A Damsel in Distress (film)
A Damsel in Distress (
RKO) is a
1937 English-themed Hollywood
musical comedy
film starring
Fred Astaire,
Joan Fontaine,
George Burns and
Gracie Allen, with a screenplay by
P.G. "Plum" Wodehouse based on his novel, music and lyrics by
George and
Ira Gershwin, and directed by
George Stevens.
The film was made at George Gershwin's instigation, an enthusiasm that Wodehouse mischievously attributed to the fact that his novel was about a successful American songwriter named George Bevan.
George Gershwin died of a
brain tumour while the film was in production.
The first Astaire RKO film not to feature
Ginger Rogers, the nineteen year-old Fontaine was chosen, with
Burns and Allen drafted in to provide the comedy. It soon emerged that Fontaine couldn't dance, but Stevens persuaded Astaire not to replace her with
Ruby Keeler. The film, now considered a masterpiece of popular song and dance, was the first Astaire picture to lose money. The
Stiff Upper Lip routine garnered co-
choreographer Hermes Pan the 1937
Academy Award for Best Dance Direction.
The choreography explores dancing around/past/through obstacles and in confined spaces.
*
I Can't Be Bothered Now: Sung by Astaire while executing a tap solo with cane in the middle of a
London street and escaping on a bus.
*
Put Me To The Test: Astaire, Burns and Allen comic tap dance with whisk brooms, a routine inspired by vaudeville duo Evans and Evans and introduced to Astaire by Burns, who quipped: "Gracie and I ended up teaching Astaire how to dance".
*
Stiff Upper Lip: Sung by Gracie Allen and followed by an innovative extended comic dance by Astaire, Burns and Allen through a fairground obstacle course.
*
Things Are Looking Up: Astaire sings one of Gershwin's finest and most neglected melodies, followed by a romantic dance through the woods with Fontaine, where George Stevens artfully uses trees to hide Fontaine's terpsichorean shortcomings.
*
A Foggy Day In London Town: Astaire introduces what has become a standard in the
Great American Songbook, sung while alternately walking and dancing solo through a wooded landscape.
*
Nice Work If You Can Get It: The film's second Gershwin standard is introduced by Astaire and chorus, followed by a stupendous Astaire tap solo, executed while confined by and playing a set of drums. It was shot in one continuous take and makes use of a very early version of the
zoom lens.
*
Illustrated review (1999) by Michael Skupin.*
Online version of Wodehouse's novel: A Damsel in Distress*Fred Astaire:
Steps in Time, 1959, multiple reprints.
*John Mueller:
Astaire Dancing - The Musical Films of Fred Astaire, Knopf 1985, ISBN 0394516540
*George Burns:
Gracie: A Love Story, G.P Putnam and Sons, 1988.
