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Saw a pre-Code tonight, Sitting Pretty (1933), sort of a required-but-hard-to-see film for us Gingerologists, as it has Ginger Rogers's first dance with a partner--none other than (The Tin Woosman) Jack Haley. They look good as a pair, and if the routine is only good and not inspired, it's clear that Ginger already has her dancing chops down before she meets Fred. The film is most interesting for its description of the chaos of a Hollywood studio in the 30s, the best scene takes place in the office of head of the studio, where in Marx Brothers fashion, he's trying to control 5 crisises at the same time. We hear a gunshot off screen and someone yells 'he's shot himself.'
The boss yells back: "He can't do that, I haven't fired him yet.' Or something like that.

For some inexplicable reason, thought Ginger looked somewhat less delicious than usual in this picture. Don't you think, in particular, her lip rouge appeared to have been applied by Joan Crawford? (i.e., with a trowel)

Haley, on the other hand, whom I ordinarily dislike for his stupid silliness (another "professional silly ass"), I found more appealing than usual & always like his singing.

You can catch the entire movie on YouTube. I don't generally care for Jack Haley either, but for some reason he was quite good in this film. I especially liked Ginger Rogers singing --Did You Ever See A dream Walking.

donwc1996 wrote: I especially liked Ginger Rogers singing --Did You Ever See A dream Walking.

She saw that any time she passed a mirror!

Ginger Rogers strikes me as a huge success of a 'generalist.' She's pretty, but not drop-dead gorgeous (something, sadly that became more important in the last few decades....how many Hollywood actresses these days have NOT have nose jobs or some kind of major plastics work), she's a very good dancer, but not on a professional level (like someone who's been training since the age of 6), and a good actress, if not at the top rung (no real training other than work experience), she was still very versatile, but with special talent for comedy (her timing of repartee was excellent). Put them all together and she made almost every film she was in better, although I agree Sitting Pretty was not a good role for her...almost anyone could have played that role. In trying to separate her out from all the other talented actresses of her day, I would say that Rogers was a very physical actress, and I mean by that she was at ease with her own body and could 'project herself' very well into the screen space that we see as an audience. That makes her stand out the moment she had a chance to step out of the chorus line.

I think the problem with Sitting Pretty is simple: Harry Joe Brown, the guy who directed it. His camera set ups are pedestrian and the pace is usually wrong, or slower than it should be. And he doesn't light Ginger very well. We're used to seeing her light up the screen because they're paying a lot of attention to makeup and lighting. But not in this film--except for a few musical numbers, he's not doing what he can to make her look beautiful. Yeah, that's the D.P.'s job, but it's really the director's job, especially in this era. I checked up Brown's directing credentials. About 40 films and I didn't recognize a single title.

Lokke Heiss wrote: she's a very good dancer, but not on a professional level (like someone who's been training since the age of 6),

Does training in Vaudeville count?

gjohnson wrote:

Lokke Heiss wrote: she's a very good dancer, but not on a professional level (like someone who's been training since the age of 6),

Does training in Vaudeville count?

Seems it should...even if "watch me" or "follow this" was the full extent of her instruction. Furthermore, she had to have been naturally talented to win the Charleston contest that (if true) supposedly jump-started her career. (Wish to God that had been filmed!) "Training since the age of 6" is certainly required in "professional level" ballet, but is it really imperative for Broadway-style dancing? And what better professional level training could anyone have than working with Astaire?

Aside from ballet and maybe ballroom, what "professional" dancing was common in the teens, 20s, 30s? Even dancers of Broadway in these years were not necessarily professional in the meaning of decades of dance training. When exactly did tap dancing become the major form of Broadway dancing? In the decades mentioned, the only real "professional" dance training was likely to have come from Denishawn dance studios, which didn't produce tap dancers but produced the likes of Martha Graham and the other modernes. Notably, Louise Brooks, certainly not remembered for her dancing, was a member of Denishawn's touring company for years.

Dancers who hit the first round of Hollywood musicals were not "dancers" in the modern conception of Astaire, Rogers, Powell, etc. When you watch the early dancers or productions numbers, there's very little tap but lots of "dance movement" and simple steps that involve little more than moving in time to the music. Watching the early dance routines of Crawford, Davies, Mackaill, and even Keeler show pretty clearly that their "dance steps" were picked up as they went along. They had native talent but were not trained or polished in what would become the Hollywood standard.

You have to wonder exactly when the amazing tap talents of Powell or Ann Miller were learned. Certainly doesn't seem they could have been trained as children in tap.

drednm wrote: In the decades mentioned, the only real "professional" dance training was likely to have come from Denishawn dance studios, which didn't produce tap dancers but produced the likes of Martha Graham and the other modernes. Notably, Louise Brooks, certainly not remembered for her dancing, was a member of Denishawn's touring company for years.

Wichita Eagle, December 17, 1940
Has a Manual On Dancing Art-
Louise Brooks Writes a Comprehensive Booklet
Has Wide Experience
"A contribution to the field of ballroom dancing literature reached leading Wichita news stands this month as Louise Brooks' "The Fundamentals of Good Ballroom Dancing" went on sale.
Written by Wichita's Louise Brooks, the booklet on ballroom dancing thoroughly codifies and synthesizes the fundamental basics of ballroom dancing technique in a handy, pocket-size manual.
The popular priced publication is not only for the sincere student of dancing and those hundreds to whom dancing affords a major recreation, but for the thousands who dance only occasionally and need the knowledge and sureness that comes from the application of simple rules and basic fundamentals of movement.
This purpose is adequately described in the booklet's foreword, ". . . this booklet is restricted solely to the outline and review of those basic fundamentals that are the essence of good dancing wherever discriminating people gather. . . . Regardless of one's knowledge of dancing, the application of the fundamentals outlined in these pages will permit anyone to improve his or her dancing immeasurably and give the sureness and poise that comes from a firm foundation of propriety and taste.
Miss Brooks' experience as a star of the stage and screen and an exhibition dancer who has performed in the leading social resorts of two continents lend to her composition the authoritative touch gleaned by her cosmopolitan life and her association with the world's finest ballroom dancers."

Yes. Long after her last Hollywood comeback had failed, Brooks toured the nightclub circuit in a dance act with a male partner.....

By 'professional' I was making a joke about having to pair up with Astaire, who probably never had a dance partner so well matched as his sister--I think for him it was all downhill with dance partners after that.

And I was making a point about his later dance partners, who (I think) were either classically trained (ballet, etc.) or spent many years focusing on dance, more than any other the other arts. You do something 3-6 hours a day for 5-10 years, and you get pretty good at it. Look at almost all the pro tennis players; they almost all start from age 6 to 9 and have put thousands of hours into practice before they're done with high school.

I think Gingers' vaudeville experience was essential, but not for learning dance steps, rather for learning how to move and being comfortable with her own body. The nearest person I can match her up with is Marion Davies, who also that ease of movement that translates well onto the screen, and as we know, started her career in vaudeville. But a lot of actresses started in vaudeville...it was a good place to get this kind of experience.

Sorry. Marion Davies was NEVER EVER in Vaudeville. She had small parts in a series of Broadway shows (including shows for Ziegfeld) before going into films in 1917 before she ever met Hearst. Of course many other stars of the era were in Vaudeville before or after screen stardom, but Marion Davies was not one of them.

In 1978 I had the good fortune to meet Ginger Rogers, at The Cave (now demolished) here in Vancouver, Canada. She was doing a full-evening show, singing and dancing. I got the paper I worked for — The Georgia Straight — to arrange an interview, and I went along as photographer and co-interviewer. Afterward she kissed me on the right cheek! [26 September 1978]

drednm wrote:Sorry. Marion Davies was NEVER EVER in Vaudeville. She had small parts in a series of Broadway shows (including shows for Ziegfeld) before going into films in 1917 before she ever met Hearst. Of course many other stars of the era were in Vaudeville before or after screen stardom, but Marion Davies was not one of them.

Excuse my grievous mistake, using the word 'vaudeville,' the lowbrow cousin of a Broadway show. I meant to say 'theater.'
My point stays the same: Getting experience being on the stage was important for both of these women and I'm sure a lot of other actors and they learned how to walk and move, in a sense they learned how to look natural when doing things that were inherently unnatural.

Lokke Heiss wrote:

drednm wrote:Sorry. Marion Davies was NEVER EVER in Vaudeville. She had small parts in a series of Broadway shows (including shows for Ziegfeld) before going into films in 1917 before she ever met Hearst. Of course many other stars of the era were in Vaudeville before or after screen stardom, but Marion Davies was not one of them.

Excuse my grievous mistake, using the word 'vaudeville,' the lowbrow cousin of a Broadway show. I meant to say 'theater.'
My point stays the same: Getting experience being on the stage was important for both of these women and I'm sure a lot of other actors and they learned how to walk and move, in a sense they learned how to look natural when doing things that were inherently unnatural.

From what I've seen of the early talkies reproducing various Broadway and Broadway-style shows, and vaudeville acts as well, much of the 1920s "dancing" appears to be more closely related to gymnastics and acrobatics than to ballet or later traditional dance moves. All dancers must be formidable athletes, but before the 1930s many of their routines seem to be more like athletic workouts than aesthetic dance moves, perhaps comparable to today's hybrid dance-like athletic performances of cheerleader routines.

Christopher Jacobs wrote:From what I've seen of the early talkies reproducing various Broadway and Broadway-style shows, and vaudeville acts as well, much of the 1920s "dancing" appears to be more closely related to gymnastics and acrobatics than to ballet or later traditional dance moves. All dancers must be formidable athletes, but before the 1930s many of their routines seem to be more like athletic workouts than aesthetic dance moves, perhaps comparable to today's hybrid dance-like athletic performances of cheerleader routines.

Minus the grotesque vulgarity, I'm sure you mean.

The "acrobatics" to which you refer usually applied only to solo performers, not the chorus-line itself, the simple, rather naive, routines of which I ADORE. But cartwheels & other gymnastic stunts certainly seemed to be standard elements of solo acts--like the dancing padre in Broadway Melody, or smokin'-hot Penny Singleton in Good News.

A really good example of chorus-line work in early musicals is the "Singin' in the Rain" number in Hollywood Revue of 1929. The male and female dancers move in time to the music, but the majority of the routine is a series of synchronized arm movements. Despite the lack of "dance," it's a wonderful routine and works perfectly.

Brown moved over to producing rather than directing pretty early-- except for two mid-40s films, right after Sitting Pretty-- and he has at least one notable set of credits as a producer: he produced the Budd Boetticher-Randolph Scott-Burt Kennedy westerns in the mid-50s.

He's nominally the subject of one of the few Masquers Roast recordings to survive, in which Jack Benny, George Burns, George Jessel and Art Linkletter all work blue (well, Benny doesn't really, but that's more than made up for by the fact that Linkletter says the F word-- TV stars say the darnedest things!) I say nominally because actually none of them says a single word about him, at least in the part that survives.

drednm wrote:A really good example of chorus-line work in early musicals is the "Singin' in the Rain" number in Hollywood Revue of 1929. The male and female dancers move in time to the music, but the majority of the routine is a series of synchronized arm movements. Despite the lack of "dance," it's a wonderful routine and works perfectly.

Absolutely it does--I LOVE it! Especially since, prior to seeing Uke Ike's rendition, I'd passionately HATED Gene Kelly's performance of the song.

entredeuxguerres wrote:

drednm wrote:A really good example of chorus-line work in early musicals is the "Singin' in the Rain" number in Hollywood Revue of 1929. The male and female dancers move in time to the music, but the majority of the routine is a series of synchronized arm movements. Despite the lack of "dance," it's a wonderful routine and works perfectly.

Absolutely it does--I LOVE it! Especially since, prior to seeing Uke Ike's rendition, I'd passionately HATED Gene Kelly's performance of the song.

I think it's one of the great production numbers. Cliff Edwards, the Brox Sisters, and the Brox parody with Marie Dressler, Bessie Love, and Polly Moran. Plus the great dance number with that art deco set and mirrored floor. Something for everyone! Even falsetto scatting by Edwards.....

1933 was the most prolific year in Ginger Rogers' career. She appeared in at least 10 films, including 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, Sitting Pretty, and Flying Down to Rio.

The "Dream Walking" production number in Sitting Pretty could well have been directed by Busby Berkeley, but wasn't. It's that good. Berkeley's similar "Web of Dreams" number in Fashions of 1934 was released nearly 3 months later, so who was copying whom? Both numbers feature chorines in very skimpy costumes playing peek-a-boo with ostrich feathers, and both were clearly inspired by Sally Rand's sensational feather dance at the Chicago Exposition in the summer of 1933.

Jim Gettys

Lokke Heiss wrote:By 'professional' I was making a joke about having to pair up with Astaire, who probably never had a dance partner so well matched as his sister--I think for him it was all downhill with dance partners after that.

Are you still making jokes? They're getting funnier.
As popular as the Astaires were as a dance team it was actually quite limiting for Astaire's growth as a dancer to be paired constantly with his sister. Their numbers could never be romantic or even sensual - that left it at rhythmic and 'goof' numbers. And while Astaire was choreographing their numbers early on he knew his sister was the star attraction and always gave her the spotlight on stage. He didn't begin experimenting with tap until around the mid-Twenties. He didn't take his own solo number until FUNNY FACE (27) and it wasn't until his final show with his sister - THE BANDWAGON (31) - that he began branching out and danced with other women in the cast.

Years later Adele herself admitted that even if she hadn't retired from the stage to get married that her brother was biting at the bit to go out on his own and see what he could accomplish. Or would you had rather just see him perform endless variations of 'the Runaround' the rest of his career?

gjohnson wrote:He didn't begin experimenting with tap until around the mid-Twenties.

This floors me; good riddance, then, to Adele.

An adult brother-sister dance act is rather creepy....

Subject: Sitting Pretty (1933)

drednm wrote:An adult brother-sister dance act is rather creepy....

Even worse, a father-daughter dance act (Rita Hayworth)

Buddy Ebsen also danced with sister Vilma in a number of vaudeville and Broadway shows and in Broadway Melody of 1936. But then he was a creepy dance all on his own.....

Yes, the joke I was making was regarding the 'professional' comment, since Adele certainly had the years of service. All that time invested doesn't guarantee you'll be good, but it's an obvious start. And we'll never really know how good she was or how good she could have become if she'd kept at it like her brother. I've never seen any eyewitness reports that said anything bad about her dancing, if anyone knows of any, I'd like to hear them.

And I'm glad to know I'm getting funnier. "Tragedy is easy, comedy is hard."