Actors - Blue Skies

Home > Listing Index > Actors > Blue Skies (film)

	Actors - Blue Skies

Blue Skies Paramount is a 1946 Hollywood musical comedy film starring Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Joan Caulfield, Olga San Juan and Billy De Wolfe, with music, lyrics and story by Irving Berlin. The film was directed by Stuart Heisler and produced by Sol C. Siegel.

As in Holiday Inn (1942), the film is designed to showcase the songs of Irving Berlin. The plot, which is presented in a series of flashbacks with Astaire as narrator, follows a similar formula of Crosby beating Astaire for the affections of a leading lady. Comedy is principally provided by Billy De Wolfe.

Tap dancer Paul Damer was the initial choice to partner Bing Crosby, however, during the first week of production Damer's speech impediment led Crosby to insist on his replacement by Astaire who, then forty-seven, had already decided that this would be his final film and that he would retire, having spent over forty years performing before the public. The film was billed as "Astaire's last picture" and its very strong performance at the box office pleased him greatly, as he had dearly wanted to go out on a high note.

The reasons for Astaire's (temporary) retirement remain a source of debate: his own view that he was "tired and running out of gas", the sudden collapse in 1945 of the market for Swing music which left many of his colleagues in jazz high and dry, a desire to devote time to establishing a chain of dancing schools, and a dissatisfaction with roles, as in this film, where he was regulated to playing second fiddle to the lead. Ironically, it is for his celebrated solo performance of "Puttin' On The Ritz" that this film is most remembered today.

Key songs/dance routines:

Crosby applies his famous relaxed crooning style to the many songs he delivers here. In contrast, Astaire, assisted by choreographers Hermes Pan and Dave Robel (for the "Puttin' On The Ritz" routine), delivers a series of dances which explore the theme of controntation, both with partners and with the audience. As a result, it is one of only a few Astaire films not to feature a romantic partnered dance.

"A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody": Berlin's 1919 song is presented as part of a big Ziegfeld Follies production number, an aesthetic which Astaire parodies in this partnered dance with Caulfield and others. In the first of a series of references to films he made earlier in the 1940s, he reprises a tap sequence performed atop a bar counter in the "One For My Baby" number from The Sky's the Limit
(1943), this time danced down a stairway.

"I've Got My Captain Working For Me Now": This song, originally composed in 1919, is performed by Crosby, backed up by Billy De Wolfe.

"You'd Be Surprised": Another 1919 song, this time performed by Olga San Juan.

"All By Myself": Crosby performs this 1921 song to Caulfield, who harmonizes with him in the closing phrases.

"Serenade To An Old-Fashioned Girl": Caulfied sings this number, specially written for the film.

"Puttin' On The Ritz": Although Berlin's 1930 song was originally written for vaudevillian Harry Richman, it has become indelibly associated with Astaire, who also recorded it for Columbia in 1930. In this tap solo with cane, which was widely billed as "Astaire's last dance", the lyrics are updated, replacing racist references to ritzy Harlemites with wealthy whites strutting their stuff up and down Park Avenue. The routine was produced after the rest of the film had been completed, and according to Astaire, it took "five weeks of back-breaking physical work" to prepare. It is constructed in three sections, beginning in a dull book-lined office with a tired-looking Astaire showing his years and dressed in his trademark top hat, white tie and tails. Here Astaire delivers the song while executing a gentle tap and cane solo in mock slow-motion, in an amusing parody of his impending retirement. The song finished, he returns to normal speed and proceeds to dance aroung the office while executing an ingenious jumping cane routine which relied on a concealed floor trigger mechanism. Thus rejuvenated, Astaire sweeps aside a pair of drab curtains to reveal a chorus of nine Fred Astaires - achieved by filming two separate versions of Astaire, repeating them four times and interleaving them. The final section is a greatly speeded up repeat of the tune which accompanies a routine of spell-binding virtuosity for Astaire and chorus. In "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" from Top Hat
(1935), Astaire proceeded to machine-gun his chorus dancers with his cane. This time, Astaire joins his chorus in adopting a confrontational, at times almost menacing posture towards his audience. In 1957, on the brink of yet another temporary retirement, Astaire wittily refers back to this routine in the self-parodying "The Ritz, Roll And Rock" number from Silk Stockings
.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Blue Skies (film) ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Blue Skies (film); it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay