The Silver Screen Oasis

BBC2 is showing the Fred and Ginger RKO series on Saturday afternoons, though for some reason Roberta, a film I've not seen apart from the dance To Hot To Handle, has been overlooked. In previewing Follow The Fleet, the UK magazine the tv times said it was overrated and only gave it 2 out of 5 stars.

Follow The Fleet is one of my favourite Fred and Ginger musicals. I like the fact that it has a working class feel to it, unlike the sort of unreal world of some of the other classic movies they made together with Fred an ordinary sailor and Ginger a singer in a not so glamorous night club. The almost ballet number Let's Face The Music And Dance is one of their greatest ever dance routines, while I have a soft spot for their blue collared routine I'm Putting All My Eggs In One Basket, where they on purpose get everything wrong. I love to see Ginger dancing in trousers, as we get to see what her legs are doing during the dance, which shows what a really excellent dancer she was. I also liked her showing of her shadow boxing skills in IPAMEIOB, floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. LOL.

And as a bonus we have a young Lucille Ball in a good supporting role and Betty Grable in a small part

Follow The Fleet is one of my favourite too for all the reasons you stated Stuart. I don't think our film reviewers have much taste when it comes to classic films.

Of all of the film series to have come out of Hollywood I find the Astaire-Rogers series to be the most calculated in regard to their commercial feasibility.

Two templates appeared at the very beginning that would dictate how their films would be produced throughout the Thirties. From their accidental teaming in FLYING DOWN TO RIO (33), where they were given the secondary leads, it became obvious that they should be given a chance to carry their own film. That became THE GAY DIVORCEE (34). And from there each successive film rotated the dual couples films with the leading players films. Obviously, as Astaire-Rogers stars rose their importance in each succeeding film became more paramount, so in ROBERTA (35) they share equal screen time with the Irene Dunne-Randolph Scott plot line and by FOLLOW THE FLEET (36) they have the lead couples plot line with poor Harriet Hilliard-Randolph Scott dragging up the rear.

With that said, FLEET drags for most movie fans because valuable screen time is taken up with Ozzie's boring wife and Cary Grant's roommate, but RKO was merely following their own template. When this movie was in production TOP HAT (35) was released and became such a monster hit that FLEET would be the last of the two couples plot lines.

All of their films have flaws in one way or another. DIVORCEE and TOP HAT are almost clones of one another. Dunne's story line in ROBERTA is not the least bit interesting (and I love Irene Dunne). The screwball aspects of CAREFREE (38) are not screwball enough and SHALL WE DANCE (37) is so overly plotted that Astaire isn't given a true musical moment until a half hour into the film. HERESY!!!

(I can't fault SWINGTIME (36). I love it)

And these are musicals so everything I just crabbed about are meaningless because each film rises and falls on their musical aspects, and I can't find any faults with any of the musical numbers concocted for the entire series.....except maybe that there aren't enough of them at times...

Exactly, there aren't enough dance numbers but what there are are wonderful.

Plus Ginger gets to do a couple of solos Let Yourself Go

She's brilliant singing Let Yourself Go, perhaps her sunniest role in the Astaire/Rogers films.

I enjoy Follow the Fleet. You know, I don't think that any of the Astaire-Rogers films could be called overrated. It's not like Follow the Fleet is showing up on any Best Films of All Time lists...

Sandy K