soulaflame Possible spoiler here. Fred and Ginger were great in earlier films. Now they are middle age with a plot that would have been better when they were much younger. This would have been a good movie without the bickering. The musical numbers were very good for the most part. The dances showed a change toward more avant-guard styles emergent of the rebel movies of the 50's. Which, for middle agers looked very childish and the arguments were immature. She looked very tired. He looked like her father, with baggy eyes and all. What a shame that they didn't leave well enough alone. The best part of the movie was some of the music. Oscar Levant tried to steal some scenes. Not worth seeing again. Sell the video at a yard sale or donate it to a nursing home.

beautiful-blue-eyes I love Fred and Ginger movies. Although the Hays Code made very sure to eradicate obscenity and sex from American movies, Fred and Ginger found other ways to express the crackling chemistry between them. I wonder that more people haven't noticed how overt the sexual attraction is between the two actors. For example, at the end of "Bouncin' the Blues,"(the big tap number where they're dressed like "Roberta's" Hard To Handle number) Fred takes a long leisurely look at Ginger from head to toe as she sashays towards him and says, "Oh, God, Ginger" as they move offstage. Since the music and taps are dubbed, you don't hear the real reactions of the actors as they're dancing (Ginger lets out a "pop!" as she hits a move), but I imagine Fred said it out loud, which accounts for the look Ginger gives him as they go offstage. On a side note, that "Hard to Handle" number from Roberta is all natural taps and music without overdubbing, so you can hear Ginger make a few suggestive noises and Fred laughs and hollers once or twice.As a married couple, Fred and Ginger are extremely believable. They're so familiar to each other by this time, and they exude this quality of utter honesty with each other. The fighting is GREAT, and only two people who love each other can yell at each other like that. The kisses are still very chaste and though there are two separate beds for Fred and Ginger (they're pushed together), reflecting the times, Ginger nonchalantly sheds her bra right in front of Fred while changing into pajamas. It comes off as a very easy and natural relationship.My favorite part of this movie is the fact that it's a chance for Fred and Ginger to give their own send-up of what people perceived their relationship to be. They're married, so their sexual involvement is implicit (people believed they either hated each other or had been sexually involved). They dance, just like Fred and Ginger. They're both extremely melodramatic, which lends a tongue-in-cheek atmosphere to their fights. Neither Fred nor Ginger were ever so over-dramatic in real life so the characters are, in a way, like fun-house versions of themselves.The dancing is exactly what should be expected from Fred and Ginger sixteen years after their first film; she's 38 and he's 50, and they can both still swing it. It seems Fred worked with the small changes to Ginger's figure (what was everyone complaining about? She looks stunning the whole movie), and every film they did before was represented in the choreography somehow: the fall in "Highland Fling" is the same kind of stunt (albeit scaled down a bit) as the fall from "I'm Putting All my Eggs in One Basket," the ultra-slow walk from "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is seen at the end of "They Can't Take That Away from Me," as well as the dancing-while-nearly-kissing from "Change Partners." It's a nice blend and it shows off everything they can do.Every scene is well-played, and Ginger proves she is every inch the Oscar winner opposite Fred, whose own acting skills are deliciously natural and filled with affection for his leading lady. They have no compunction about getting in each others' faces, nor are they shy about expressing their attraction to each other. At the resolution of an argument, Fred grabs Ginger and kisses her. She apologizes and he kisses her again (a much more natural peck this time that's just cute), and one can hear him let out a "Hm," that sounds like even that little peck knocked him for a loop. Owchamagowch.Some people call Fred Ginger's Svengali. He wasn't, and it was nice to see "Ginger" asserting her independence from "Fred," which she had done so successfully in real life ten years before. They go through the breakup with real pain but it's evident they never stop loving each other. I love this movie and can watch it repeatedly. There are always new details to discover and it bears repeated viewings.

secondtake The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)This is the last of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies, and by now there is something familiar about it all. If this is your first exposure to the form, and to these famous two as the leads, it might disappoint you (thought it isn't half bad). But it's worth being specific: to those who are familiar with Top Hat or Swing Time (from the mid 1930s), this will seem like a visit with old friends, which is always wonderful, and to those who haven't seen Astaire and Rogers before, you might start with any of their 1930s films. Barkleys is a decent movie, terrific fun for the initiated, and with a carefree, fun, meaningless, playfully inventive plot. By now it is almost the 1950s, and the color (true Technicolor) as well as the flat, bright MGM filming bring another element to the approach. It's not engrossing, I think, but that's fine, too. There is no pretense at all.All of their musicals have clever, often romance based plots, and these events are part of the escapism. It isn't uncommon to have the leads play characters in show business, so there is a second layer of references to acting and dancing. By the way, Rogers and Astaire can act as well as dance. Luckily. Most of the movie isn't dancing at all. The relationship between the two leads, now utter legends (they are married in the film, but the actors were never, apparently, in a relationship offscreen) is superbly comfortable. They squabble and kiss, argue and harmonize, and dance and sing convincingly. There are few couples like this in the movies--Hepburn and Tracy, Loy and Powell--and even though this is a fantasy genre (the musical), Rogers and Astaire come off maybe the most convincing of all. The dancing is on level of its own, and it hardly needs mentioning, except that a couple of the numbers are great, and great fun. Be patient--the first one doesn't start until almost half an hour in. Sometimes the singing is so dated it will strain a viewer not used to it (it strains me, and I'm used to it). But I actually have come to love Astaire in particular for his unique flavor (ignoring the painful Scotland number). A more classic tap dance by Astaire (alone) pops up at 57 minutes, and it adds an odd non-diagetic layer of Astaire's voice singing (he is not singing or lip synching in the scene). Then, adding to the invention of the scene, a couple pairs of shows show up and start dancing with him (just the shoes), and then a bunch more, until it is practically a Disney animation. This was unusual for Astaire partly because it has no segues with the plot--it's just an insert.You might notice the Gershwin credit for the music, but you might be thinking of composer George, who died in 1937. The lyrics are by older brother Ira, the music by Harry Warren, except one piece, "They Can't Take That Away from Me," which George and Ira wrote in the 1930s (and which Astaire sang to Rogers, without dance, in the 1937 Shall We Dance). I think it is reprised here for all those in the audience who were watching (in 1949) for purely nostalgic reasons. It had been a decade since the pair had danced together, and this old number is like a time machine. The dancing ("ballroom" style on an empty stage) is nothing to write in your diary about, however.One fun addition, purely musical, is Oscar Levant at the piano, which leads to some music straight ahead. And not faked (he was a true pianist). The scenes don't advance the plot, but they make it a musical in another sense.

writers_reign Even those of us who are too young to have seen those great Astaire/Rogers black and white musicals the first time around - and let's face it, even one who was only ten in 1935, the year Top Hat was released, would now be eighty one and unlikely to be active on this or indeed any other board - will still feel a frisson at the very opening frames of this movie - over which the credits are supered - a shot of the four most iconic dancing feet in movie musicals doing what they did so well that they helped millions to find momentary relief from the Great Depression. Cynics may argue that MGM opened with this shot - which slowly pans up to reveal Fred and Giner in full spate - knowing full well that what followed was at best a pedestrian script from the vastly overrated Comden and Green (thank God they didn't lumber Fred with some of their equally pedestrian lyrics) who would recycle it yet again four years later in The Bandwagon, once more teaming Astaire with Oscar Levant. In common with, I guess, the majority of musical buffs who are active on these boards I first saw the original Astaire/Rogers movies many years later on TV by which time I'd already seen Fred dancing with other partners from the mediocre (Jane Powell, Vera Ellen) to the outstanding (Rita Hayworth, Cyd Charisse) so that the glaring flaws of those black and white gems -the ridiculous depiction of Venice (Top Hat), the pristine engine room of an ocean-going liner (Shall We Dance) etc to say nothing of the remote coldness of Rogers stood out more than if I had watched them as a child of the Depression seeking only escape from soup kitchens and bread lines but what was undeniable was the charm and style of Astaire, the gorgeous songs and the greatest and most stylish pair of male feet ever to grace the musical screen. Harry Warren was, no question, a great composer but he fell just a tad short of Porter, Kern and Gershwin if not necessarily Berlin and although he delivers a fine score here, to which Ira Gershwin fashioned some deft lyrics the movie failed to deliver a 'standard' to rank alongside The Way You Look Tonight (Swingtime), Cheek To Cheek (Top Hat), Change Partners (Carefree) etc in fact the classiest number on display by a country mile is They Can't Take That Away From Me which Ira wrote originally, with brother George, for Shall We Dance. In the early/mid forties MGM had a penchant for self-contained 'classical' moments in popular musicals, often employing the likes of Jose Iturbi to ham his way though a flashy classical piece that had little or nothing to do with the rest of the film (and like those Lena Horne numbers could be edited out when the film played the Deep South); one had hoped that by 1949 the powers that be had matured a little but no, here we get Oscar Levant - who is playing a composer of 'show' tunes - giving his rendition of The Sabre Dance and Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto Number #1 in D Flat whilst his 'character' has never displayed either an interest in or aptitude for the classics. Maybe they were deliberately attempting an 'old fashioned' feel or trying to cram the quart of Astaire-Rogers into the pint pot of Anchors Aweigh but whatever the intention the result is mild embarrassment. No film that stars Astaire and allows him to dance can be dismissed entirely and when he is allowed to do what he did better than anyone else the film comes alive and is worth watching but on balance there are not enough Astaire magic moments.