Shall We Dance ***** (1937, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, Harriet Hoctor, Jerome Cowan, Ketti Gallian, William Brisbane) – Classic Movie Review 2952

Director Mark Sandrich’s delicious vintage 1937 musical Shall We Dance once again pairs the perfect song and dance team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, who decide that indeed they shall dance. And this time they have sparkling, divine George and Ira Gershwin tunes to do it to – ‘Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off’ (on roller skates), ‘They All Laughed’, ‘Slap That Base’, ‘Beginner’s Luck’, ‘Walking the Dog’, ‘Shall We Dance’ and the haunting ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’.

Astaire and Rogers quickstep their way through their roles as dancers in a bogus marriage and raise the roof with the songs and their dancing. There is lovely comic support from the great Edward Everett Horton as Fred’s agent Jeffrey Baird and Eric Blore as the New York hotel manager Cecil Flintridge.

Astaire plays ballet master Pete ‘Petrov’ Peters, who arranges to cross the Atlantic aboard the same ocean liner as the dancer he has fallen for but barely knows, tap-dancing musical star Linda Keene (Rogers). By the time they reach New York, their budding romance is complicated when gossip spreads that they are secretly married.

The screenplay by Allan Scott, Ernest Pagano and P J Wolfson is based on the story Watch Your Step by Lee Loeb and Harold Buchman.

David Abel started the film as cinematographer but was replaced by an uncredited Joseph F Biroc, who finished the remaining five weeks of production.

Shall We Dance also co-stars Harriet Hoctor, Jerome Cowan as Arthur Miller, Ketti Gallian as Lady Tarrington and William Brisbane as Jim Montgomery.

Also in the cast are Ben Alexander, Emma Young, Sherwood Bailey, Frank Moran, Charles Irwin, Ann Shoemaker, Norman Ainsley, Harry Bowen, Sidney Bracey, William Burress, Charles Coleman, Monte Collins, Jean De Briac, Dudley Dickerson, Pauline Garon, Douglas Gordon, Helena Grant, Charlie Hall, Eddie Hall, Sam Harris, Sam Hayes, Tiny Jones, Lew Kelly, J M Kerrigan, George Magrill, Alphonse Martell, Torben Meyer, Mantan Moreland, Henry Mowbray, Leonard Mudie, Vesey O’Davoren, Jack Rice, Matty Roubert, Rolfe Sedan, Spencer Teakle, Pete Theodore, Richard Tucker, Marek Windheim and Sam Wren.

George and Ira Gershwin’s unforgettable classic ‘They Can’t Take That Away from Me’ was Oscar nominated for Best Original Song but was beaten by Harry Owens’s forgotten song ‘Sweet Leilani’ from Waikiki Wedding (1937).

Shall We Dance is also the title of the 2004 Richard Gere film.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2952

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Edward Everett Horton plays Fred Astaire’s agent Jeffrey Baird in Shall We Dance.