Ten Days, Ten Movies, Ten Images: Day 4

I was a strange kid.

One of my favorite things to do after school was to come home and turn on "The Early Show" on local TV.  They played truncated versions of classic movies in the ninety minutes before the evening news.

Black and white films that were as colorful as the rainbow.  Grand sweeping music, clever quips and dancing that defied gravity. Elegance, optimism and romance. I don't know which of the films by these stars I saw first, but I'll always recall that I have been a fan since I was a kid.

The Good Lord Above only knows what drew me to films that were hits when my parents were teens, but I'm glad I inherited that gene.

Look at the lines of the dancers above, the extension, the way the shapes of their bodies are a perfect complement.

It's no wonder this film made my list of images from movies that had an impact on me.

"Follow the Fleet" (1936)
Directed by Mark Sandrich
Screenplay by Dwight Taylor and Allan Scott from the play “Shore Leave” by Hubert Osborne
Image: Ginger Rogers ("Sherry Martin"), Fred Astaire (" 'Bake' Baker")

"Follow the Fleet" is not my favorite Astaire/Rogers film, and this isn't even my favorite of their dances. But "Let's Face the Music and Dance" moved me in such a unexpected way when my teenage self first saw this film, full of silly fun as it otherwise is. 

Here are the first words of this brilliant Irving Berlin song: "There may be trouble ahead..." 

In the show within the movie, the former couple Bake and Sherry play two strangers who meet, both in desperate straits. With nothing but despair in common, Bake's character continues, "But while there's music and moonlight and love and romance / Let's face the music and dance..." 

 I didn't have words for it then, but now I think that the number speaks to the transformative power of art. They danced and danced, until it literally saved their lives. With all of the destructive ways there are to escape, what a gift to life it is that we can choose instead to create something beautiful, something profound, something transcendent.

I can't mention an Astaire/Rogers film without the following credits: the stunning art direction of Van Nest Polglase (this Art Deco Hollywood Moderne set was created under Polglase's direction by Carroll Clark), costuming (casual, uniform and classic formal) by Bernard Newman, the gorgeous cinematography by David Abel and the indispensable Hermes Pan, collaborating with Astaire on the breathtaking choreography. 

Though I never got to meet Ginger Rogers, it is one of the great blessings of my life to have met Fred Astaire and thanked him for all the joy he added to my life. (The full story of that Christmas season encounter is for another time and another blog.) My friends and I took no photos and asked for no autographs on that day, but here are two photographs we took a few days later at the premiere of "The Towering Inferno."

Fred Astaire and his granddaughter arrive at the premiere of "The Towering Inferno."  (The bob cut at the far left belongs to Liza Minnelli!)

When Mr. Astaire spotted our group, he said "My carolers!" and came over to say hello. 


Always a class act, that Fred Astaire.