Dance Comigo

Carefree marked the third collaboration of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers singing and dancing to an Irving Berlin score. Unfortunately it would prove to be the weakest of the films, the others being Top Hat and Follow The Fleet. One thing was that Irving Berlin wrote a lot less music for this than the other two.

The second thing was that it involved psychiatry and we'd have to wait for such musicals as Lady in the Dark and On A Clear Day before the subject was handled in any way responsibly.

I'm not sure the subject was the proper one for Astaire and Rogers. The plot has Rogers seeing Astaire professionally while she's engaged to Ralph Bellamy who is playing the typical Ralph Bellamy part. I guess because it's Ralph Bellamy liberties can be taken with the leading lady by a her psychiatrist.

It was a bit much to swallow, a man who gave up studying the dance to become a disciple of Sigmund Freud. But that's what Fred Astaire is in Carefree. Usually the two don't mix. I can't imagine Freud breaking out into an intricate Astaire dance routine.

I will say that Irving Berlin did give Fred and Ginger some good songs to sing and dance to. The print I have is totally black and white and the I Used To Be Color Blind dream sequence definitely loses something when not seen in color. Fred and Ginger are at their liveliest doing The Yam and the rest of the cast gets involved. In fact I was surprised at how nimble Clarence Kolb was on his feet.

Fred's plaintive plea for Ginger to Change Partners got an Oscar nomination for Best Song, but it lost to Bob Hope's perennial theme of Thanks for the Memory.

I could not quite enjoy Carefree as much I have other Astaire/Rogers collaborations. When you think about, Fred's using his professional training to mess with her mind. His heart may be in the right place, but his medical ethics stink.

there is something specific about watching fred astaire and ginger rogers that just makes you want to dance. i think it's because they make it look so damn fun. and they are just so astonishingly good!! the plot here is a tad crazier than, say "top hat", and therefore that much less believable (come on ... going all out with freud and hypnosis, but then again that's just speaking from what is known today, so no problem letting that pass). irving berlin's music is a hoot at times (there's a song about yams) and classic and familiar at others ("change partners") and ginger rogers is nearly at her sassy best.

In the eighth of ten screen appearances together, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were firmly established as Hollywood's leading dancing pair. What is interesting about this 1938 entry is that it feels less like a musical and more like a screwball farce with musical interludes composed by Irving Berlin. The other less tangible aspect is that one can sense the two were growing in different directions at this particular juncture. While Astaire is still his debonair, nimble-footed self and as immaculate a dancer as ever there was on screen (watch his golfing solo for proof), Rogers seems to find surer footing as a crack comedy actress this time around. That's not to say they don't create magic when they dance. Indeed they do, an especially wonderful treat captured crisply on the newly released DVD, but you can somehow feel the beginning of the end.

Credited to no less than seven writers, the nonsensical plot focuses on singer Amanda Cooper, a radio star who has broken off her engagement three times to Stephen Arden, a rich bon vivant who spends an inordinate amount of time at the country club. Concerned about her flightiness but convinced that she is the one for him, he consults with his psychiatrist friend, Dr. Tony Flagg. Upon Stephen's insistence, Amanda goes to see Tony, and things immediately start off on the wrong foot when she overhears some of Tony's insensitive remarks about women on a dictaphone. Amanda and Tony eventually bury the hatchet over an accident-prone bike ride and become friends. You can probably figure out the rest of the complications that occur.

Even though Astaire acquits himself well as Tony (a rare role where he is not a professional entertainer) and Ralph Bellamy gamely plays yet another third-wheel role as Stephen, it is really Rogers who dominates the comedy scenes with her sharp timing and spirited manner. Moreover, the dance numbers don't disappoint with a lovely dream sequence set to "(I Used to Be) Colorblind" and a concluding romantic pas-de-deux cast under a hypnotic spell in "Change Partners". But my personal favorite is "The Yam", a jazzy, acrobatic number meant to replicate the late-thirties dance crazes. With Astaire bouncing Rogers on a series of cushiony chairs and then gracefully twirling her airborne over his table-affixed leg, this one may be my favorite of all their screen dances based on their sheer energy and athleticism.

For whatever reason, the supporting cast is not nearly as memorable as other Astaire-Rogers films at the time with Luella Gear looking a little too young as Amanda's Aunt Cora, Clarence Kolb as crabby Judge Travers and a young Jack Carson as Tony's helpful clinic assistant (doing a pretty decent Japanese accent over the phone). While the use of psychoanalysis must have been quite novel at the time, it feels rather clichéd now. Nonetheless, Astaire and Rogers still make magic regardless of the story contrivance. The 2006 DVD contains two vintage extras – a twenty-minute, tap dancing short called "Public Jitterbug #1" about an outlaw jitterbug dancer, and a brief cartoon, "September in the Rain", where famous icons displayed on packaged foods of the day come to life.

Tony Flagg (Fred Astaire) agrees to psychoanalyze the girlfriend of his pal Steve (Ralph Bellamy) because she can't make up her mind as to whether or not she wants to marry him. The girlfriend, Amanda (Ginger Rogers), decides in short order that she actually loves Tony, but he has decided she's perfectly normal and doesn't need his help. So she contrives a ridiculous dream so that he thinks she is abnormal and will continue to treat her.

This film should have been renamed "Conscience Free" as none of the three central players seems to have one. Astaire comically abuses his license to heal to hypnotize Rogers to try to control her emotions. When he realizes he's fallen for her, he tries to re-direct her affections for Bellamy to him. Rogers, when told under hypnosis to follow every impulse, escapes Astaire's office before she can be taken out of her trance, decides it would be fun to knock the canes away from old people and watch them fall down and to throw rocks through windows. And Bellamy, upon hearing that Rogers really loves Astaire, and that she is only marrying him as a result of hypnosis, is perfectly OK with that.

The Irving Berlin music, what there is of it, is fine. But there is little of the usual chemistry between Astaire and Rogers. Bright spots include an early career appearance by Jack Carson showing his flair for comedy and Clarence Kolb as a family friend and judge acting like The Monopoly Man personified. This was the only Astaire & Rogers film to lose money at the box office.

The upper-class Stephen Arden (Ralph Bellamy) brings his fiancée, the radio singer Amanda Cooper (Ginger Rogers), to be consulted by his friend, the psychoanalyst Dr. Tony Flagg (Fred Astaire), to improve their relationship. Amanda listens to the record made by Dr. Flagg about her and has an initial friction with the shrink. But sooner she falls in love with him and discloses her feelings to Dr. Flagg. He decides to hypnotize Amanda to loath him and love Stephen. However his subconscious makes him perceive that he also loves Amanda. But Stephen obtains a restrain order against his friend and he can not get close to Amanda to withdrawal his former hypnotic suggestion.

"Carefree" is a delightfully naive and adorable classic, with a silly story but wonderful dance numbers of the constant pair Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Ginger "steals" the film not only dancing, but also with a funny performance. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Dance Comigo" ("Dance with Me")