I have so many movies to write up that if I don't have much to say, I'm going to put a whole day's movies in one post. Like
May 28 movies: Broadway Melody of 1940, Dancing Lady and Damsel in Distress. Three Fred Astaire movies without Ginger Rogers. Of the three, Broadway Melody of 1940 is by far the best. Costars Eleanor Powell, a superlative dancer. She and Astaire don't have any romantic chemistry; the pleasure of watching them together is seeing two masters share their mutual talent. Seriously, in 1940 Astaire and Powell were probably the two best dancers in the movies. It's a crying shame they only made one movie together.
Dancing Lady is Astaire's first movie and he's basically a specialty act. He's called by his own name and he shows up, "dances" with Joan Crawford twice, and that's it. The movie is really about Crawford struggling to succeed as the star of Broadway producer Clark Gable's new show. And there's a romantic triangle with Crawford, Gable and Franchot Tone. On the plus side, one of Astaire's two "dance" numbers (I use quotes because he isn't allowed to dance much, so as not to show up Crawford) is about beer and he wears lederhosen. On the negative side, the stage crew are played by Ted Healy and His Stooges, aka the first incarnation of the Three Stooges. I loathe the Three Stooges. I suppose if you liked them, that would be a plus for this movie.
Damsel in Distress. Another Astaire movie with a costar who can't dance. This time it's Joan Fontaine, who can't sing either. Astaire and Fontaine don't spend a lot of time together, and it ends up feeling more like a solo effort for Astaire. George Burns and Gracie Allen make good costars. I'm not crazy about the "ha ha you're stupid" gags which are the backbone of Burns & Allen's comedy, but they have a couple of good dance numbers with Astaire. Georg read somewhere that Burns & Allen had to audition for Astaire, and so they had an old vaudeville friend of theirs choreograph a dance for them. And Astaire liked the number so much that he wrote it into the movie. It's the dance they do with hand brooms. Astaire also has a couple of terrific solo dances: one in the street to "A Foggy Day," and one that blew me away where he dances and plays the drums at the same times. I've read that Astaire was accomplished at several musical instruments, and whenever you see him play an instrument in a movie, it's really him playing.
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