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Thursday, May 15, 2008

CAREFREE (1938)

The last of the Fred & Ginger RKO musicals is generally considered the least; it is and it isn’t. (Their very last RKO pic was a Vernon & Irene Castle bio-pic.) Trying to break out of the mold of big white deco sets & elaborate production numbers, we get a country club setting & a mere four Irving Berlin numbers. Of those, one’s an instrumental for an Astaire golf routine & one’s a rare Rogers vocal solo, she never sounded nor looked better. Luckily, all four are charmers and the two duets (esp. CHANGE PARTNERS) considerably more than that. It’s a shame the psychiatric screwball script plays in such a leaden fashion because the attempt at a more casual, chamber-sized musical had a lot of potential.

GASTRONOMIC NOTE: How tastes in food change! Here Fred orders lobster & mayo (classic lobster roll makings) and buttermilk & cucumbers (your basic Indian raita) as stomach churning dream inducers.

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