Now that the weekend is over...

...I can finally get something DONE!!! Most importantly, posting some 'specifics' regarding the first round of GingerMarch on TCM! This Wednesday Night / Thursday Morning, ALL 10 Ginger /Fred movies will be aired back to back... not in chronological order, tho. Again, most of you probably have all or most of these movies... but for those who don't, check out the posters for each movie (in the order TCM is airing them), along with a brief 'synopsis' of each movie. I will do this each week for GingerMarch... hope it aides you in your viewing/recording strategies...

The Gay Divorcee (3/10/10 - 8:00 PM Eastern): Ginger portrayed Mimi Glossop, who is unhappily married, and seeking to put an end to it, as her husband refuses divorce. Her Aunt Hortense (Alice Brady) arranges a meeting with Egbert “Pinky” Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton), a lawyer who specializes in arranging ‘professional correspondents’ in order to ‘force divorce’. Eggy’s friend Guy Holden (Fred Astaire) pursues Mimi after a chance meeting, and finally ‘catches’ her, but not very well. All parties end up at a seaside resort; Mimi to meet up with her correspondent, and Guy tagging along with Egbert to take his mind off of losing Mimi back in town. Of course, Mimi and Guy hook back up, do some dancing (to put it lightly!), and become quite enamored with each other, until through misunderstanding, Mimi believes that Guy is her assigned correspondent. The real correspondent, Rodolfo Tonetti (Erik Rhodes) shows up, and you'll just have to see how things end up from there… check out a young Betty Grable in this one, dueting with Edward Everett Horton in “Let’s Knock Knees”. Fred and Ginger dance to “Night and Day”, their first ‘epic’ routine…Ginger sings the bulk of “The Continental”, the first tune ever to win an Academy Award for Best Song.

Top Hat (3/10/10 - 10:00 PM Eastern): Ginger portrayed Dale Tremont, a wealthy young lady visiting London at exactly the same time as dancer Jerry Travers (Fred Astaire). It takes Jerry a few tries, but eventually he wins Dale over; Jerry sends her flowers, but uses the charge account of his manager, Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton). This leads Dale to believe Jerry is actually Horace, who happens to be married to Dale’s friend, Madge (Helen Broderick). Madge has been suspicious of Horace for some time, so when Dale breaks the news that Horace (actually Jerry) was pursuing her, Madge is not surprised, and actually seems ok with it! This floors Dale, and when they all meet up in Venice, she dances with Jerry to ‘Cheek to Cheek’…but then breaks off the romance. She turns around and marries her dress maker, Alberto Beddini (Erik Rhodes), who had asked for her hand for years. Will Dale and Jerry reconcile? I wouldn't bet against it... Their dance down the stairs is pretty dang cool...

Swing Time (3/11/10 - 12:00 AM Eastern): Ginger portrayed Penelope “Penny” Carrol, a dance instructor in NYC; John “Lucky” Garnett (Fred Astaire) has just missed his wedding day while gambling with his buds in his stage revue, and is now trying to prove to his fiancée’s dad that he can hold down a job and bring in some money. Thus, he is off to NYC to find work, with his friend, Everett “Pop” Cardetti (Victor Moore) in tow. Of course, John and Penny cross paths, and eventually fall in love; Pop also becomes a ‘sugar daddy’, via gambling, for Penny’s friend, Mabel Anderson (Helen Broderick). In the process, John gambles with a nightclub owner and wins the club orchestra contract so he and Penny can dance, but then loses it after the ‘original owner’ discovered they were bamboozled the first time. At the same time, John tries to not get ‘too’ involved with Penny, remembering his promise to his fiancée back home – so Penny eventually decides to marry the orchestra leader, Ricardo “Ricky” Romero (Georges Metaxa). Meanwhile, John’s fiancée shows up and lets John off the hook about their engagement, thus John proceeds to catch Penny to try to win her back before marrying Ricky…will he make it in time? Probably so…Ginger said this movie was her favorite of her collaborations with Fred Astaire.

Roberta (3/11/10 - 2:00 AM Eastern): Ginger portrayed Comtesse “Tanka” Scharwenka (a.k.a. Lizzie Gatz), a nightclub performer in Paris who once was involved with Huck Haines (Fred Astaire), who leads a jazz band that just happens to be in town for a gig at the same nightclub (that gets nixed when the client learns that the Wabash Indianians are not true ‘Indians’). Huck and ‘Tanka’ scheme up a gig at the club for the band but end up on the street anyway. Meanwhile, Huck’s friend John Kent (Randolph Scott), along for the trip, pays a visit to his Aunt Minnie (Helen Westley), who runs a prestigious dress shop, Roberta’s; while there, John meets and quickly falls for Stephanie (Irene Dunne), who just happens to be a Russian Princess. When Minnie passes away, John begrudgingly takes over the dress shop, with the help of Stephanie, as well as Huck and ‘Tanka’. A few bumps in the road occur, including John’s old girlfriend Sophie Teale (Claire Dodd) showing up, but in the end, all is well. Look for Lucille Ball as one of the models – and of course killer dance numbers by G&F, with the ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” routine the most notable.

Follow the Fleet (3/11/10 - 4:00 AM Eastern): Ginger portrayed Sherry Martin, who is the former dance partner and girlfriend of “Bake” Baker (Fred Astaire), who decided to join the Navy after the breakup. The Fleet is in, and Bake and his buddy “Bilge” Smith (Randolph Scott) are out to have a good time; they check out the Paradise Club, where Bake discovers that Sherry is singing. Meanwhile, Bilge runs into Sherry’s sister, Connie Martin (Harriet Hilliard), but is not interested in her ‘plainness’. Over time, Bilge and Connie finally hit it off, and Bake wins over Sherry once again. All seems well, until the boys are unexpectedly called back to the ship for departure, thus interrupting all the big plans they have. Bake jumps ship to participate in a fundraiser for Connie’s quest to restore an old ship for her and Bilge to travel on. Bake and Sherry crank out the “Face the Music and Dance” routine, and the final results from there are, well, you could hazard to guess. Check out appearances by Lucille Ball, as well as Betty Grable. Ginger and Fred do a killer routine to “Let Yourself Go”.

Shall We Dance (3/11/10 - 6:00 AM Eastern): Ginger portrayed Linda Keene, an American dancer who finds work in Paris; she is pursued by Pete P. Peters from Philadelphia PA…also known as “Petrov”, a great Russian ballet dancer. Petrov introduces himself to Linda by basically bursting into her hotel room and putting on a very impressive, if somewhat pompous, display. He scores no points with her, but does overhear she is leaving for NYC on the Queen Anne tomorrow… so Pete talks his paranoid manager, Jeffrey Baird (Edward Everett Horton) into going to NYC as well, or else he will quit the troupe… so, all end up on the QA (?) the next day… soon after, Linda discovers Pete’s ‘real’ persona, and he another good 20 minutes of ‘movie time’ trying to make up for his ‘Petrov’ presentation to her back in Paris. They eventually become ‘better acquainted’ – but a rumor is spread around the boat that they are actually married. This rumor started back in Paris, when Pete made up the story to shake loose from Lady Tarrington (Ketti Gallian), who was formerly in the troupe; she wants to rejoin the troupe, mainly to pursue Pete. Jeffery, who does not want any ladies pursuing Pete (for fear his career would be ruined), tells Linda that Pete is just ‘using’ her to get away from Lady Tarrington. Linda hops on the mail plane from the boat to NYC to get away from Pete as well as her manager, Arthur Miller (Jerome Cowan). All eventually arrive in NYC and several misfires occur between Pete and Linda; but, since everyone thinks they are married, they eventually decide to actually get married just to get a divorce, in order to settle the matter in the public eye… but the divorce is not as easy as planned... Look for some classic exchanges between ‘Jeffrey Baird’ and ‘Cecil Flintridge’ (Eric Blore).

Carefree (3/11/10 - 8:00 AM Eastern): Ginger portrayed Amanda Cooper, who is the fiancée of Stephen Arden (Ralph Bellamy). Stephen is frustrated that Amanda doesn’t commit to a date for marriage, and he turns to his old bud, Tony Flagg (Fred Astaire), who happens to be a psychiatrist. Stephen wants Tony to analyze Amanda to figure out what the problem is. Tony agrees, but the visit gets off to a bad start when Amanda overhears Tony saying she will probably be another dizzy, mindless female. So, the analysis goes downhill from there. Later, Stephen arranges an ‘impromptu’ meeting in the park between Tony and Amanda to try to get an analysis; Tony does apologize for his remarks, Amanda accepts, and begins to open up to him. Another appointment is set up, and by now Amanda is falling for Tony. So, she makes up a crazy story about a dream she had, in order to keep seeing Tony; he is amazed at her weirdness, and puts her under hypnosis to find out more stuff. She gets loose while hypnotized, however, and wreaks havoc on the town. After several episodes, Tony has ‘programmed’ Amanda to hate him and love Stephen; however, doubt starts to get the best of Tony, as she seemed to be truly in love with him. But he cannot get her ‘de-programmed’, since by now, Stephen has become defensive of his brainwashed bride to be. Tony makes it to their wedding, but can he get the ‘real’ Amanda back? Some very funny scenes for Ginger in this one, but the music and dance routines are not quite what they were in previous Ginger/Fred movies (Although I STILL think she is very cute when she does “The Yam”!)

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (3/11/10 - 9:30 AM Eastern): Ginger portrayed Irene Castle, who was the former Miss Irene Foote. The Footes live in a small resort town, where Vernon Castle (Fred Astaire), a vaudevillian ‘second banana’, is anticipating a meeting with a ladyfriend. When the lady doesn’t show, he is set to leave when a little dog he has been playing fetch with swims out too far in the water, and he swims out to rescue it; at the same time, Miss Irene jumps out of her boat to do the same; thus begins the courtship of Vernon and Irene. Irene discovers Vernon is a great dancer, but is shocked to see him perform as a clown instead of using his dancing talent. He is happy to get whatever work, but tries to talk his boss into letting him do a dance routine or two. Vernon marries Irene and they intend to become a dance team; but no one gives them a shot. So, they move to Paris, where they are supposedly hired to perform dance numbers, but again, they are shot down when the ‘gig’ ends up being Vernon’s ‘second banana’ routine again. They eventually catch a break with Maggie Sutton (Edna May Oliver), who is an English talent agent who hooks them up with a performance. Of course, when the public sees their routines, they become overnight celebrities and enormously popular. At the height of their popularity, World War I erupts, which prompts British-born Vernon to join up to fight for his native country. Most of y’all know the rest, but I will leave it at that. This was the last Ginger and Fred feature for RKO Radio; while it was a departure from the ‘textbook’ Ginger/Fred feature it was a very well done movie, although not received well by the public, unfortunately.

The Barkleys of Broadway (3/11/10 - 11:15 AM Eastern): Ginger portrayed Dinah Barkley, wife and dance partner of Josh Barkley (Fred Astaire). Dinah and Josh are an ‘old married couple’ that have come to a crossroads in their relationship, both personal and professional. Josh is too critical of Dinah in regards to her stage performance, which results in their quarreling from their opening night show to the after-show reception for them. While there, Dinah converses with a young French play writer, Jacques Pierre Barredout (Jacques Francois), who tells her she could be a fine stage actress if she would forget the ‘song and dance’ routines. Of course, Josh is not fond of Jacques…but of course, Dinah’s curiosity is aroused as to her chances of pursuing the ‘serious stage’. When Josh and Dinah (along with their wisecracking producer, Ezra Miller (Oscar Levant)) head to Jacques’ house in the country, where he is having a reception for his latest play, Dinah delves further into the actress idea, and Jacques tells her she would be perfect in his new play about Sarah Bernhardt. This hooks Dinah into trying out the role; however, she tries to keep it secret from Josh – with little success. Josh explodes and when the dust settles, Dinah is gone to Jacques and the play. Of course, Josh grieves, and tries to win her back. Ezra talks both of them individually to perform at a benefit, and ultimately get them together to dance very gracefully to “They Can’t Take That Away From Me”; however, after the dance, Dinah does not reconcile. Josh is devastated, but still helps out Dinah in her play by impersonating Jacques on the phone to Dinah, while giving her acting ‘tips’… Josh eventually gets caught in his ‘prank calls’…and I’ll leave the rest for you to find out. Also love the 'Bouncin' the Blues' routine...hey, 10 years after, they still 'got it'!!!

Flying Down to Rio (3/11/10 - 1:15 PM Eastern): Ginger portrayed Honey Hale, a singer in the “Yankee Clipper Band”, which gets ousted from a gig in Miami due to the womanizing of the band leader, Roger Bond (Gene Raymond). However, the woman he pursued is Belinha De Rezende (Dolores Del Rio), who Roger (a pilot) arranges to fly down to Rio, with the rest of the band in tow, albeit separately. When all finally DO get to Rio, Roger meets up with an old friend, Julio Rubeiro (Raul Roulien), who just happens to be engaged to Belinha…and you can most likely fill in the blanks from there. Of course, this movie marks the first pairing of Ginger with Fred Astaire, who portrays Fred Ayers, who is the ‘second in command’ of the band, in charge of things when Roger is out ‘pursuing’. The Carioca dance Ginger and Fred perform is what launched them into stardom and the G&F franchise. Also check out Ginger’s song “Music Makes Me” near the beginning – one of my faves.

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WELL, hope this helps someone out there somewhere... in the weeks to come, this type of post may help out a bit more with the 'less mainstream' Ginger films which will air. Also, as always, PLEASE double-check the times in the TV listings - the last check over on the TCM website was OK, but remember, things are ALWAYS subject to change...

Keep It Gingery!!!

VKMfan

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