astaire-Rogers movies.

The plot is as wonderfully ludicrous as a Shakespeare comedy, full of misunderstandings and figurative masks culminating in a scene in which Fred dances with dozens of dancers each wearing a Ginger Rogers mask -- like an unspooky foreshadowing of the hall of mirrors at the end of The Lady from Shanghai.

The music -- "They All Laughed," "Beginner's Luck," "Shall We Dance," "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," "Slap That Bass," and "They Can't Take That Away from Me" -- is sublime. So is the dancing, choreographed by Hermes Pan.

Some favorite moments or aspects:

F and G dance to "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" on roller skates.

The script and the supporting cast: Jerome Cowan as Ginger's manager ("Arthur Miller"): "I have an idea that's so dastardly it's beautiful." Eric Blore explaining that his mental state is a "veritable pendulum," first "to and fro" and now "fro and to."

The love-hate celebration and ridicule of the toffs, e.g. Edward Everett Horton getting drunk, hungover ("you only had one glass," "Yes but you kept refilling it"), seasick, and duped into thinking the ship's on fire.

The allegory: Fred is Petrov, a ballet dancer; Ginger is Linda Keene, star of musical comedy. Their true names are Peter Peters and Linda Thompson. Their joint efforts prompt a broadside headline: "Broadway and Ballet Merge." To the music of the Gershwins, naturlich.

The electric train set in Ginger's hotel suite.

"They Can't Take That Away From Me."

-- DL

Comments

[Laura Orem]

Fred singing "They Can't Take That Away From Me" to Ginger in the fog on the ferry is about the most romantic thing ever. That wonderful lyric - the contrast of the little silly details - "the way you hold your knife," "the way you sing off-key," and so on - with the poignance of "the way you changed my life," even more touching because Fred has to try so hard for the note, you are totally on his side. *Sigh* Real life should be that way.