Shall We Dance (1937 film)
Shall We Dance is a 1937 American musical comedy film directed by Mark Sandrich. It is the seventh of the ten Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers films. The story follows an American ballet dancer (Astaire) who falls in love with a tap dancer (Rogers); the tabloid press concocts a story of their marriage, after which life imitates art. George Gershwin wrote the symphonic underscore and Ira Gershwin the lyrics, for their second Hollywood musical.
For other artistic works with this title, see Shall We Dance (disambiguation).Shall We Dance
- George Gershwin (music)
- Ira Gershwin (lyrics)
RKO Radio Pictures
- May 7, 1937 (U.S.)
109 minutes
United States
English
$991,000[2]
$2,168,000[2]
Plot[edit]
Peter P. Peters is an amiable American ballet dancer billed as "Petrov", who cultivates a public image of being a serious, demanding and temperamental Russian, though his employer knows the truth. Peters dances for a ballet company in Paris owned by the bumbling Jeffrey Baird. Baird secretly never wants to blend classical ballet with modern jazz dancing because he thinks it does not look very professional.
When Peters sees a photo of famous tap dancer, Linda Keene, he falls in love with her. He contrives to meet her (as "Petrov"), but she is less than impressed. They meet again on an ocean liner traveling back to New York, and Linda warms to Petrov. Their interactions spark a tabloid campaign that they are (or are perhaps not) married. Unknown to them, their associates create a publicity stunt "proving" their proper marriage. Outraged, Linda becomes engaged to the bumbling Jim Montgomery, much to the chagrin of both Peters and Arthur Miller, her manager, who secretly launches more fake publicity.
Peters (who by now has revealed his true identity) and Keene, unable to squelch the rumor, decide to actually marry and then immediately get divorced. Linda begins to fall in love with her husband, but then discovers him with another woman, Lady Denise Tarrington, and leaves before he can explain. Later, when she comes to his new show to personally serve him divorce papers, she sees him dancing with dozens of women, all wearing masks with her face on them: Peters has decided that if he cannot dance with Linda, he will dance with images of Linda. Seeing that he truly loves her, she happily joins him onstage.
Production[edit]
The idea for the film originated in the studio's desire to exploit the successful formula created by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart with their 1936 Broadway hit On Your Toes.[5] In a major coup for RKO, Pandro Berman managed to attract the Gershwins – George Gershwin, who wrote the symphonic underscore, and Ira Gershwin, the lyrics – to score this, their second Hollywood musical after Delicious in 1931.
The film – Astaire and Rogers's most expensive to date – benefits from quality comedy specialists, opulent art direction by Carroll Clark under Van Nest Polglase's supervision, and a timeless score which introduces three classic Gershwin songs.[6]
Astaire was no stranger to the Gershwins, having headlined, with his sister Adele, two Gershwin Broadway shows: Lady Be Good! in 1924 and Funny Face in 1927. George Gershwin also accompanied the pair on piano in a set of recordings in 1926. Rogers first came to Hollywood's attention when she appeared in the Gershwins' 1930 stage musical Girl Crazy.[7]
Shall We Dance was named at the suggestion of Vincente Minnelli, who was a friend of the Gershwins. Minnelli originally suggested "Shall We Dance?" with a question mark, which disappeared at some point.
The car used on the ferry was 1936 Packard Twelve Coupe Roadster.[8]
Shall We Dance earned $1,275,000 in the US and Canada and $893,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $413,000, less than half the previous Astaire-Rogers film.[2] It also was not a critical success and was taken as an indication that the Astaire-Rogers pairing was slipping in its audience appeal.[9]
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
Preservation status[edit]
On September 22, 2013 it was announced that a musicological critical edition of the full orchestral score of Shall We Dance will eventually be released. The Gershwin family, working in conjunction with the Library of Congress and the University of Michigan, are working to make scores available to the public that represent Gershwin's true intent.[11] The entire Gershwin project may take 30 to 40 years to complete, and it is unclear when Shall We Dance will be released.[12] Other than the sequences Hoctor's Ballet and Walking The Dog, it will be the first time the score has been published.[13]