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icepixieWatched Flying Down to Rio tonight. More accurately, I watched the subplot with Ginger and Fred and gave the main plot (some kind of love triangle between people I didn't care about) a miss.
I have to say, there must have been some good crack being done in Hollywood in 1933. Nothing else can explain that last production number, with all the women on planes. No, really, through the magic of special effects, there were chorus girls dancing while harnessed to the wings of old-style prop planes. The people in the movie viewing it had to look through binoculars to see the show. One memorable sequence had a line of girls lauch some parachutes which ripped all their clothes off, leaving them to dance about in their underwear 10,000 feet above Brazil. No, really.
Yeah, this was obviously made before the Hays Code came into being. If it weren't for that sequence, the see-through dresses most of the women were in would've given it away, as would some of the dialogue. ("What have those South American girls got below the equator that we don't?" comes to mind.) Even the Carioca itself might not have passed muster the next year, given the scandalous way everyone pressed their foreheads together while dancing.
For what it was, it was fairly entertaining, even if Fred and Ginger only danced together for about two minutes. (Two pretty good minutes, though. In addition to the nifty stuff, I laughed quite a bit when they bumped their heads together and staggered around all dazed after trying to do the forehead-touching thing.) Ginger in particular got to pull off some snappy dialogue, and Fred got in a few amusing lines as well. Here's a conversation I found funny:
Ginger/"Honey Hale": What's this business about the foreheads?
Fred/"Fred Ayres": Mental telepathy.
Ginger: I can tell what they're thinking about from here!
Them drunkenly watching the denoument of the main plot together through a pair of binoculars was also pretty funny. Not to mention that the placement of it right before the fadeout seemed as if RKO was saying very loudly, "LOOK, HERE ARE FRED AND GINGER. THEY ARE OUR NEW MONEY-MAKING PAIRING. YOU WILL BE SEEING MORE OF THEM."
Now I...kind of want fic. Hmm.
I have to say, there must have been some good crack being done in Hollywood in 1933. Nothing else can explain that last production number, with all the women on planes. No, really, through the magic of special effects, there were chorus girls dancing while harnessed to the wings of old-style prop planes. The people in the movie viewing it had to look through binoculars to see the show. One memorable sequence had a line of girls lauch some parachutes which ripped all their clothes off, leaving them to dance about in their underwear 10,000 feet above Brazil. No, really.
Yeah, this was obviously made before the Hays Code came into being. If it weren't for that sequence, the see-through dresses most of the women were in would've given it away, as would some of the dialogue. ("What have those South American girls got below the equator that we don't?" comes to mind.) Even the Carioca itself might not have passed muster the next year, given the scandalous way everyone pressed their foreheads together while dancing.
For what it was, it was fairly entertaining, even if Fred and Ginger only danced together for about two minutes. (Two pretty good minutes, though. In addition to the nifty stuff, I laughed quite a bit when they bumped their heads together and staggered around all dazed after trying to do the forehead-touching thing.) Ginger in particular got to pull off some snappy dialogue, and Fred got in a few amusing lines as well. Here's a conversation I found funny:
Ginger/"Honey Hale": What's this business about the foreheads?
Fred/"Fred Ayres": Mental telepathy.
Ginger: I can tell what they're thinking about from here!
Them drunkenly watching the denoument of the main plot together through a pair of binoculars was also pretty funny. Not to mention that the placement of it right before the fadeout seemed as if RKO was saying very loudly, "LOOK, HERE ARE FRED AND GINGER. THEY ARE OUR NEW MONEY-MAKING PAIRING. YOU WILL BE SEEING MORE OF THEM."
Now I...kind of want fic. Hmm.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 03:59 am (UTC)When you think about it, though, as silly as it was, that stuff of the dancers on the plane wings was pretty high-tech special effects for the time.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 06:01 pm (UTC)When you think about it, though, as silly as it was, that stuff of the dancers on the plane wings was pretty high-tech special effects for the time.
True. Too bad it was so tangential to the plot--and so ridiculous--though. :)
(I also noticed that the director used every single possible transition from frame to frame in this film--whirling around, wipes, boxes, pinholes widening, etc. etc. I guess they had just invented most of them and he was determined to use each and every one of them as many times as possible. Hee!)
It is I...the stalker of the old posts! Ha Ha Ha
Date: 2009-12-13 10:58 am (UTC)Re: It is I...the stalker of the old posts! Ha Ha Ha
Date: 2009-12-13 12:39 pm (UTC)