FLYING DOWN TO RIO (1933)

This pioneering ‘Second Wave’ musical (the post-Early Talkie musical revival that got going in ‘33) is largely (and rightly) remembered as being a sort of ‘soft opening’ for Hollywood’s GOAT dance team, Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers.  (We ought to say Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire as she’s billed fourth and he’s billed a lowly fifth.)  Plotwise, it’s nonsense, of course, with blonde band leader Gene Raymond (and band) following girl-of-his-dreams Dolores Del Rio down to Rio where she's already engaged to wealthy Raul Roulien.  Unaware of their mutual pash, Raymond & Roulien already long time pals.  (And the way Roulien gives Raymond the eye when he drops his towel hardly clears things up!)  So much for our story.  What’s important is that when Gene goes a’wooing, Fred takes over the band . . . and the pic.  Though hardly a big part, someone knew to give Fred & Ginger the final shot.  No one could miss seeing how Fred comes on fully formed.  And not only in song & dance.  Sheer charm, knowing how to get real laughs out of what passes for witty dialogue, in tender plays for Ginger’s attention, and when these two lock foreheads as part of the film’s big ‘Numbo,’* in Vincent Youmans’ best tune, ‘Carioca,’ it’s like having a master do close magic right at your table.  Remarkably, this big production number, touching on Brazil’s multi-racial culture, even if segregated for Stateside consumption, and presumably not handled by journeyman director Thornton Freedman, but by dance director Dave Gould (?), is as good as any in the whole series.  Essential stuff.  And over the next four or five outings, they’d only get better.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Critical choice for series peak split between Mark Sandrich/Irving Berlin’s faultless TOP HAT/’35 (the third release) and #5 SWING TIME/’36 from George Stevens/Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields.     https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/swing-time-1936.html

READ ALL ABOUT IT:  Arlene Croce’s THE FRED ASTAIRE & GINGER ROGERS BOOK that rarest of items, a great book of criticism on dance & Hollywood cultural history.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *The official big Numbo is the title tune with all those process shots (good ones!) of chorines in the sky, dancing up a storm on airplane wings.