Roberta

(Spoilers, sort of) Everyone seems to be saying the same thing about this film: great music, burdensome plot. But virtually all 9 RKO Astaire-Rogers films borrowed their plots from one another. They were, after all, the comic relief in 3 different films- including FLYING DOWN TO RIO and FOLLOW THE FLEET. These films- in terms of chronological release- alternated with GAY Divorcée, TOP HAT, and SWING TIME- all which had some combination of Erik Rhodes, Helen Broderick, and Eric Blore as comic support. I could stand the 'two-couple' formula a little more so, because Astaire and Rogers weren't carrying the heavier half of the plot. They usually already know each other and make wicked sideline commentary while waiting to go on the dance floor. This is most evident in their first duet in ROBERTA, "I'll Be Hard To Handle," which appears completely spontaneous, even though it is a rehearsal. Astaire and Rogers wear matching shirts and slacks and enjoy a very funny debate with their tapping feet. We seamlessly go from this sequence to a breathtaking moment with Irene Dunne and title character Helen Westley framed around the song "Yesterdays." (It's a bewitching moment when the light dims in the room as the vocal simultaneously fades away.) And to those of you complaining about the excessive fashion show sequences: well, that's the plot of the movie; didn't you see that coming? All the crazy clothes are worth seeing for the Astaire-Rogers duet of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes." Following a cameo by a platinum-haired Lucille Ball, Rogers emerges as one of the models on parade in a satin gown and joins Astaire for a tender 'walk-around-the-floor' turn. Sublime stuff.

For several reasons, this is the comparatively hidden entry in the classic Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers filmography, but this 1935 film has been blissfully released in a fairly clean print transfer on DVD, both as an individual purchase and as part of a complete Astaire-Rogers DVD set. With great songs from the Jerome Kern songbook, the movie certainly contains the high-caliber musical quality of the other films starring the dancing pair. The challenge is really in the cumbersome story set-up and in the simple fact that Astaire and Rogers play decidedly secondary characters in the story.

The film's primary focus is on Stephanie, an exiled Russian princess working as a sales assistant in the House of Roberta, the most fashionable couturière in all of Paris. It is run by a lovable dowager referred to as Aunt Minnie, whose nephew Jack Kent ends up in Paris after his band gets fired right after they disembark from their transatlantic voyage. Astaire plays Jack's best friend, bandleader "Huck" Haines, and Rogers is a faux-Polish countess named Sharvenka a.k.a. Lizzie Gatz, Huck's ex-dancing partner who has become a Paris nightclub headliner. The various romantic pairings occur, but an unexpected tragedy strikes with Minnie's death and her wish to leave the shop to the woefully unqualified Jack, who of course needs Stephanie's fashion sense to make the company continue to thrive.

The plot threads start to feel unwieldy after a while, but journeyman director William A. Seiter is smart enough to know when to include the musical interludes. Astaire-Rogers fans may be disappointed to find them dance only twice in the film together, the first well after the half-hour mark in an informal but energetic tap routine and the second near the end in their standard formal wear. Astaire has only one solo to "I Won't Dance"; and perhaps to pacify fans, there is a brief reprisal dance inserted after the story's actual ending though dramatically it makes little sense. Irene Dunne gets to sing three songs - a Russian lullaby and three Kern gems ("Yesterdays", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "Lovely to Look At") - in her bell-like operatic soprano, pretty in itself but seemingly at odds with the jazzy sound of the rest of the score.

A year before she let her inner screwball comedienne emerge in "Theodora Goes Wild", a severe-looking Dunne is saddled with a stiff, uninteresting part as Stephanie, and she is not aided much by a bumptious Randolph Scott, who has to play the somewhat ignorant and judgmental Jack on a relative one note. Astaire and a particularly funny Rogers, on the other hand, are breezy and sharp with the little screen time they do get. Little-remembered Claire Dodd predictably plays Jack's slithery fiancée Sophie, while character actress Helen Westley plays Minnie with her amusing gruffness intact (she was to reunite with Dunne the next year in James Whale's classic version of "Showboat").

There's an extended fashion show at the end, and you can easily spot a bleached blonde, baby-faced Lucille Ball in ostrich feathers among the models. The resulting movie shows the whole to be somewhat less than the sum of its parts, but it's still worthwhile for the talent involved in the production. The 2006 DVD contains some interesting curios as extras - the original trailer (in relatively poor condition); a full-color twenty-minute 1935 musical short, "Starlit Days the Lido", with oddly attired variety acts entertaining bemused Hollywood stars like Clark Gable and Robert Montgomery; a vintage cartoon, "The Calico Dragon" about a little girl's dream of her stuffed animals coming to life to protect her from the dragon; and an eleven-minute audio-only radio promo for the movie.

Huckleberry Haines (Fred Astaire) and his band, the Wabash Indianians, arrive at Le Havre, in France, for a season in a Russian nightclub. However, the owner Alexander Petrovitch Moskovich Voyda (Luis Alberni) expects the arrival of an Indian band and he calls off their contract.

Haines and the band head to Paris, and his friend John Kent (Randolph Scott) decides to visit his Aunt Minnie (Helen Westley), who owns the fashion house Roberta, to use her influence to find a work for the band. John meets the manager Stephanie (Irene Dunne) and they immediately feel attracted for each other. Huck Haines meets in the Roberta's salon his old friend Liz with the artistic identity of Comtesse Scharwenka (Ginger Rogers) and she helps him to get a job with Voyda.

When Aunt Minnie passes away, John Kent is the heir of her fortune and also Roberta. However he decides to give the fashion house for Stephanie, but she proposes a partnership between them two. But when John's old passion, the gold digger Sophie Teale (Claire Dodd) seeks out John, the infatuated Stephanie decides to leave the business and travel abroad with the Russian Prince Ladislaw (Victor Varconi).

"Roberta" is an adorable musical with one of the most beautiful songs of the cinema ever. With music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Otto A. Harbach, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is performed by Irene Dunne. The plot is naive, but the musical numbers, the dances and the fashion parade are delightful. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Roberta"

It seems really bizarre that after starring in "The Gay Divorcée," Rodgers and Astaire went back to playing supporting roles in this one. Leads Randolph Scott are Irene Dunne are fine, but Rodgers and Astaire are on blazing whenever they're on screen, so Scott and Dunne get pushed into the background.

The story is contrived and theatrical and not a particularly exciting one. However, four great songs and dances lift it into the must see category: "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "Lovely to Look At," "I Won't Dance," and I'll Be Hard to Handle." Please note that the last three have lyrics by Dorothy Fields. She may have been the greatest lyricist of the 20th century with songs like "Sunnyside of the Street," "A Fine Romance," "I'm in the Mood for Love" and "Big Spender" to her credit.

The movie is a little dated and tedious at an hour and forty minutes, but, at least 30 of those minutes with Ginger and Fred are enchanting.

"Nous Sommes étonné." as Fred says in the movie.

What's not to like - Astaire-Rogers dancing to "I Don't Dance, Don't Ask Me", ocean liners crossing the Atlantic, trains racing across northern France, jazz bands rehearsing in Paris clubs, stupendous art deco sets, a couturier's elegant salon, serenading to balalaikas, stunning models privately displaying satin gowns, Russian princes, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" sung by the beautiful Irene Dunne, an elegant Old Russian restaurant with its frescoes, fashion show that incorporates Astaire and Rogers dancing, Irene Dunne's warmth, a witty script, a Broadway smash hit brought to the screen - geez, what a movie! It is only recently that I've begun to enjoy musicals. The ones I like are the light ones - not the ones incorporating social issues which I feel musicals are ill-equipped to handle.

But a light musical comedy - with exquisite dancing, charming leads, swank clothes, elegant sets, witty dialogue - WOW! And this is definitely such a musical - absolutely charming.

The four leads are wonderfully cast. Irene Dunne reminds me of Greer Garson in having a certain soulfulness combined with innate gentility and enormous warmth - Dunne also happens to have had a world-class operatic singing voice (that in later movies, as operettas ceased to be appealing, was seldom heard). There is something so very vulnerable about a wounded Irene Dunne character - and she is wonderful in this part.

Randolph Scott has a big, clean, very handsome, American quality that is also wonderfully suited to this part - one in which his character is candid, straightforward, easily swayed by others who are sophisticated -but at a certain point will act decisively when he comes to realize his judgment has been mistaken.

Fred Astaire's subordinate comic supporting role is suited well by the enormous difference in size between himself and Scott - and obviously his dancing and his easy way with humorous lines is just wonderful.

The 24 year old Ginger Rogers may be the biggest revelation to me - it's not just that she can dance astonishingly well, that she is wonderful (and wonderfully funny) with accents, that she can sing songs equally comically or romantically (and with great gestures), that she is very VERY funny, whip-smart with dialogue,, but she perfectly suits the job of one hustling for jobs, adapting to all circumstances, rough and ready -- and extremely aware at all times.

I think studio heads really saw Rogers' amazing abilities through the end of World War II (after which she was shamefully abandoned) - she seldom played the "classy woman" and we instead find her as a shop girl, prisoner on furlough, society wannabe, entertainer. I would like to have seen her play in her career, a part in which she more deliberately seductive (like Barbara Stanwyck or Joan Crawford, Miriam Hopkins or Bette Davis often did) but alas.

You'll like this - just relax and feel yourself enthralled.