The timing, the flawless execution, the way they make difficult moves look easy and effortless, the two greatest dancers in the history of cinema dancing together as a team. No superlatives can adequately describe the thrill of watching such talent light up a sound stage. We are all gifted that this performance is recorded for the ages. It happened over 80 years ago but it has the energy of occurring only a moment passed. Whenever the term "awesome" is bandied about think of this performance because it is truly awesome!
@@justinchetham-strode5234 Thanks. I'm quite aware of the dazzling Nicholas Brothers, legends of tap. Probably the best team of brother or sister dancers ever to live. Bar none.
@@justinchetham-strode5234 Yes, the Nicholas Brothers routine is great, but this one is greater. Theirs is more athletic, this one is more musical and flowing. The Astaire-Powell dance is simply the top dance on film, period.
@lynnelovesroses4485 that was unusual for fred and he never had close ups of feer or face it alway had to be full shots which was unusual. Still greatest performers of period for me as i was brought up on this amazing dancing.
And can we take a moment to acknowledge the perfection of the camera work? A tracking shot of dance was a special challenge then, and note you never see the camera crew in the reflections. Yeah, it may seem like inside baseball, but I’ve shot dance with lighter cameras today, and what happens here is so smoothe you don’t even think a pot it. It really lets the performance shine.
@@mja91352 According to the Nicholas Brothers (who should know), she was one of the finest dancers, PERIOD. In my opinion, Fred Astaire (who I love) looks a bit wooden in comparison to how she moves.
@@politicsbyjake Another 46 years have passed, and Sinatra's verdict stands. A masterpiece of Hollywood craftsmanship as the setting for one of the most complex popular songs ever penned, to accompany a display by the two greatest dancers of the past century. Until the cinema got sound, such performances were the stuff of legend. Now we can evaluate them for ourselves, but they must be an oppressive weight on those who have to follow in such footsteps.
It is not only about talent or perfection (we also have in actually tines), it is about grace, elegance, attitude, personality, glamour, soul, real classic and eternal beauty.
My favorite dance from the movie! And look at that exquisite cinematography! Glorious B&W, impeccable placement of the mirrors to make the stage appear huge, old time Hollywood was the best.
It was one mirror, the biggest in the country then. Made by a firm that specialized in astronomical telescopes and taken west, very carefully, on a special train. When Louis B Mayer had faith in a project he backed it to the hilt.
When I was in the second grade I started dance lessons in ballet and tap. Tap dancing to me was 100 times harder than ballet. I'm 68 now and I can't do either anymore. These two artists make it look effortless. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rest in peace. I hope you're dancing in heaven. I can't wait to meet the two of you. And the nickel's brothers.
The flawless performance of such an intricate number is unmatched, and remained the greatest tap number ever performed. What a treat to have this to view
As close to perfection as two can become. Just outstanding, - never get tired of watching this. Such delicate grace while laying them down hard. That’s work, - made to look easy. Every session they ever did turns into a master class.
Not just great music. Not just superb dance. But also an incredible example of black and white cinematography. Maybe the greatest 3 minutes Hollywood ever produced.
Each were beyond wonderful - together, magnificent doesn't even come close. How they could concentrate on each note of music, each individual movement and step. Staggering.
Raw talent polished to perfection. Legend has it this was done in one take and never repeated. Astaire apparently intimidated to never appear again with Powell. An astounding production I have never seen duplicated (without special effects and computer overlays)
Eleanor Powell danced circles around the men-folk. 🙃 In my humble opinion she's the best dancer, male or female, to have ever enchanted us with her perfection.
Two of the very best doing what they do best. Perfectly in step and thoroughly enjoyable. What a shame this sort of entertainment is no longer with us.
Worth noting, there was only one camera break in the whole routine. No multiple takes or film splicing, just great dancing. Also, as per Fred's instructions, no isolated body shots, just the full body for the whole routine. Magnificent!!
The music was written by Cole Porter and is being performed by the Benny Goodman orchestra with Lionel Hampton on the vibraphone. The pinnacle of American culture.
Not Goodman- a studio band souping up Jerry Gray's chart for Artie Shaw. Hampton had popularized vibes, but he is not on here. However, the choice of music testifies to MGM's daring under Louis B Mayer. For a big-budget production's climax, he okayed an arrangement as cool and up to the minute as could be conceived in 1939, trusting that Middle America would buy it. As if the latest in rap or techno was on the soundtrack of 'La La Land'. It was far from Mayer's adoration of what you would hear in a MacDonald-Eddy movie; but he was big enough to accept that two maestri of syncopated hoofing need sounds that fit their moves.
Anytime I watch a dance number with Astaire and one of his partners, my eyes follow him, except, this number with Eleanor Powell. She was his equal like no other partner had been.
@@YokoshimaOfficial In Portuguese, my first language, number means any kind of performance or presentation. Só It makes perfect sense to me. I Wonder wether It's not clear in English.
@Dusty Grady Not baloney at all Dusty! Fred said himself that he was in awe. I can't recall the quote exactly. Not suggesting she's better and it's not a competition anyway, but you clearly haven't seen her routine with Buddy Rich's drum sticks!! I'll leave it there.
I was also underwhelmed by the audience shot. After such perfection by Fred & Eleanor - they cut in a rather bland audience stock reaction. One guy in the audience, on the aisle, was even coughing. ....Rowby
What wonderful entertainment! Eleanor Powell partnering one of the greatest dancers with the musical backdrop of a song written by the greatest of all the composers for the musical stage.
NO fancy computer graphics, no technical film cutting & splicing - just one take dancing the whole routine. This is talent, when the performers could dance, sing and act. We have had nothing from Hollywood in decades that match these films. I have spent this past year watching movies of the 30s, 40s, & 50s being entertained also discovered a few British series (so damn good). Who needs modern movies (trashy, vulgar, bloody & remakes. NO imagination or talented people.) Just my opinion.
Watch San Francisco (1937). The singing by Jeanette MacDonald is out-of-this-world and the earthquake scenes are very, very good - believable and no CGI.
I saw an interview about this clip that Eleanor said that she and Fred felt this was one of their most challenging and favorite routines. She also said that they both felt that it wasn't ever perfected and they filmed it several times until the director said enough and that they would have to stop. This was just amazing. I think I heard Fred say that Eleanor was his favorite partner.
She was not his favorite. He refused to work with her after this because she pushed him too hard to keep up. He was 40 and liked schooling and leading younger women, not being tired by them. Fred was close-mouthed and tactful about his ladies, but I think the last word is Vera-Ellen's. She said his favorite partner was himself- he worked harder on solos than anything.else.
@@esmeephillips5888 I beg to differ somewhat. This is, in fact, very much like a solo in that they each to their own thing and just slightly interact with each other. His real preference with ladies was a romantic, emotional dance, which did not suit Eleanor who was basically a tap soloist. They danced together 4 times in this film and he was quoted as saying that they had accomplished everything they could together. Their partnership was a departure for both of them and he didn't feel it could be taken any further. I'm so glad this film had as many numbers as it did, all of them brilliant.
@@chattyroz2934 Yes, I think BM40 is choreographically the richest of all musicals, primarily b/c Powell was in charge on her home turf and was on her mettle up against Mr Astaire. Considering they were both on record as thinking their styles were incompatible, the film is an object lesson in how persistence and professionalism can pay off... when neither party is a prima donna. One critic called their encounter the summit meeting of movie dance. Like the best summits, it entailed hard bargaining and long hours, but it ended in mutual respect and a compromise deal which satisfied the outside world and delights us 80 years later.
Ken Gordon 1 second ago I believe our nation lost its innocence and beauty when musicals died. Movies with fear and terror can never replace those with grace and beauty.
in spite of previous comments... the thing that set Powell apart from other Astaire partners... She was never dominated by him. They were of similar natures... relaxed, unlike Gene Kelly who was athletic in his dancing, Astaire was loose and relaxed. and Powell was the same. They were co-dominants. She never looked cowed by him. All his other dance partners clearly were.
She looks as if she is out for an afternoon stroll, with the floaty dress and loosely tied hair accentuating that casual, jaunty air. Fred seems to be trying a bit more, but that is the storyline in the film. He is playing a dance hall hoofer getting an unplanned break; she is the Broadway headliner he has idolized.
Eleanor Powell and Fred Astaire OWN this routine. No need to compare Eleanor Powell to Ginger Rogers or point out whether or not Fred has better rhythm than Eleanor. This man and woman pair are DIVINE together. What a pleasure to watch.
Total rapport achieved by two amazing performers. Graceful and elegant unlike anything we enjoy currently bombarded by a thumping meternomic bass. Bravo!
On June 22, 1987, I came in at the tail end of a CNN Headline News story featuring this scene. When I saw it, I knew right off they'd just been reporting on the passing of Fred Astaire.
Too right, goosebumps every time. He was the first man i fell in love with watching old musicals on tv in 50s and 60s. I couldnt take my eyes off him. His feet dont seem to touch the ground and timing was amazing. Glad i was brought up in that era.
A dancer who worked with Astaire on one movie, where she was only in a scene that was to occupy about three minutes of screen time but took a day to shoot, said that he was as supportive and encouraging throughout as anyone could wish. He praised her work, offered a few hints politely and humbly - and was clearly not trying to have his way with her. She ended the day feeling good about herself as a person and a performer. A gentleman by report and a marvel to behold.
A true pro from the old school. Fred and his sister Adele started dancing together as kids in vaudeville and then became big stars on Broadway and the London stage. He knew that when it came down to it, it’s not ego but hard work and practice, practice, practice.
There are hundreds of stories like that about Fred. He was a natural gentleman, on- and off-screen. As for Ellie, she was the most beloved woman at MGM. These two proved that nice guys can finish first.
Greatest dancers in history .. just think my grandparents were 21 years old .. my father was born in this year of 1940 and I'm now 51 .. WOW!!! they were the good old days - wholesomeness and goodness prevails (apart from the war at that time)...
I find it exhilarating watching Eleanor Powell and Fred Astaire dance together. I wish modern movie companies would bring back these old type music & dance movies! Fabulous!
So talented and easy for them it looks as though they don’t even breath hard. Love FRED ASTAIRE, hear him sing “ HEAVEN “. I think he was the greatest entertainer history of film💋‼️‼️😳
Tap dancing, thanks to its close association with syncopated jazz, seemed revolutionarily modern after World War One. It pushed older styles aside, ruling the roost on Broadway, in nightclubs and- after Sound established itself- in Hollywood. Its practitioners included many black maestri, which added to its fashionability when jazz and African-American culture began to seep into Middle America's consciousness. For two decades you had to tap to reach the heights in hoofing. But nothing stays the same for ever. By the late 1930s Latin-influenced rhythms were becoming a new craze. The hula and other 'exotic' styles were being explored by choreographers such as Jack Cole and Katherine Dunham. Balanchine was finding ways of injecting Americana with classical ballet moves. When Agnes de Mille staged 'Oklahoma' she rejected tapping out of hand and went down the ballet road. Its epochal success caused her to be called 'the woman who killed tap'. Suddenly what Eleanor, a ballet dancer, had had to learn to get gigs in 1929 was old hat as well as top hat. Fred, who disliked ballet, had to compromise with it at MGM- where his upstart competitor Gene Kelly was thoroughly into 'toe dancing' and where soon stars such as Charisse and Caron would get by without tap skills. So this peerless demonstration of the art in its maturity is also a dead end. It would be overstating things to say that tap was bound to go downhill afterwards- Fred kept it going for nearly 20 years more, and it remained in the repertoire thanks primarily to Vera-Ellen and Ann Miller. But Ellie quit before WW2 ended, and her unique combination of technical perfection, imagination and exaltation was never seen again.
GOOD MORNING MY FRIENDS , FRED ASTAIRE L ' IDOLE DE VERO C EST VRAIMENT MAGNIFIQUE DE L ' AIMER A SON FRED . BON DIMANCHE A TOUS DE FRANCE .🍒🎁🍈🍐🍐🍏🍍😋😋😊🎀🥐✨🍇🍇🍉🎇🍎🎈🎑
She looks so beautiful in that dress! And then when she begins to spin wildly at the end, she's like a spinning silver firework! Fred, of course is fabulous, too.
The critic David Thomson has compared this number to a Rembrandt. He said it was the film excerpt he would take into a lifetime's solitary confinement, and he called the moment at the end when Ellie's dress floats back down the most beautiful in all cinema.
@@jamesanthony5681 When a reporter to Rudolf Chametowitsch Nurejew once said in an interview, "you are the best dancer in the world ", he replied," no, not me, Fred Astaire is the best dancer in the world ". Mikhail Baryshnikov, also a gifted dancer, expressed his admiration as follows: “I hate him. Nobody dances like him. You just can't measure yourself against him. Just look how I look next to him! "
@@ScaramouchedaVinci Yes, he had his won style. But how does Astaire compare with some of the great African -American dancers? Not that I'd want to invite any kind of comparisons and say he's better than him, etc.; or, say what you're saying, by proclaiming Fred as the greatest in the 20th century. He was great, yes. But the greatest? Why say that? He was great and leave it at that.
@@jamesanthony5681 I don't mean athleticism or strength, some other dancers can keep up. I mean the art, the balance, the harmony. There for me he was the greatest and I never saw somebody equivalent by far.
Sheer perfection!! Of all the female dancers of that golden era, such as Ginger Rogers, Cyd Cherise, Ann Miller, etc, Eleanor Powell had them all beat!! Thanks for sharing this superb video!
