Cheap Shall We Dance (Video) (Mark Sandrich) Price

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Customer Reviews of Shall We Dance

This is their best picture together.
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>With Fred and Ginger joined by George and Ira... This is their best picture together. <
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>We begin in Paris, where Fred is Petrov the "Russian" ballet dancer who is really Peter P Peters of Philadelphia PA. Ginger is Laura Keen, American musical dancing star. They meet because Fred has seen her picture and fallen in love with her. He calls but at that moment Ginger has had her fill of adoring male fans and it doesn't help matters that Pete puts on a fake Russian accent "("I must go to Moscow...") and manages to so disorient Ginger that she packs her bags and sets sail for America. <
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>Edward Everett Horton, who is Fred's perfect comedic foil here as in others of their films, plays the ballet impresario Jeffery Baird--dithering and droll as ever. He and Fred book on the same ship as Ginger ("The Queen Anne") a deco delight of the seas with teardrop shaped windows and other streamlining that would make the Normandie and Isle de France blush. After a gangway encounter that does not go terribly well, Fred tries to make amends. At first Ginger is icy but as always, she begins to melt... <
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>For a time, however, Fred more or less disappears and is AWOL from ballet rehearsals. That is because he loves modern music and to prove it we get "Slap that Bass" one of Fred's very best solo numbers, as he picks up the rhythms of the black combo and combines it with the sounds of the ship's engines to create what is a "look ma no hands!" kind of a tour de force tap dancing solo. <
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>Also on board a lot of zaniness occurs as Fred, along with Ginger's manger named Arthur Miller (!), played by Jerome Cowan in one of his best rolls, fool Horton into thinking in one scene that he is seasick, and in another that the ship is on fire and in danger of sinking. Both are hilarious. <
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>Back to the wooing, there was never such sophisticated courting music as George's captivating "Walking the Dog" (except perhaps for the similarly engaging incidental music by the pool in "The Philadelphia Story"). Fred woos Ginger by endearing himself to a passel of pooches, and her little dog, too. <
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>Once he knows and she knows that they have fallen for one another he sings the marvelous "Beginners Luck" at the ship's rail. This is one of several moments in the film where they do not feel that they have to go into their dance in order to convey the meaning of the song. And it is a great introduction to one of the many Gershwin standards they introduce in this picture. <
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>Confusion is rife however due to a ruse that Horton created to get a designing woman, former ballet dancer Denise AKA Lady Tarrington, off Fred's trail. Horton has said that Fred is married and Lady T. being a loose lipped kind of a gal buys the story and spreads the word. Everyone on two continents and on the liner jump to the not unlikely conclusion that the wife in question is Miss Keen. When word leaks out, Ginger leaves in a hurry, taking off in the mail plane, catapulted from the deck of the liner--way to travel! <
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>Stateside, Horton and Eric Blore as the hotel manager get into a mistaken identity bit of dialogue that is priceless. Soon, Ginger introduces the wonderful "They All Laughed", wearing the only flawed gown in the film, what we here at home call The Amoeba Dress. She thinks she is done but Fred leaps up and tells the crowded night club that now he and she are going to dance together for the first time in public. Here is one of their "make it up as we go" numbers and from Ginger's first timid twist onward it works beautifully. They combine Fred's ballet steps with Ginger's Broadway hoofing and it all blends like a good cocktail. <
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>One wishes that Ginger had switched out the wardrobe, however and worn the fringed gold lame dress she had on in Paris... <
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>More confusion ensues...Poor hotel manager Blore keeps changing the locks on Fred and Ginger's adjoining suites as he wails, "Mrs. Petrov are you Miss Keen? Miss Keen are you Mrs. Petrov?" Hiding out from the paparazzi Ginger and Fred make for Central Park where they engage in the latest craze of roller skating to the witty and unforgettable Po-TAY-toe, Pa-TAH-toe song, "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off". This kind of dance novelty was one of Fred's fortes and they both are wonders on wheels. <
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>In order to be able to stop the rumors they decided to get married in order to get divorced to prove that they aren't married--this is after all a screwball comedy, so they go to New Jersey to wed where Fred asks what the grounds are for divorce in this state and the Justice of the Peace answers, "Marriage." On the way home on the Ferry they get out of their marvelous car and Fred sings the lovely "They Can't Take That Away From Me". Ginger's eyes well with tears and we know that they are both deeply in love even as they are going ahead with their plan to divorce. <
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>Papers need to be served and this winds Blore in jail where one of the funniest comic bits ever filmed occurs between him and Horton, its' appeal rivals the famous "Whose on First?" <
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>The whole cast assembles for a review in which Ginger is not to appear, so Fred dances with Harriet Hocker who is flexible indeed while the rest of them engage in a shushing contest with the audience. Ginger is reunited with Fred when she sees that since he cannot dance with her, he is dancing with scores of girls with Ginger masks. The set is great, lots of mirrors that open and close and a lot of business with the masks until Fred finds the one and only dancer who is really Ginger, all of this to the peppy "Shall We Dance?" <
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>Fred and Ginger have the last laugh and keep us smiling, too. <
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>Yes, friends, this is another RKO Radio Picture. <
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Fred, Ginger, Edward Everett Horton and Eric Blore
"Shall We Dance" introduced some of the great Gershwin songs that more than half a century later were included in shows such as "Crazy for You." Not only are Fred and Ginger at the top of their form, but we also enjoy the great Edward Everett Horton at his double-taking best, and the under-rated Eric Blore at his supercilious-est. The "Slap that Bass" number epitomizes Hollywood's grudging recognition that Blacks possessed great talents, but these could not be shown in any scenes in which they were equal to Whites. The roller-skating scene is another classic, and according to some accounts, required some 150 takes to make it look so smooth.