whataboutbobbed
Film Forum’s 66 film – month long salute to ‘Hollywood’s Naughtiest, Bawdiest Year’ – 1933!!! continues…
Day 27’s toe tappin’ two stepper – Dancing Lady + Flying Down To Rio
What do Dancing Lady and Lady For A Day have in common? ‘Ladies’ + May Robson + both are my ABSOLUTE favorites from this GREAT GREAT film series (granted, we didn’t see ALL the movies, and there’s still one day left. sniffle sniffle)!!! Wanna know how grand Robert Z Leonard‘s Dancing Lady is? We LOATHE Joan Crawford, but Joan Crawford is THE Dancing Lady and she danced away with Franchot Tone’s heart (and in real life too – they were married from ’35 – ’39), Clark Gable’s heart, AND OURS!!!! Did we mention that this was Fred Astaire’s screen debut???? AND THAT THE THREE STOOGES (+ their original master, Ted Healy) WERE IN IT!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! . This movie is a MUST see. MUST!!!!
preceding Lady, Crawford’s grandson, Casey LaLonde, played 10 minutes of color home movies from the late ’30s/early ’40s!!! one clip showed Joany sunbathing BUTT-naked. YES. we saw her butt!! CRAZY!!
oh, and the other movie? Thornton Freeland’s Flying Down To Rio, which started off as a total snooze fest, as bland Gene Raymond chases blah-ish Dolores del Río down to… Rio, where her fiancé Raul Roulien is waiting. But things really get cooking when Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers share the screen FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!!!! You can image what they do to that screen – yep, the burn it up, dancing the night away, and there are smiles aplenty, on-screen and off (for us!!). And it doesn’t end there. Follied ladies are strapped to bi-planes and dance in the sky!!!!!!!!!! If that doesn’t make sense OR piques your interest OR neither, you still need to see it to believe it!!!!!!!