Rent The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Musical Farce. - The Gay Divorcee review by Steve

This was Astaire and Rogers' first co-starring musical, adapted from a show that Fred Astaire had played on Broadway. The Gay Divorce established the archetypes of their early films. There's the splendidly unctuous Eric Blore, the idiotic toff played by Edward Everett Horton and the excellent Erik Rhodes as a very flawed Italian lothario. Alice Faye plays Ginger Rogers' customary comic sidekick.

There is the usual glamour, the exotic studio locations of Paris, London and... Brighton. Big deco sets, fabulous clothes, sophisticated romance and some of the greatest ballroom scenes every captured on film. The dialogue is just fair but the mistaken identity plot is excellent. Ginger intends to force a divorce by being compromised in her room by a stand-in lover.

Only for Fred to turn up instead. And much farce ensues. But fans mainly bought a ticket for the musical numbers and they are brilliant. And not just the stars... An irresistibly peppy Betty Grable does a featured ragtime solo Let's K-nock K-nees which is a riot. Fred is so suave performing Needle in a Haystack as he prepares to hit London in his bowler hat.

Fred and Ginger are stunning in the eighteen minute epic The Continental, which won the Oscar for best song. But for the sheer joy of just seeing them together, the best part of the film is the duo presenting Cole Porter's Night and Day. It's a seduction. They go into the dance as prickly strangers and emerge as lovers. After Top Hat, this is the next best of Astaire and Rogers.