“Chance is the fool’s name for fate.”

My Take:

I’m not much of a song and dance man, and I still won't be after viewing this film… BUT... this musical farce was a classically great flick through and through. It had me enthralled from the start. Astaire’s character is immediately smitten with Rogers and chases her around London unaware that she’s married, but wants out of it. High jinx ensue and then everybody breaks out in song and dance.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers really did have incredible chemistry together. This was their second film collaboration and after the first (Flying Down to Rio) Astaire didn't want to pair up with Rogers again. It wasn't that he didn't like her, but rather he wanted to strike it out on his own, but he relented and the rest is history.

Up for best picture against the likes of The Thin Man, Imitation of Life and It Happened One Night, it would lose to the latter, but it did win Best Original Song (the first time this award was given) for “The Continental.”

What I Liked:

The “Let’s K-nock K-nees” scene was bizarrely fascinating and featured an eighteen-year-old Betty Grable, the future number one pin up girl during WWII.

What I Didn't Like:

The last dance scene lasted over seventeen minutes (the longest in history until Gene Kelly broke the record) and I was getting bleary eyed half way through.

What I Learned:

The Hays Office was insistent that the name be changed from The Gay Divorce to The Gay Divorcee because they didn't want divorce to be portrayed as something that was lighthearted in nature.