Wednesday, December 1, 2010

The Gay Divorcee

Mark Sandrich, 1934, bw (8.5*)

My favorite of the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical comedies, because this one is by far the funniest. The absurb plot involved bored Mimi, looking to get out of her marriage, a hired co-respondent Italian named Tonetti ("If you like-a spaghetti, stick-a with Tonetti!", is his professional motto), hilariously played by Eric Rhodes, who was in several with the dance team for comic relief - he was an expert, scene-stealing comic actor. Thanks to a very funny password phrase mix-up about fate, when she goes to meet him at a resort, she mistakes Astaire for the hired beau.

There's mucho dancing, romancing, and running around before the husband is due to arrive, including a monster 15-minute version of "The Continental", the song from this that won the Oscar® that year, beating out Cole Porter's "Night and Day", also from this film. Overall, 5 Oscar® nominations, this is a don't miss for fans of the screwball comedy and the musical era in Hollywood.

Quote: Fate is foolish, take a chance! (Tonetti) This was one confusion of their 'passcode' (of many): Fate is the fool's word for chance.

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These are the individual film reviews of what I'm considering the best 1000 dvds available, whether they are films, miniseries, or live concerts. Rather than rush out all 1000 at once, I'm doing them over time to allow inclusion of new releases - in fact, 2008 has the most of any year so far, 30 titles in all; that was a very good year for films, one of the best ever.



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