Fred and Ginger

I finally saw my first Fred-Astaire-and-Ginger-Rogers movie last night. Yes, I know what you're thinking -- I call myself a ballroom afficionado, but had not yet seen a single one of their movies?! Sadly, yes, such was the case. But last night, my friend Liz invited me over to her new apartment for dinner, and after chowing down on cinnamon chicken, overdosing on Ghirardeli-chocolate brownies and ice cream, setting up her Christmas-village train set under her *gorgeously* decorated (yet, happily, not at all garishly over-decorated) tree, and spending a not insignificant amount of time flipping through her complete DVD set of Fred-and-Ginger movies and trying to decide on which one I wanted to start my F&G experience with, we settled down to watch "Top Hat" [IMDB link, Wikipedia link].

It was lovely, of course. To be quite honest, I didn't even really have a good idea of what Astaire looked like, and had always pictured Frank Sinatra in my mind when I thought of him... and so I was a little surprised to see how slightly-built a man he was. I guess I had the impression that the more-famous, Hollywood leading men of the day were were all cut, more or less, from the Cary-Grant mold. I was also quite surprised at the comic-ness (is that a word?) of his character, and the motility of his facial expressions --- I never knew him to be a master of physical comedy as well! (Think Jim Carrey, or Matthew Perry, but without the buffoonery and far more refined.) In fact, I kept marveling the whole while that the person he reminded me most of --- vis-a-vis his facial expressions, at least (and long, waggly fingers, too) --- was Stan Laurel! Again, without the slapstick, but with all the innocent sweetness and charm. Really, all I knew of him was that he could dance, and dance his audience off their feet. And that, of course, he did: I'm having a Foxtrot day today (my earlier post on the Viennese Waltz notwithstanding), with Irving Berlin's delightful compositions looping non-stop through my head. Have hunted down and bookmarked YouTube videos showing my favourite dance sequences from the movie: "No strings", "Isn't it a lovely day", "Top hat, white tie and tails" and "Dancing cheek to cheek", although you really do need to watch the entire movie, and on a larger screen, to obtain the full pleasure of watching Astaire's *face* dance as he woos Rogers. Can't wait to see the rest of their movies now.

PS: Found these, too --- also worth watching: a recording of a Kennedy Center tribute to Astaire in 1978, and a clip of Astaire dancing with imaginary props, in an episode from "An Evening with Fred Astaire". (There are links to clips from other episodes there, too, in one of which --- in which he sings "Changing Partners", while dancing with Barrie Chase --- his expressions remind me of Hugh Laurie!)

PPS: I was having a hard time deciding whether to direct my hyperlinks to the corresponding entries in Wikipedia or those in the Internet Movie Database --- and including both in the text, citation-style, completely messed up the readability/flow of article. The Wikipedia entries are easier to read, while the IMDB ones, I would imagine, are more thorough and authoritative, and perhaps more permanent, although they do require a subscription for some of the information. Besides, the Wikipedia ones do link to the IMDB ones, but not vice versa. I finally decided to go with the Wiki-option, but here are all the corresponding IMDB ones as well: Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Jim Carrey, Matthew Perry, Stan Laurel, Irving Berlin, Hugh Laurie.