Roberta **** (1935, Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Helen Westley) – Classic Movie Review 2250

Director William A Seiter’s 1935 musical marvel stars Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott and Helen Westley as Roberta.

Dunne causes a stir in a gracious performance in one of her best roles as a Russian princess dress designer Stephanie who falls in love with football player John Kent(Scott) in the RKO studio’s lovely film of the legendary Jerome Kern-Otto A Harbach 1933 Broadway musical.

Dunne sings and acts admirably, though she is let down by a less than great Scott, and they are both upstaged by Astaire and Rogers as Huck Haines and old friend Lizzie now going under an alias as the singer Scharwenka. John, Huck and the Wabash Indianians travel to an engagement in Paris but lose it.

They visit John’s aunt, Madame Roberta, owner of a smart fashion house run by her assistant, Stephanie (Dunne), and meet Scharwenka, who gets the band a job. Roberta dies and leaves the business to John who goes into partnership with Stephanie.

Astaire and Rogers’s exuberant dance numbers are magic and a total delight. And the Kern-Harbach numbers include three of the best songs ever written: ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’, ‘I Won’t Dance’ and ‘Lovely to Look At’.

Also in the cast are Claire Dodd, Victor Varconi, Luis Alberni, Ferdinand Munier, Torben Meyer, Bodil Rosing, Adrian Rosley and Mary Forbes. Lucille Ball makes her first RKO appearance in a fashion show sequence: 20 years later she bought the studio.

It was remade by MGM in 1952 as Lovely To Look At, with Kathryn Grayson, Red Skelton and Howard Keel.

When Irene Dunne died on September 4 1990, aged 91, she was virtually forgotten, having not made a movie since It Grows on Trees in 1952, but she was Oscar nominated as Best Actress five times.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2250

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