You're never going to see such talent on a dance floor like those two again. I was one of the lucky ones to live during theses years they were still dancing together. 🌹
Ginger Rogers brought an extra dimension to each dance she performed with Fred. She was a gifted actress who was able to express her character's emotions as she danced. Later on Fred was quoted as saying that Ginger really sold their films. Well I'd say they both did.
Two of the most glamorous people ever to be in the movies! Hollywood was really an entertaining time back then. Fred and Ginger, never two more talented stars!
as i said earlier, and i will always say to you people out there, who are some how seeing this for the first time, this is THE sublime summing up of who they are, as the ultimate movie dance team, and aren't we lucky to see it, and see what they had, like no otheres before, or since.
I think of all his partners, Rogers was the one who best combined her acting and dancing. What she does here with her face is as important as what she does with the rest of her body.
MGM what a studio...produced such quality movies unlike the films at the present time...very touching...one of my favorite films and dance scene...LOVE IT!!! Timeless!!!!
After a PTA meeting dance demonstration in 2nd grade, I became flustered during the demonstration and have never enjoyed trying to dance myself. This I can watch all day and marvel at how two people can move so fluidly together.
I love Ginger. First of all, she's just gorgeous. She was a gifted actress, especially in comedy. But the thing she has that so few others do is that when someone sings to her or talks to her, she really looks like she's hearing it for the first time.
Sanford Schimel : that's the difference between an actress/ dancer and a dancer. Ginger Rogers always reacted when Fred Astaire sang to her. That cannot be said of all his partners ( Rita Hayworth being a notable exception)
+Katrin R-G, I agree! Fred made all his partners look so good. I love Ginger but Fred could dance with anyone and I think Cyd Charisse was his best partner - both were so elegant and beautiful together.
Hola como estas.salgo a hablarporque tengo educación no me escondo me apena que desde el primer día jamás me. Quisiste yo se tu personalidad te conosco y sin embargo te seguí al principio me gusto el juego y desde hace 6meses fue macabro me marcaste pero DIOS ME PROTEGE TE DESEO TODO LO BUENO COMO DIJOel monje.cada uno recoge.lo que siembra
Beautiful artists and a great chemistry...I wish I were born in the 20's to be their contemporary and see them live! Still we have the uploads to enjoy, thanks for the magic!
Serious dance fans, friends of mine, through the years have disparaged Ginger Roger's dancing (which since childhood I happen to adore) but I point out her extraordinary ability to retain and amplify her character while dancing. This brings the great dancing partnership to dramatic live as no one else could ever have done. Just watch the depth and specificity of the emotions she lets us see from the moment Astaire begins to sing to her, ...so vulnerable, such longing, such desire. And don't miss her priceless take when he mentions "...you sing off key..."
eoselan7, overall Rita Hayworth was a better dancer. But it's like comparing a Rolls Royce to a Bentley. Ginger could do everything. And her dancing, even when she was completely still, was heaven. Her arms were never less than beautiful. No one touched her talent 1932-1939.
Exactly. Ginger became a dancer because she was teamed with one. They clicked, the public yelled for more and she set out to become a credible junior partner with the sympathetic help of Hermes Pan. At first she had to be doubled in long shots, and she never carried off a solo except for one minute of tapping; however by the time of 'Shall We Dance' and 'Carefree' she was more than technically competent. All the while, by example, she was teaching Fred how to act and react. She had much experience of doing light comedy and singing for the camera; she showed him how to dial down the theatrics and become nonchalant. The dramatic charge in their romantic jousts came from her. She was always far more preoccupied with becoming a star actress, and with her costumes and hairstyles, than with hoofing. She had not danced on screen for a decade* when the team reunited, and she was more upmarket and statuesque, but she shows that she remembered her RKO lessons. *Well, there were bits of dance in some, but no full setpiece and/or partnered numbers.
Yeah, they were THE dance champions but........Fred Astaire had a very nice soothing voice, I could listen to him sing all day kind of voice. A sensual voice at that. I'm beguiled by the fact they didn't marry, I thought they were "heavenly" together....True legends they are.... always. He was SO dashing, & she was beautiful , together they were THE BEST.
What better way to spend your time while stuck at home then discovering this talented dance team again! I remember as a child watching them on TV and I always loved the sound of Fred Astaire voice...
well, watching it again, and enthralled as usual. what can anyone say except, glad it's here. magical perfection. a sublime summing up, thanks again, Fred and Ginger, you were never better than in this number, and you had to know it. R
Fred felt that this song had been chucked away in the short ferry scene of 'Shall We Dance'. When he and Ginger were reunited in 1949, he asked for it to be revived as a tribute to George Gershwin, whose last words had been Fred's name. And so the movies' greatest star commemorates America's greatest composer. The arrangement performed by MGM's peerless musicians includes a quote from the last movement of Gershwin's piano concerto at about 2:45.
It was actually Ginger Rogers who was disappointed that she never got to dance this song in Shall We Dance so we should be thankful that she was reunited with Fred Astaire who made sure this number was in and boy it was worth the wait 10 years and their only film in colour.
I'm amazed that Ginger Rogers was still able to dance so expertly some ten years after her last dancing movie. Did she continue to practice her dancing throughout the years, I wonder, or did she have a natural ability that just stayed with her? In any case, she's a dream. Thanks for sharing.
Dance as drama. A last example of what may be a lost art in cinema, by its supreme exponents. Reunited after ten years, they no longer portray lovers muddling towards union but an old married couple trying to save it. Fred's face if not his sinuous form has matured; Ginger has grown more statuesque in figure. Yet despite being summoned at short notice after Judy flaked, Ginger's healthy lifestyle enables her to pick up where the more elfin 20-something left off in 1939. She whirls and turns without a flicker in this ballroom number, and taps easily in 'Bouncing the Blues'. What a trouper she was. Judy and Fred had an easy, bantering rapport in 'Easter Parade', but it was nothing compared with the beauty and poignancy conjured up by the final meeting of the greatest dance partnership ever filmed.
Oh my God, I also wondered what Fred was saying to her. I could have sworn that he was talking to her and each other while they danced. He also made gestures to her with his hands when twirling. Oh my, how beautiful. They were so matured so graceful, you see it in their dancing. They happen to be buried not too far from each other in Oakwood Cemetery in Chatsworth, California. Not a star studded cemetery. Fred is in section G and Ginger in section E. I love them both, greatest artists. RIP.
I love Fred Astaire's voice. A songwriter's dream as he just SANG THE SONG. He didn't try to "make it his own." I feel a great affinity for this song and as great as this dance was going, at 3:05 it grabbed me by the lapels.
Fred Astaire is surely the greatest dancer in all of film history, yet when he is partnered by the ever-lovely Ginger Rogers I can't take my eyes off of her...not for a moment.
Words fail to express the absolute beauty of Ginger and Fred dancing together. I fell in love with them the moment I saw them and decades later this has not changed. I long for the days of grace, elegance, beauty….
Watched this a 100 times or more and never get sick of it, they not only danced with there feet but there hands head everything, never see the like again,
This routine is triply nostalgic: it reunites the top partners in screen dance, it is an in memoriam for Gershwin and, less obviously, the choreography evokes Astaire's invisible (never filmed in sound) but greatest influence- Vernon Castle. Despite some balletic flourishes towards the end, this is principally an 'American smooth' ballroom number for a couple: the kind that Vernon and Irene Castle taught the world to perform during their brief and dazzling success.
my father was a jazz musician and mother a jazz singer I was brought up in a bohemian house and I love this stuff. reminds me of them and I cry tears of joy
What a treat to complete the Gershwins' great song with the beautiful DANCE done after Fred sings to Ginger which was missing from the "Shall We Dance" movie years before.Absolutely a classic unforgettable performance. Terrific upload, many thanks.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Anyone who thinks Fred Astaire couldn't have put on a pair of heels and danced his numbers backwards is just kidding themselves.
I watched a video where Frank Sinatra inroduced a dance by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Frank introduced them with these words. "Watch this closely, folks - you'll never see anything like this again" He was right. Wise words.
No, he was speaking of Fred's and Eleanor Powell's tap duet 'Begin the Beguine', though Sinatra's intro might equally apply to this. The only postwar routine that equals it for romantic charge is 'Dancing in the Dark' with Astaire and Cyd Charisse.
You can tell that they still love eachother....there was a time in 1930 when Fred and Ginger first met....he asked her on a date, she accepted. And do you know that they were both wearing the exact same color: dark blue and that his tie and her dress were not only the same color, but also silk! How about that! It is sad to think of it though...if she had only stayed in New York at the time, they would have been more serious. To me, they are perfect couple.
She wants to hate him but can’t and I don’t blame her Fred was exquisite this routine is so romantic, he sang this to her in shall we dance still as romantic as the first time
She was made of steel! by that I mean she came along during the Depression and that in itself made her strong...I can only imagine. Her "standard" for performance was obviously astounding.....Just loved her...fortunately her legacy remains ..we can see for ourselves! I admit Im partial to Ginger...Fred wasn't "chopped liver" ha of course.
You do know that by the time she made this film she won a Best Actress Oscar for her role in drama Kitty Foyle which it was not a musical so she showed her acting chops and the storyline of Barkleys of Broadway was the mirror image of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaires career after they parted from their last film The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle which was black and white to the only film in color which ten years had passed.
Yes, a once in a lifetime pair, and yet now new generations can see the glory. God is frugal as well as marvelously generous. Recycling splendors? No problem. Nothing is impossible when blessing His children is the goal. Love yah, Papa!
Yet Ginger had barely danced on screen for a decade before this was shot. But they say you never forget how to swim. Her tapping in 'Bouncing the Blues' is more deft than in the RKO days. Hermes Pan gave her an intensive refresher course in hoofing.
@esmeephillips5888 You're right about how good her tap dancing had become. As she and Fred are leaving the stage at the end of "Bouncing the Blues", you can lipread him saying, "OH, God, Ginger". It seems he was pretty impressed with what she had accomplished.
...This is sophisticated entertainment. Combining both a physical and emotional performance. I fortunate to have lived in the eras while this form of entertainment was commonplace.
