Minute A Day About Movies
Friday Minute
No. 151 | August 20, 2010
Hoofing It
Our theme this week
The incomparable Fred Astaire
Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday — “Cheek to Cheek” / Top Hat (1935)
Tuesday — “Begin the Beguine” / Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
Wednesday — “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” / The Sky’s the Limit (1942)
Thursday — “You’re All the World to Me” / Royal Wedding (1951)
“Puttin’ on the Ritz”
Fred Astaire was neither the first nor the last to record Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” but he’s the performer most closely associated with the tune. His performance comes in Blue Skies, the Paramount musical that was billed as “Astaire’s last picture.” After performing for the public for forty years, the actor-singer-dancer had had enough. At the age of 47, he called it quits. “Puttin’ on the Ritz” was his “last dance.”
It didn’t work out very well. Retirement, that is. Fred Astaire continued to make movies into the 1980s.
Blue Skies (1946)
Stuart Heisler, director
Irving Berlin (story), Allan Scott (adaptation), Arthur Sheekman (writer)
“Puttin’ on the Ritz”
Irving Berlin, music and lyrics
Fred Astaire, Hermes Pan, Dave Robel, choreographers
Fred Astaire
Quote of note
“No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business.”
—Mikhail Baryshnikov
…58…59…60.
Categories: Actors, Composers, Film Music, Films, Musicals, People
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