The Barkleys of Broadway

"The Barkleys of Broadway" holds up well as a fun musical, especially significant as Fred and Ginger's final re-teaming effort. It's just downright good fun to see them together again, singing and dancing as only they can. What a delightful screen pair they are!

For their reunion and final screen pairing, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were teamed again by MGM in The Barkleys of Broadway. They play a pair of musical comedy performers who do have their occasional spats off the stage.

One thing Arthur Freed at MGM did for the pair was give them a better and more mature story to work with than they ever did at RKO back in the Thirties. That was part of the charm though, you didn't really care about the silliness of the plots with music written by folks like, Kern, Gershwin, Porter, and Berlin.

As in real life Fred was the creative one of the pair and he's criticizing Ginger a bit too much at times. So much so that she's very receptive to French director Jacques Francois's overtures to star in a straight dramatic play about young Sarah Bernhardt. This presents quite the dilemma for Fred in his professional and personal life.

Harry Warren and Ira Gershwin wrote the score for The Barkleys of Broadway. I like very much the song You'd Be Hard To Replace it so fits Fred and Ginger for singing and dancing.

Creative continuity was established with the RKO films as They Can't Take That Away From Me which was introduced in Shall We Dance and written by Ira and George Gershwin sung and danced elegantly here. It's one of my favorite ballads ever.

Oscar Levant is his usual laconic and witty self here who inflicts the Saber Dance on party guests and later does Tschaikovsky's Concerto in B Flat in the grand and classical style. Levant's reputation as a wit overshadows his very real skill as a pianist, but not in this film. Also his close association with the Gershwin brothers gives some more official continuity with this film.

I suppose Fred and Ginger could have done more films together, but I suppose that in The Barkleys of Broadway they left their fans on a high note. They'll never dancing partners like them ever again.

This is my first Astaire Rogers film and it was better than I expected. They are both good at the fast dialgue. Although older looking in this one, Ginger is pretty to look at. She has an intelligent wisecracking way about her in this film. It is fast paced and never lags. It is highly entertaining, and if this is one of their least watchable, I can't wait to see the others. The dialogue is quite witty. The storyline may be a little far-fetched, not exactly realistic, but a good picture. I enjoyed it more than some of the better known stuff. I would for instance take them over Hepburn and Tracy. They look good together visually. Someone did a clever job with their dressing table decor and attire. It is fun to watch them as they primp in front of the mirror and carry on with each other.

THE BARKLEYS OF Broadway was originally written to reunite Fred Astaire and Judy Garland after their smash hit EASTER PARADE; however, Judy was having a lot of health problems at the time and was unable to do the film, which paved the way for Ginger Rogers to reunite with her former film partner for the first time in ten years and for the first time in color. Sadly, this would also be their last film together but it is quite the send off for these dancing legends. The film, written by Betty Comden and Aldoph Green (SINGIN IN THE RAIN)follows a Broadway song and dance team named Josh and Dinah Barkley, who are at the peak of their careers, but Dinah feels like she's suffocating from Josh's Svengali-like grip on her career and decides she wants to become a serious actress. Of course, this story does parallel what happened with Astaire and Rogers ten years earlier when Rogers yearned to become a dramatic actress and actually won an Oscar the following year for KITTY FOYLE. The road to their inevitable reunion is predictable (and as for Ginger's interpretation of some French play, the less said the better)but the team;s dancing is still spectacular even after ten years away from each other. Their comic duet in Scottish kilts "Me One and Only Highland Fling" is a delight and Fred's solo "Shoes with Wings On" is brilliant, even though realistically, this number would be physically impossible to do in a theater as it is presented here, but I digress. And their final dance to "They Can't Take That Away From Me" is one of the loveliest pas de deuxs ever filmed. Not up to par with SINGIN IN THE RAIN or THE BAND WAGON, but classy entertainment with that beloved MGM gloss.

Except this vehicle is nothing like their other films at RKO. This is a MGM musical in the big MGM tradition. The whole thing was an accident. Judy Garland was supposed to have Ginger Rogers' role, but her chronic illness made a replacement necessary. Rogers and Astaire have the same old chemistry even if it is a different studio. They play feuding song and dance team Josh and Dinah Barkeley who break up personally and professionally over Dinah's desire to do dramatic acting and Josh's jealousy over who the author of the play is - a flirty Frenchman, Jacques.

At first Josh says he wants Dinah to fall on her face. But when he sees her actually stumble in rehearsals when he sneaks in to catch a peek, he blames it all on Jacques, who he says does not know how to direct her. So Josh comes up with a ruse in which he calls Dinah after rehearsals and pretends to be Jacques, complete with fake French accent, giving her cues on how to improve her performance based on what he has seen. Unfortunately it works too well. Dinah thinks even more of Jacques since he is helping her out with great tips, and Jacques is bowled over by Dinah's inexplicable improvement. How will this work out? Watch and find out.

Of course MGM spared no expense in the late 40s with the Arthur Freed unit, which made this film. There is beautiful Technicolor, comedy and masterful piano work from Oscar Levant, a great piece of special effects work by MGM and dancing by Astaire in the number "Shoes with Wings On" in which Astaire seems to be dancing side by side with pairs of tap shoes, and a ballroom number in which Fred and Ginger dance to "They Can't Take That Away From Me". Fred sang it to Ginger but the two did not dance to it in 1937's "Shall We Dance". Finally, Ginger's recitation of "La Marseillaise" when she plays "Young Sarah Bernhardt" in Jacques' play is a (probably) unintentional camp classic. Fortunately the French are forgiving people.

It was an unexpected reunion, but for fans of the big MGM musicals of the period and of Fred and Ginger in particular, I would highly recommend it.