Andrew L. Stone | Stormy Weather / 1943 [dance only]

the nicholas brothers, katherine dunham and company: the greatest dance film

 

by Douglas Messerli

 

Frederick J. Jackson and Ted Koehler (screenplay, based on a story by Jerry Horwin, and adapted by H. S. Kraft and Seymour B. Robinson), Harold Arlen (music), Andrew L. Stone (director) Stormy Weather / 1943

 

One of two major studio movies with all black casts (the other being Vicente Minelli's Cabin in the Sky) Stormy Weather was packed with great performances by Lena Horne, Dooley Wilson, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, and the great dancer, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. But nothing in this heady concoction of music and dance can quite match the leg work of Fayard and Harold Nicholas. The two not only tap dance up and down stairs in near-perfect unison, but work as a linked duo, mirroring each other's movements in reverse, before jumping into the orchestra to leap from oval to oval (which recalls Robinson's "Drum Dance" elsewhere in the film), seemingly some of kind of gigantic music stands for the musicians. 

     Soon the tuxedoed duo hoist themselves up upon a piano, looking perfectly at home there, before they tap up a double staircase, and, in a series of leapfrogs over one another that land them each time in perfect leg splits, they again reach the bottom, coming together only to tap up the staircase once more, this time taking a slide down to the floor. The audience can only be wowed, and wonder how their torsos have endured their acrobatic maneuvers.

     Fred Astaire has been quoted as describing this performance as "the greatest dance number ever filmed." Enough said.

 

    Although Lena Horne's sultry rendition of the song "Stormy Weather" is at the center of this film, Katherine Dunham's dance with her company to the same song is worth viewing again and again. The dance begins in a rainy street scene where couples soon begin to jive; Dunham, however, seeming to be somewhere between a streetwalker and sleepwalker conjures up a balletic version, wherein she is quickly joined, in her dreamy imagination, by a whole company of men who lift the women in rapturous grasps before laterally holding their partners and returning them to the floor. The most notable aspect of this dance is the constant flow of the wind machine, which makes the silky costumes seem to be in eternal motion, which Dunham reflects time and again through the movement of her hands and fingers.

     There is something a bit ridiculous with this, reminding one a little of the song "They're Doing Choreography" in White Christmas, but Dunham manages to take some Martha Graham-like gestures into the realm of sensuality.

 

Los Angeles, March 2, 2011

 

Michael Curtiz | Yankee Doddle Dandy / 1942 [dance only]

james cagney: a man without guilt

by Douglas Messerli

 

Robert Buckner and Edmund Joseph (screenplay, based on a story by Robert Buckner), Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein (writers, uncredited), George M. Cohan (songs), Michael Curtiz (director) Yankee Doddle Dandy / 1942

 

For those who have only seen Cagney in his gangster films such as Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and G Men, it will come as a surprise, I am sure, that he was also—if almost accidentally—one of Hollywood's greatest dancers. Playing George M. Cohan performing in one of his musicals as a jockey who has been accused of fixing a race, Cagney awaits a signal from a nearby ship to tell him of the decision of the jury: he has been acquitted and his dance to the tune of "Yankee Doddle Dandy" is a joyfully nervous tapping out of his absolute delight that is so original in its combinations of straight tap, turns, spins, and occasional leaps that it is clearly something that he has created himself, outside of the more conventional dance numbers of the film choreographed by Seymour Felix and LeRoy Prinz.            Cagney's whole body is so naturally jumpy that he seems like a marionette on strings, as others have described him; but unlike Ray Bolger's puppet-like Straw Man, Cagney's legs, hands, and shoulders appear never to come to rest, as they dangle at the very moment his torso seems to rise. Instead of being pulled back to earth by gravity, Cagney seems unable to come to rest, his feet nervously tapping away something like the horses this jockey might have raced. Given the heaviness of most of his verbal roles, we are understandably stunned by his lightness of foot. And he can even sing!

 

Los Angeles, March 2, 2011

Victor Fleming, George Cukor, and Mervyn LeRoy | The Wizard of Oz / 1939 [dance only]

 

ray bolger and judy garland: if i only had a brain

by Douglas Messerli

 

Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allan Wolf (screenplay, based on the book by L. Frank Baum, Irving Breacher, Willliam H. Cannon, Herbert Fields, Arthur Freed, Jack Haley, E. Y. Harburg, Samuel Hoffenstein, Bert Lahr, John Lee Mahin, Herman J. Mankewicz, Jack Mintz, Ogden Nash, Robert Pirosh, George Seaton, and Sid Silvers (credited and uncredited dialogue), Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg (songs), Victor Fleming, George Cukor [uncredited] and Mervyn LeRoy [uncredited], directors) The Wizard Of Oz / 1939

It seems as if everyone in Hollywood was, in one way or another, involved in the writing of directing of the great film classic The Wizard of Oz. But the enduring song, “If I Only Had a Brain,” had only a composer and lyricist, the incomparable team of Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg. Originally written for the 1937 Broadway musical, Horray for What!, it was cut from that production. Writing new lyrics, Harburg featured it in his great score as a perfect song for he movie’s talking, dancing scarecrow.

    Dancing as if he were a straw-stuffed puppet whose strings were pulled from somewhere on high, Bolger, always an entertaining and comical dancer, outdoes himself with the lightness of his feet. At times his entire body seems almost to float, as if he really were stuffed with hay instead of bones and gristle. Yet, as a straw man, each attempt to fly off into dance ends, sadly, with gravity’s pull, and his body’s collapse.

 

        I could wile always the hours

        Conferrin’ with the flowers

        Consultin’ with the rain

        And my head I’d be a scratchin’

        If I only had a brain.

 

     He and Dorothy (Judy Garland) end this wonderful dance number in their memorable skip-to the-lou down the yellow brin road, which also demonstrates the dancing talents of the young Garland. Garland, while not a great cancer has certainly shone in several dance numbers. Her pairing with Fred Astair in “We’re a Couple of Swells” in Easter Parade and her memorable struts in “Get Happy” in the musical film Summertime immediately come to mind. But in her bingham dress and red ruby shoes, she is unforgettable. Even the dog, Toto, trots along in cue.

 

Los Angeles, March 1, 2011

 

 

Roy Del Ruth | Broadway Melody of 1936 / 1935 || Norman Taurog | Broadway Melody of 1940 / 1940 [dance only]

 eleanor powell and fred astaire: got to dance

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jack McGowan and Sid Silvers (screenplay, based on a story by Moss Hart, Harry W. Conn, additional dialogue), Roy Del Ruth (director) Broadway Melody of 1936 / 1935

Leon Gordon and George Oppenheimer (screenplay, with uncredited writing by Walter DeLeon, Vincent Lawrence, Albert Mannheimer, Eddie Moran, Thomas Phipps, Sid Silvers, and Preston Sturges, based on a story by Jack McGowan and Dore Schary), Norman Taurog (director) Broadway Melody of 1940 / 1940

 

Watching Eleanor Powell's last number in her first starring film role, Broadway Melody of 1936, it is difficult to not be completely dazzled by her movements, while in the same instant perceiving those movements as somehow a bit clunky or, at least, executed with too much intention and force. It's partly her body—she appears taller and lankier than most dancers—and partly her costume, dressed as she is in long stripped satin pants and shirt with rhinestone coat whose tails come down seemingly lower than her knees, all topped with a rhinestone-covered hat. The Yankee Doddle Dandy look gives her a sense of being even taller than she probably was, which helps to make her hips even more central to her physique.

     Yet, moving through Got to Dance, how she can tap, bend her body backwards nearly to the floor, and spin and spin and spin as she were on ice instead of a gravity-pulling stage. If she hits each tap a little too forcefully, we are still stunned by their impact. It is little wonder that Ann Miller describes Powell as being the major influence upon her entering that career.

     Fred Astaire perhaps said it best: "She 'put 'em down like a man', no ricky-ticky-sissy stuff with Ellie. She really knocked out a tap dance in a class by herself." There is something almost manly about her technique, and that is perhaps what makes her taps seem, at times, so emphatic.

     

     Yet when she dances Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine" with Fred Astaire in Broadway Melody of 1940, we see another, slightly softer side of her. This time dressed in a flowing thin white skirt and a halter trimmed with spangles, Powell seems completely to move with the flow of the Latin rhythm that is often used contrapuntally against the song's tune. Dancing across a black marble floor against a black backspace upon which small pin lights reflect what appear to be stars, Powell matches Astaire nearly perfectly step by step with a grace that seemed to elude her in that earlier number. Together they seem the perfect match.

 

Los Angeles, July 19, 2011

Mark Sandrich | Top Hat / 1935 [dance only]

fred astaire and ginger rogers: heaven

by Douglas Messerli

 

Allan Scott and Dwight Taylor (screenplay, based on a play by Sándor Faragó, Alada Laszlo, and Károly Nóti), Irving Berlin and Max Steiner (music), Mark Sandrich (director) Top Hat / 1935

 

With great song and dance numbers such as "Isn't This a Lovely Day," "Fancy Free," "The Piccolino" and "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails," it seems almost impossible to select just one dance! But of all Astaire's and Rogers' performances throughout their years as a duo, the most memorable may be their brilliant "Cheek to Cheek."

       In terms of the plot, the number might never have happened. Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers) is furious with Jerry Travers (Fred Astaire), whom she believes to be her good friend Madge Hardwick's husband, Horace. Travers has flirted with Tremont, but Madge seemingly doesn't care, for, in reality, she is trying to marry off Travers, suggesting Tremont as the perfect match. It is with due hesitation, accordingly, that Tremont accepts his offer to dance. As he begins the love song, moreover, she turns several times to Madge, pondering what to do, but Madge merely motions that they should get closer together.

    The dance begins as a simple waltz, with Travers (Astaire) stopping several times to sing the famous lyrics ("Heaven, I'm in Heaven / And my heart beats so loudly I can hardly speak / And I seem to find the happiness I seek / When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek"). After each stop they dance for a while, until suddenly, at the music's crescendo, they swing upstairs, she spinning before laterally jumping, Astaire moving into a soft tap. Both leap, moving backwards, then forward, until in a final pas de deau, Rogers being gently lifted before Astaire lets her down, the two spin, returning to the quiet waltz.

      Perhaps the most notable thing about this dance is Roger's beautiful white feathered dress (at least it appears white on the screen; the lining, so I have read, in reality was blue) that is so absolutely breathtaking a costume that we might forgive them, he in his tuxedo and she in the gown, if they merely stood there talking. Yet their graceful dancing equally transports us into "Heaven."

      Astaire and the director had tried to dissuade Rogers from wearing the dress, and as she began to dance, just as they feared, the feathers flew off every time she made a move. Astaire described it as something akin to "a chicken being attacked by a coyote." You can still see some few feathers floating through the air at scene's end. And after this event, Rogers' nickname became "feathers."

 

Los Angeles, April 16, 2011

Thornton Freeland | Flying Down to Rio / 1933 [dance only]

fred astaire and ginger rogers: their first flight

by Douglas Messerli

 

Erwin S. Gelsey, H. W. Hanemann and Cyril Hume (screenplay, based on a story by Lou Brock and a play by Anne Caldwell) Thornton Freeland (director) Flying Down to Rio / 1933

 

This film, Astaire's and Rogers' first pairing, would be hardly worth writing about were it not for some of the brilliant dance numbers by the famed duo, particularly in one of their first encounters in the Brazilian capitol, Rio de Janeiro.

     At a hotel nightclub the couple experience, for the first time, the local dance craze, the Carioca, "not a fox trot or a polka," where the couples dance forehead to forehead while rhythmically moving their feet in time to the nine note line, repeated before ending with eight off beats. Of course, after watching for a while, the American couple, both dressed elegantly in black, have to give it a try. The floor is cleared for their wonderful variations, at times—with foreheads locked—catching the off beats of music while, at other times, dancing stunningly in sync with the rhythm before Rogers spins off into a circle around her partner.

     It's all lovely to watch until the couple, banging foreheads together, stagger off in opposite directions as they comically mock the dizziness they suffer (a trick Astaire would use brilliantly as a drunk years later in Holiday Inn). As they make their ways back to their table, a whole chorus of dancers, choreographed by dance director Dave Gould and his assistant Hermes Pan, follow in the style of Busby Berkeley, uniformly dancing in identical costumes and movements up and down the stairway while Etta Moten warbles out the song's lyrics: "I'll dance the Carioca 'til the break of day."

 

Los Angles, February 28, 2011

Irwyn Franklin | Harlem Is Heaven / 1932 [dance only]

bill robinson : dancing up the steps

by Douglas Messerli

 

Edgar Dorwell, Porter Grainger, and Joe Jordon (original music), Irwyn Franklin (writer and director) Harlem Is Heaven / 1932

 

Franklin’s all black 1932 movie Harlem is Heaven is a disaster of story and acting, with an absolutely remarkable cast, nonetheless, of musicians and dancers, including Bill “Bojangels” Robinson and Eubie Blake and his Orchestra. Robinson is the center of this piece and does numerous numbers throughout, all of them brilliant. But the best of most famous dance, the “Step Dance” stands out as one of his most memorable dances of all time.

     In some respects, Robinson repeated this dance, or at least elements of it, three years later, as he strutted up and down a set of stairs with Shirley Temple in The Little Coronel, but in the original the simple set consisting of a small staircase of five steps up and five steps down better reveals his amazing footwork, and stunningly points up his simple but graceful dancing. And unlike the second “Step Dance,” he does not have to play an old “darky” to get the opportunity to strut his stuff.

     The dance begins with a simple multiple tap as he learns forward, exploring the steps as if he were perhaps afraid of undertaking the moves he is about to make. Then up the first step upon which he gently taps out a rhythm, before moving to the second and so, until he reaches the fifth, retreating back down the five stairs. But soon he is at the top again, this time moving rhythmically down the other side, and, with a renewed energy, moving up and down, (skipping one going down by twos, etc) back and forth in an incredible pattern of taps that surprise us with its simple variety of ascent and descent.

     Robinson displays little of the athleticism of the marvelous Nicholas brothers, but his grace and lithe moves cannot be matched. It’s as if this energized movement where a simple warm-up for something else—a leap across drums as he performs in the “Drum Dance” or the slip and slides of the marvelous sand dance of Stormy Weather. But there is something so abstract and pure about his “Step Dance,” that, in my estimation, it can’t be matched.

 

Los Angeles, April 2, 2011

Victor Heerman | Animal Crackers / 1930 [dance only]

groucho marx as a dancer

by Douglas Messerli

 

George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby (screenplay), Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby (music and lyrics), Victor Heerman (director) Animal Crackers / 1930

 

Looking back now on Groucho Marx's dance near the end of "Hello, I Must Be Going," we recognize just how physical the Brothers were. In many of their films, Groucho danced, in Duck Soup with two women at a time, alternating between a waltz, a rumba, a mad tango, and, finally, something like a Charleston—all of them containing dozens of other smaller steps that seem almost impossible to negotiate within the larger whole, including darting through the crowds from the arms of Margaret Dumont to the other woman.

  

   In Animal Crackers, however, the dance is pure Groucho as the rubber-legged comedian first does a Michael Jackson-like "Moonwalk," moving laterally across the floor in two directions seemingly without lifting his feet. A moment later he kicks, his riding boots set against his white safari pants, in an up and backward movement as if he had no joints. From there he simply joyously sets out on a series of leaping kicks, sideways and forward that add fun to the ridiculous lyrics:

 

(Spaulding)
Hello, I must be going,

I cannot stay, I came to say, I must be going.

I’m glad I came, but just the same I must be going.

La La.

(Mrs. Rittenhouse)

For my sake you must stay.

If you should go away,

You’d spoil this party I am throwing.

(Spaulding)
I’ll stay a week or two,

I’ll stay the summer thru,

But I am telling you,

I must be going.

 

     Groucho is a kind of naif dancer, a bit like the role Grandma Moses played in the world of art—except, of course, Marx is completely in the know, spoofing the very gracefulness of dance.

 

Los Angeles, March 11, 2011