Follow the Fleet
Follow the Fleet | |
---|---|
RKO Radio Pictures | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 110 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $747,000[1] |
Box office | $2,727,000[1] |
Follow the Fleet is a 1936 American RKO musical comedy film with a nautical theme starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in their fifth collaboration as dance partners. It also features Randolph Scott, Harriet Hilliard, and Astrid Allwyn, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. Lucille Ball and Betty Grable also appear, in supporting roles. The film was directed by Mark Sandrich with script by Allan Scott and Dwight Taylor based on the 1922 play Shore Leave by Hubert Osborne.
Follow the Fleet was extremely successful
Plot
Seaman "Bake" Baker and Sherry are former dance partners, now separated, with Baker in the Navy and Sherry working as a dance hostess in a San Francisco ballroom, Paradise.
Bake visits the ballroom with his Navy buddy "Bilge" during a period of liberty, reuniting with Sherry (but costing her job), while Bilge is initially attracted to Sherry's sister Connie. When Connie begins to talk about marriage, Bilge quickly diverts his attention towards a friend of Sherry's, Iris, a divorced socialite.
The sailors return to sea while Connie seeks to raise money to salvage her deceased sea-captain father's sailing ship. When the boys return to San Francisco, Bake attempts to get Sherry a job in a
After the concert, Bake and Sherry are offered a show on Broadway, which A.W.O.L. Bake accepts on the proviso that Sherry asks him to marry her. Of course, he first has to be sent to the brig and take his punishment.
Cast
- Fred Astaire as Bake Baker
- Ginger Rogers as Sherry Martin
- Randolph Scott as Bilge Smith
- Harriet Hilliardas Connie Martin
- Astrid Allwyn as Mrs. Iris Manning
- Betty Grable as trio singer
- Harry Beresford as Captain Hickey
- Russell Hicksas Nolan
- Brooks Benedict as David Sullivan
- Ray Mayer as Dopey Williams
- Lucille Ball as Kitty Collins
- Tony Martinas sailor
- Jane Hamilton as Paradise Ballroom waitress
- Doris Lloyd as Mrs. Courtney
- Humphrey Bogart as sailor
Cast notes:
- Singer Harriet Hilliard was later well known as the wife of Ozzie Nelson and the mother of Ricky and David Nelson, who all portrayed themselves on the TV series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
Musical numbers
- "We Saw The Sea": The film introduces Astaire with this song.[5]
- "Let Yourself Go": Backed by a trio which includes Betty Grable, a nautically-attired Rogers sings this Berlin standard, which is followed, after an interlude (which includes the 'Get Thee Behind Me' song from Harriet Hilliard), by a comic tap duet with Astaire. This routine begins as a competitive challenge between Astaire-Rogers and another couple (Bob Cromer and Dorothy Fleischman, who soon withdraw) and develops into an energetic duet with much emphasis on galloping kicks, leg wiggling and scampering moves.[6]
- "Get Thee Behind Me Satan": Sung by Harriet Hilliard, this number was originally intended for Rogers in Top Hat.
- "I'd Rather Lead A Band": After singing this number Astaire embarks on a tap solo in which he dances on, off and around the beat – an ability for which he had long been famous in theatre. After leading the band in the song, he discards the baton and begins the solo part of his routine. After this, he is joined by a chorus of sailors who are alternately led and challenged by him.
- "Let Yourself Go" (solo dance): This is Ginger Rogers' only solo tap dance in her ten films with Astaire.
- "But Where Are You?": Sung by Harriet Hilliard.
- "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket": As in the "I Won't Dance" number from Roberta, the song is preceded by a solo piano display by Astaire – a playing style he termed his "feelthy piano". Then Astaire and Rogers sing alternate choruses before embarking on a comic dance duet which plays on the notion of both dancers being unable to keep in step with each other. Incidentally, Lucille Ball appears just before this number to put a sailor admirer down with the line "Tell me little boy, did you get a whistle or a baseball bat with that suit?"
- "art direction known as Hollywood Moderne. Film clips of this routine were featured in the 1981 film Pennies from Heaven – detested by Astaire,[9] – where it was also reinterpreted by Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters with revised choreography by Danny Daniels.
Reception
Contemporary reviews were positive. "Even though it is not the best of (Astaire and Rogers') series it still is good enough to take the head of this year's class in song and dance entertainment", wrote
Writing for
Dance commentators Arlene Croce and John Mueller point out that, aside from the obvious weakness,[15] a discursive and overlong plot lacking quality specialist comedians,[16] the film contains some of the Astaire-Rogers partnership's most prized duets, not least the iconic "Let's Face the Music and Dance". According to Arlene Croce: "One reason the numbers in Follow the Fleet are as great as they are is that Rogers had improved remarkably as a dancer. Under Astaire's coaching she had developed extraordinary range, and the numbers in the film are designed to show it off."[17] That this film's remarkable score [18] was produced immediately after his smash-hit score for Top Hat is perhaps testimony to Berlin's claim that Astaire's abilities inspired him to deliver some of his finest work.[19] As an actor, however, Astaire makes an unconvincing[20] attempt at shedding the wealthy man-about-town image by donning a sailor's uniform, while Rogers, in this her fifth pairing with Astaire, brings her usual comedic and dramatic flair to bear on her role as a nightclub entertainer.
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
- 2006: AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals – Nominated[21]
Box office
The film earned $1,532,000 in the US and Canada and $1,175,000 elsewhere making a profit of $945,000. This was slightly down on that for Top Hat but was still among RKO's most popular movies of the decade.[1]
It was the 14th most popular film at the British box office in 1935–1936.[22]
References
Citations
- ^ a b c Richard Jewel, 'RKO Film Grosses: 1931-1951', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 14 No 1, 1994 p55
- ^ Croce: "with all its flaws Follow the Fleet was a shattering hit", p.84
- ^ Mueller p.412
- ^ TCM.com
- ^ A separate recording exists of Irving Berlin singing this song to his own piano accompaniment, a recording which was featured by Astaire's choreography partner Hermes Pan and rehearsal pianist Hal Borne in the 2004 ARTE documentary l'Art de Fred Astaire.
- ^ Mueller p.92
- ^ Astaire: "I got the flying sleeve smack on the jaw and partly in the eye", p.220
- ^ Astaire: "The No. 1 take was perfect. It was the one we all liked best.", p.220
- ^ Satchell, p.251:"I have never spent two more miserable hours in my life. Every scene was cheap and vulgar. They don't realise that the thirties were a very innocent age, and that should have been set in the eighties — it was just froth; it makes you cry it's so distasteful."
- ^ Nugent, Frank S. (February 21, 1936). "Movie Review – Follow the Fleet". The New York Times. Retrieved August 14, 2015.
- ^ "Follow the Fleet". Variety. New York. February 26, 1936. p. 15.
- Film Daily. New York. February 19, 1936. p. 4.
- ^ Mosher, John (February 29, 1936). "The Current Cinema". The New Yorker. p. 50.
- ISBN 0192812866.)
- ^ Croce: "its plot is a dead weight", p. 82; Mueller: "bogged down by a sour, labored plot", p. 89
- ^ Mueller p. 90
- ^ Croce, p. 82
- ^ Astaire: "one of his best" p. 218
- ^ Mueller p. 78
- ^ Mueller: "no one is taken in", p. 89
- ^ "AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-08-13.
- ^ "The Film Business in the United States and Britain during the 1930s" by John Sedgwick and Michael Pokorny, The Economic History ReviewNew Series, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Feb., 2005), pp.97
General bibliography
- Astaire, Fred. Steps in Time, 1959, Heinemann, London
- ISBN 0-88365-099-1
- Green, Stanley (1999). Hollywood Musicals Year by Year (2nd ed.), pub. Hal Leonard Corporation ISBN 0-634-00765-3page 53
- Mueller, John. Astaire Dancing: The Musical Films of Fred Astaire, Knopf 1985, ISBN 0-394-51654-0
- Satchell, Tim. Astaire: The Biography. Hutchinson, London. 1987. ISBN 0-09-173736-2
External links
- Follow the Fleet at IMDb
- Follow the Fleet at the TCM Movie Database
- Follow the Fleet at AllMovie
- Follow the Fleet at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
- Follow the Fleet at Reelclassics
- Follow the Fleet at Virtual History