Ein Fräulein in Nöten

Fred Astaire, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Joan Fontaine. A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS (1937) may seem like a curiosity piece, but it's really a great, lesser-known movie. It's a fun comedy/musical in the vein of the Astaire/Rogers films of the decade. You can't really go wrong with a Fred Astaire movie, particularly from the black & white days. Astaire was so likable and charming on-screen. He was great at comedy, he could carry a tune, and brother could he ever dance.

The romance plot is set up with Astaire playing an American dancer traveling abroad and Joan Fontaine playing a young noblewoman who doesn't want to marry the eligible bachelors at home. The two meet and through a series of misunderstandings, Fred comes to believe that Joan is in love with him. She isn't at first, but if you've seen enough of these light-hearted Hollywood rom-coms, you know what happens. Fontaine's servants have bets on who she will marry, and they try to influence the romantic outcome in their favor.

George Burns and Gracie Allen are comedy legends. They're not known for their feature films, but they really sparkle in this one as Astaire's sidekicks. Their comedy bits are golden and they even join Fred for some dancing.

The rest of the supporting cast is great, particularly Reginald Gardiner and Montagu Love. Joan Fontaine, very early in her career, is absolutely lovely.

The music is from George and Ira Gershwin and is pretty good, if not as memorable as some of the music from the Astaire/Rogers flicks. I recognized "Nice Work If You Can Get It" and "A Foggy Day". There are a few wonderful dance sequences, including a wildly inventive fun house scene with Astaire, Burns, Allen, and a crowd of extras. There's also a tremendous solo routine where Astaire tap dances and plays a drum set-- with his feet.

I caught this gem on TCM and I'm glad I did. I'm a huge Fred Astaire fan and this movie fits right in with his others. Plus it's got the added comedic bonus of George Burns and Gracie Allen. The movie is a lot of fun and it's got a nice little love story. It's time well spent if you're a classic movie fan. I just wish this forgotten treasure was more readily available.

There's a perfectly good reason why Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made nine films together between 1933 and 1939 – the pairing worked! Astaire's toe-tappin' class was complemented perfectly by the light-hearted comedic charms of his female co-star, and that he and Rogers never overshadowed each other was crucial to the success of their collaborations. 'A Damsel in Distress (1937)' sees Astaire, for the first time since his debut, momentarily set adrift from this celebrated partnership. It's a pleasant and enjoyable musical comedy, but it doesn't entirely work because Fred is clearly the main attraction, creating an imbalance of tone that feels somehow unsatisfying. Joan Fontaine, in an early role, fills in as the primary romantic interest; she's not particularly convincing here – but, geez, she's gorgeous! – and her charms would carry her along sufficiently until her superb star-making performance in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rebecca (1940).' Husband-and-wife vaudeville duo George Burns and Gracie Allen provide most of the welcome comic relief, which is basically an extension of their popular stage act.

'A Damsel in Distress' was directed by George Stevens {who had previously worked with Astaire in 'Swing Time (1936)} and adapted by P.G. Wodehouse from his own 1919 novel. Jerry Halliday (Astaire) is a famous American dancer, frustrated by all his publicity, who falls in love with the beautiful Lady Alyce Marshmorton (Fontaine), whom he believes has inexplicably fallen in love with him. What Jerry doesn't realise is that Lady Alyce has actually fallen in love with a different (unseen) American, and that he is being misled by the staff at Tottney Castle, who have placed bets on who their mistress will eventually marry. Reginald Gardiner hilariously hams it up as Keggs, the scheming butler who apparently can't resist belting out an opera when the appropriate music starts playing. Burns and Allen provide the necessary supporting back-up (even matching Astaire step-for-step in the "Fun House" musical number), with the latter playing the ditsy eccentric with perfect composure, utilising more cringeworthy puns than Groucho Marx in 'Duck Soup (1933).'

George Gershwin played a significant role in getting Stevens' film made in the first place, and his songs were completed before script-work actually began. Tragically, the composer died from a brain tumour before production was completed. There were not quite as many musical numbers as I had expected, and very few stood out in my memory like Astaire's greatest tunes. Nevertheless, the "Fun House" number was an elaborate, precisely-orchestrated dance sequence, making superb use of reflections, moving sets and confined spaces. Most memorable of all was Astaire's rendition of "A Foggy Day (In London Town)," performed as the actor traipses gracefully through a fog-ridden forest. Joan Fontaine was the first actress to admit her insufficient capacity to play a convincing terpsichorean, and so she only attempts it once, and, all things considered, she doesn't embarrass herself all that much. She is, of course, always a joy to watch, but her character's "I love you… now I hate you… no, wait, I love you again" routine is overdone and unpersuasive.

Disregard the plot and enjoy Fred Astaire doing A Foggy Day and several other dances, one a duo with a hapless Joan Fontaine. Here we see Astaire doing what are essentially "stage" dances in a purer form than in his films with Ginger Rogers, and before he learned how to take full advantage of the potential of film. Best of all: the fact that we see Burns and Allen before their radio/TV husband-wife comedy career, doing the kind of dancing they must have done in vaudeville and did not have a chance to do in their Paramount college films from the 30s. (George was once a tap dance instructor). Their two numbers with Fred are high points of the film, and worth waiting for. The first soft shoe trio is a warm-up for the "Chin up" exhilarating carnival number, in which the three of them sing and dance through the rides and other attractions. It almost seems spontaneous. Fan of Fred Astaire and Burns & Allen will find it worth bearing up under the "plot". I've seen this one 4 or 5 times, and find the fast forward button helpful.

Rarely does a novelist have the opportunity to participate in the adaptation of one of his own stories for the screen, but such was the case with Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975). The 1937 movie, A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS, was the first and only time he assisted in transposing his prose to film.

A Damsel in Distress had initially been filmed back in 1919, at the time of its original publication, in a version faithful to the novel. In 1928 Wodehouse had collaborated on a stage version with Ian Hay, which had condensed and rearranged some scenes for the limitations of the proscenium, while retaining the highlights of the book. On the advice of George Gershwin, RKO producer Pandro Berman bought the screen rights to A Damsel in Distress in November 1936. Gershwin had collaborated in the theater with Wodehouse before he wrote the novel, and Gershwin believed that the character of the music writer named George Bevan in A Damsel in Distress was based on him. Gershwin's nine songs for the film were composed before the script was written, and he actually died during production of the movie. A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS had an unusual follow-up: in 1998, the score of the film, along with several songs Gershwin had written but which were not used in the picture, were included in a new stage musical of the Wodehouse novel, this time entitled A Foggy Day for one of the songs.

RKO was interested in filming A Damsel in Distress because the novel's romantic lead was a musical comedy composer, allowing a singer and dancer to be cast in the role--and RKO needed a Fred Astaire vehicle. Scripting was already well underway when Wodehouse was asked to assist in May 1937, and shooting took place from July 22 to October 16, while work on the script continued until September 25 (Wodehouse left on August 14). The recurring gag of everyone infectiously saying "Right-ho" to one another seems a nod to Wodehouse's presence on the movie. Similarly, the song "Stiff Upper Lip" is the most colloquial in its wording, and reminiscent of the Wodehouse prose in its lyrics. Like the Ian Hay stage version, A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS retained the basic plot outline of the novel, but unlike the play, the movie also deleted and merged a number of the characters, and added others, becoming a second, separate Wodehouse variation on the novel. Ideas from the novel are used, but combined with fresh material, as the movie increasingly strays from the source. To add box-office insurance, George Burns and Gracie Allen were brought in from Paramount to partner Astaire in gags and dance routines. Burns and Allen play Jerry's press agent and his secretary, using their own names as they did in most of their movies of this time. While their participation was definitely outside the original, and the humor different from the Wodehouse style, Burns and Allen provide the movie with additional amusement.

Joan Fontaine was cast opposite Astaire. She had just been placed under contract to RKO, and was only then emerging from low-budget films; her first successful starring role would not be until1940 with REBECCA. The casting of Burns and Allen was partly to compensate for the risk associated with placing a relative unknown as the love interest. Whereas previous Astaire films had emphasized a partnership, and the grace of the romantic dancing duet with Ginger Rogers, A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS placed Astaire front and center, emphasizing the solitary aspect of his performance. Fontaine and Astaire have only one brief number together, simultaneously inviting comparison with Rogers yet demonstrating that she was unable to dance adequately opposite Astaire. Only the presence of Burns and Allen keep the entire picture from pivoting entirely on Astaire. The expectations of a romantic musical comedy usually call for a couple at the center, but A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS opts for a solitary lead, or at most a trio (when Burns and Allen are also on screen)-an inherent imbalance in the genre. Fontaine believed that the movie actually set her career back several years. Reginald Gardiner had played the role of Percy, the antagonist in the romances, in the Hay version on the London stage. In the movie, by contrast, the character of Percy is eliminated, and Gardiner is cast as Keggs the butler, who becomes a much more sprightly and unlikely character than in the novel. Gardiner was an ideal choice, an English comedian in the same tradition as Wodehouse. A major screen credit seemed to open up the possibility of a new career for Wodehouse, but when A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS was released on November 19, it proved to be the first Astaire picture to lose money at the box office. This was probably inevitable; after seven vehicles together, audiences had grown accustomed to seeing Astaire paired with Ginger Rogers, and reviewers inevitably compared Fontaine unfavorably. The failure of A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS would compel Astaire to make two more movies with Rogers, although their reunion in CAREFREE (1938) also met with a lukewarm box office reception. Hence, the reaction to A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS was hardly unique for an Astaire picture at this point in his career. However, the disappointing box-office results must have stung Wodehouse, not only because of his involvement in its creation, but because his name had become a more prominent part of advertising and promotion than on any of the previous films from his novels. Subsequently, few movies were made from Wodehouse sources, although in decades to come he would be far more successfully adapted for television.

A Damsel in Distress is a delight because of the great Gershwin songs, Fred Astaire, Joan Fontaine, and a terrific supporting cast headed by Gracie Allen and George Burns.

Typically silly plot for an Astaire film has him as an American dance star in England with Burns as his publicist and Allen his secretary. They concoct a story about his being a love bug with women falling victim to him left and right. He runs into Fontaine who is being held captive in her castle by a domineering aunt and docile father. Silly plot.

The great songs include A Foggy Day, Things Are Looking Up, Nice Work if You Can get It, and I Can't Be Bothered Now. Fontaine does not sing, but does a brief (and decent) number with Astaire. Surprisingly good in a few dance numbers with Astaire are Burns and Allen, including an inventive and fun romp through an amusement park.

Also in the cast are Reginald Gardiner, Constance Collier, Montagu Love, Harry Watson (as Albert), Ray Noble, and my favorite--Jan Duggan as the lead madrigal singer.

Jan Duggan is in the middle of the swoony trio who sings Nice Work if You Can Get It. Her facial expressions are hilarious. She was also a scene stealer in the W.C. Fields comedy, The Old Fashioned Way, playing Cleopatra Pepperday.

Much abuse has been heaped on this film because of the absence of Ginger Rogers, who, as noted elsewhere, would have been hideously miscast. The TCM host notes that Ruby Keeler and Jessie Matthews were considered. Yikes. Two more would-be disasters. Fontaine is fine as Alyce and the dynamic allows the musical numbers to belong to Astaire, with ample comic relief by Burns and Allen.

Fun film, great songs, good cast, and Jan Duggan in a rare spotlight!