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Summary
Summary
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers endure in the American imagination. The charm and grace of their dancing in the ten films they made together, including Top Hat and Swing Time, elicit nostalgia today. Most books about the Astaire-Rogers films focus exclusively on the music and dance scenes, but this book shows that the films are much more than the sum of those scenes, which after all only account for approximately one-third of their films' running times. Gallafent argues that, contrary to received opinion, the musical numbers are not discrete, generic moments dropped in to enliven the films. Instead, the music and dance routines advance the movies' themes. Gallafent shows how dialogue, plotting, and the audience's perception of this striking professional couple affect the context, and thus meaning, for the song and dance routines. The book examines how the Astaire-Rogers musicals, which were produced and originally viewed as a series, relate to one another and to other musicals of their day. Gallafent also provides an illuminating account of the films Astaire and Rogers made separately during the 1940s before their final reunion in The Barkleys of Broadway. Astaire and Rogers concludes by tracing the development of their star personas both together and apart, and shows how the films were designed around those personas.
Author Notes
Edward Gallafent lectures on film studies at the University of Warwick.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Gallafent (Clint Eastwood) offers here a dry, densely meticulous closeup of the careers of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The first third covers nine black-and-white RKO musicals, from 1933's Flying Down to Rio through 1939's The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. Gallafent claims that the pair's dazzling dance routines obscured the artistic value of the films themselves. If music is his standard, judging from scores created for the series by Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and George Gershwin, there's some validity to this premise. Similar attempts to elevate the farcical, often foolish plot lines only accentuate how lightweight they are. Portions discussing Rogers's solo dramatic career are more incisive, particularly treatments of Kitty Foyle (for which she won an Oscar), Roxie Hart and The Major and the Minor. Gallafent analyzes Astaire's post-Rogers pictures, too, including Second Chorus, two barely remembered vehicles with Rita Hayworth (You'll Never Get Rich and You Were Never Lovelier) and his triumphant Easter Parade with Judy Garland. Coverage of 1949's The Barkleys of Broadway, the only Astaire-Rogers musical in color, knowledgeably points out parallels between the film's plot and the actors' own real-life breakup. But this examination misses the Astaire-Rogers essence: Fred and Ginger weren't serious, remote icons they were light, playful and funny figures that brought joy to millions of Depression-weary moviegoers. Gallafent's detail-laden work rarely captures these soaring qualities. This volume will be of moderate interest to devoted fans, but others, seeking familiarity with their movies, will be discouraged by the book's inflated, ponderously academic tone. (Mar.) Forecast: Diehard devotees of Astaire and Rogers may want to add this book to their collection, but even they will be disappointed by the lack of clarity, wit and warmth. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Most studies of the Astaire-Rogers movies focus, not surprisingly, on the dances. Gallafent chooses to attend equally to what takes place between the musical numbers. This somewhat contrarian approach offers a fresh perspective on these familiar films, considering the contexts of the musical numbers and providing insight on how the A-R films relate to each other. The A-R movies are usually seen as formulaic and repetitive, but Gallafent persuasively argues that, when all 10 are regarded comparatively, each film deepens the others, for each treats such themes as partnership and marriage differently. Although the duo films are his central concern, Gallafent devotes slightly more space to the movies Astaire and Rogers made separately during the same period; this adds little to his main thesis, but the attention he pays to those underappreciated films is welcome. His scholarly, occasionally ponderous tone seems somewhat incongruous for these souffle-light movies, and his interpretations sometimes overreach; but by convincingly championing their nonmusical passages, Gallafent makes these film perennials seem even better than we already thought they were. --Gordon Flagg
Choice Review
Anyone who loves the musicals of Hollywood's by-gone days will appreciate and enjoy this book of information and stories from the lives, separate and together, of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Offering individual commentaries about each of the films the two did together, Gallafent (Univ. of Warwick, UK) analyzes the world of each of the films and discusses plots, characters, relationships, and intriguing facts. Though the book is really a tribute to two remarkable icons of American film, students of the history of dance and of film will find it both informative and a good read. Gallafent's commentary on the action and the dance sequences in Astaire and Rogers's films is often very perceptive. Publicity shots from the films are scattered through out the text, and the bibliography and filmography at the end of the volume will assist anyone doing research in this field. The volume was originally published in Scotland in 2000, and readers at all levels will be glad that Columbia has made it available to a large audience, both academic and public. J. H. Conger III Northern Kentucky University
Library Journal Review
Gallafent contends that the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were more than merely vehicles for their stars' extraordinary talents; in fact, they constitute a cycle worthy of critique. The first part of his book looks at films made by the couple at RKO in 1933-39. The second (and more hefty) part which less successfully propels the thesis examines some of the films that Rogers and Astaire made separately before reuniting in their last film, The Barkleys of Broadway (1949). These interim films depended on the personas of their stars as developed in their previous work together, building on Rogers's democratic appeal as working-class heroine and Astaire's cavalierism. Gallafent, a lecturer in film studies, provides close readings of the films and shows that a critique of even "frothy" products of popular culture is possible. Although this method of analysis occasionally proves pedestrian, his book nevertheless helps enhance our appreciation of the work of two relatively overlooked stars. Recommended for film studies collections. Jayne Plymale, Univ. of Georgia, Athens (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Introduction: Astaire and Rogers, Fred and Ginger |
| 1 Coupled and Inseparable: The First RKO Musicals |
| 2 The Argument of Time: The Later RKO Musicals |
| 3 A Self-Made Cinderella: Ginger Rogers from 1938 to 1943 |
| 4 Changing the Steps: Fred Astaire from 1938 to 1943 |
| 5 On with the Dance! The Later 1940s |
