The Gay Divorcee is a gay old time. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were the biggest dancing duo in the Golden Age of Hollywood. They danced together in over 10 different musicals, but this was only their second time sharing the screen and dance floor. After Flying Down to Rio, a Broadway musical titled Gay Divorce was the next project with them in mind. Since the Hays Code was implemented at the time, the original title became controversial.
Not for the word “gay,” which meant happy or joyful at the time. Calling a divorce gay was controversial since it was disparaging marriage. A gay divorcee on the other hand is perfectly fine. Ginger Rogers is said gay divorcee who’s more bitter than gay in the beginning. Mimi is seeking a divorce from her absentee husband in England. Fred Astaire is a famous dancer who falls madly in love the moment they meet. Guy Holden almost obsessively searches for Mimi, but they conveniently wind up staying at the same continental hotel.
Together they team up with Alice Brady as Mimi’s chatty aunt, Edward Everett Horton as their confused lawyer, Erik Rhodes as a bumbling Italian co-respondent, and Eric Blore as a half witted waiter. They all end up sharing a connection through a series of ironic misunderstandings. The romance is swell and the comedy is fun, but it’s obvious the entire movie centers around song and dance numbers. “Night and Day” is a great song for the couple’s first dance, but “The Continental” was the first song to win Best Original Song. The 17 minute long sequence is a major production that gives The Gay Divorcee its pep.
Guy dances with Mimi
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I’ve only ever seen clips of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing together, but those clips were great examples of the wonderful chemistry they shared together. I’m usually very picky about my Musicals, but I definitely need to check out an Astaire & Rogers flick in full. A nice bit of trivia that not a lot of people know is that Astaire and Rogers weren’t the stars of Flying Down to Rio, they were actually supporting characters who just happened to be a team (it was also Astaire’s second ever acting role); when the film got several releases, Astaire and Rogers were Hollywood icons and played up as the stars. The producers were so impressed by how well Astaire and Rogers worked together they immediately teamed them up for The Gay Divorcee a year later, and thus a great long term partnership was born.
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Seems it was the best Astaire/Rogers movie to start with.
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I’ve always been a big fan of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance movies but The Gay Divorcee is one film I haven’t seen.
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That’s okay. The entire movie is free on YouTube:
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Thanks for the link. 🙂
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