Carefree (1938)

Too much of everything

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

This might be THE Ginger & Fred movie for people who are not huge great fans of the memorable team. The reason being is that there is a little more story than the earlier ones, and also because it is really quite Funny, Thanks in NO small amount to Ginger's performance. Often somewhat rudely underestimated in the partnership( And after all, she did everything Fred did ,but backwards and in heels, AND had to be Damn Pretty while she was doing it(even the kindest amongst us would find it difficult to make a great argument for Fred as being a "looker"). Fred is often given solo numbers in their films but here Ginger gets a good one "The Yam' which she performs with great style and wit. In fact Ginger dominates the film , and it is quite reasonable to point out that after the partnership ended it was Ginger who had the most initial success winning a Best Actress Oscar for "Kitty Foyle". But it is ginger's fun and very amusing performance that makes the film particularly watchable.

All of the Astaire-Rogers collaborations at RKO are worth seeing, although some are less deserving than others. Unfortunately, "Carefree" falls among the lesser offerings, despite the movie's fluid and graceful dance numbers. The silly plots of these films usually pit an antagonistic Rogers against a love-sick Astaire until Rogers realizes she really loves Fred more than the stiff hunk she originally intended to marry. What woman wouldn't prefer skinny, balding Fred to a Ralph Bellamy or a Randolph Scott. After all, hunks can't dance. "Carefree" wraps the standard Astaire-Rogers plot around some preposterous psychoanalytical nonsense that involves hypnotism, and rational brains may tune out between dance numbers. At times the film is downright unfunny. When a hypnotized Rogers stalks Astaire with a loaded shotgun at a golf course, the intended mayhem is more horrifying than hysterical.Luella Gear as Aunt Cora is the intended wise-cracking sidekick, but she is tepid, and her cynical remarks fall flat. The film sorely needs an Edward Everett Horton or a Helen Broderick to spark the proceedings, although two veteran character actors do bring a touch of needed life to their scenes. Franklin Pangborn appears briefly as the token gay stereotype, but he has little to do but flutter and faint, which probably had the audience rolling in the aisles in pre-Stonewall days. However, at least RKO gave their gay actors screen billing. Hattie McDaniel, who has more screen time than Pangborn, plays the African-American stereotyped maid, but she received no screen billing at all. A year later she would receive an Academy Award for "Gone with the Wind." Six writers are credited for the inane story and screenplay, but their names are best left unsaid. Mark Sandrich directed, but his work on arguably the best Astaire-Rogers pairing, "Top Hat," was superior. Only choreographer Hermes Pan deserves to be mentioned among the production crew. His work with Astaire and Rogers to Irving Berlin's music is what gives "Carefree" a reason to be pulled from the vaults.

While this A/R outing has some fine tender moments, it is ruined by one of the most absurd songs (YAM). No wonder FA didn't want to sing it, but GR should have refused to do it as well.The rest of the film's non-musical moments just are a bore...FA does the hypnotist act so well (with the yawn of dialogue) that I was soon out like a light.Woke up just in time to see GR get punched in her face by some thug (oops that was her finance I think!) Then she is waltzing down the aisle with FA and that's the end...she must have still been doped up! What exactly was in that anesthetic they gave her? Maybe I will give this film another chance next time I have trouble sleeping.

After the exceedingly strange Michael Jackson died recently, I was reminded by a sage friend that Jackson had revived dance after a long drought, for a new generation. And I shook my head in grudging respect; he was right. The Musical, which practically dried up in the 80s was displaced to consumable single songs and dance numbers (music videos). And a new, unaware generation applauded every expansion of that format by MJ, not knowing he was traveling already-covered ground, inching ever closer to the full length movie musical. Jackson did restore respect and cachet to dance. He is not so different from Astaire.Carefree offers a comic turn from the tap dancing couple, and in a rare move Ginger pursues Fred this time. Rogers is funnier than usual in this one. It's quite short and at the 50 minute mark a dance number erupts called "the Yam." After I saw the exhilarating number "Pick Yourself Up" in Shall we Dance I had the feeling the team could not possibly do better, and trailed off watching their movies with maybe five to go. What great fun to stumble across this, and be reminded of the exalted place jubilance occupies in the world of dance.The Yam number starts quite corny, and then Astaire and Rogers begin traveling around all the rooms and obstacles in a multi-room restaurant. I love that the scale of the number keeps growing (in terms of couples), and that you don't know where they're heading next. At a time when the grotesque failings of society are glaring, the fantasy presented in musicals that some parts of society function so well that they occasionally function almost as syncopated machinery is very pleasing. The Yam is pretty cool ...in a way that a thousand dancers around a phony Venice lagoon inside a gigantic soundstage is just not. That's about spectacle, I watch A & R because the focus is on dance. The movie is blessedly free of the usual climactic love dance (which is always lame) seen in their other movies.