(89 mins.) Released 1933-12-22
Director: Thornton Freeland
Stars: Dolores del Rio, Gene Raymond, Raul Roulien, Ginger Rogers
Dave Gould ... dance director
Hermes Pan ... assistant dance director (uncredited)
originally posted 15 Oct 2017 08:33
Same director as Whoopee!, but no other musicals in my collection. This is 2nd RKO entry here; they began distributing films in '28, producing in '29. Russ Tamblyn's father is one of the Yankee Clipper band members.
Watch for lots of creative transition wipes, as compiled here:
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/anansi00/clips/film-flying-down-to-rio-transition-compilation
The Carioca begins 40:45; F&G dance at 43:40 for 2 minutes, and again at 50:45 for 20 seconds. I don't like the edits they use to shorten the dance, but I do like the jazzier version danced by the black couples (starting 49:20 ). Etta Moten (from MFM in GD of '33) is the third soloist here, in darker makeup and with Brazilian fruit bandanna hat (as are the black dancers). End time: 52:20.
I swear that I've seen some other implementation of a forced landing, supposedly in an occupied area, only to have a golf course (or other high density civilization) on the other side of the trees, but I can't think of it.
At 1:03:45, Fred dances with Dolores to Orchids in the Moonlight intermittently through 1:05:25; just regular dance-floor moves, Astaire-style.
Fred solos to Music Makes Me at 1:06:45 through 1:08:05. Good stuff, but during some of it they do a bad closeup of his feet (the camera doesn't keep up with him, letting one foot or the other fall out of frame.)
The other memorable number is set to the title song, with women lashed to airplane wings to "dance" above ground. After footage showing the preparation, and more plot development, the dancing starts at 1:22:00 through 1:25:00.
And some background about the wing-dancing scene:
RKO, dir. Freeland; 7-
