Third Essay: ET 13

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers | Gene Kelly & Debbie Reynolds

Normally musical comedy comes with romances. For romantic scenes in musical, unlike the others, singing and dancing of the characters took place. Through those singing and dancing scenes, we have enjoyed so many breathtaking love stories, and they have became classics. Top Hat and Singin' in the Rain are two of the examples.

First of all, in Top Hat, Isn't This A Lovely Day is a delightful and playful song. Fred Astaire interpreted it amusingly. Before they start dancing, Fred Astaire (as Jerry Travers) told Ginger Rogers (as Dale Tremont) a story about thunders and clouds. It was like Astaire courting Rogers by telling her a cute story with the singing of the song Isn't This a Lovely Day (to be caught in the rain). Astaire led Rogers into the mood of dancing. For me, their dancing scene was like a process of a girl and a boy getting to know each other, their connection getting closer. The dance forms was very interesting, because it was like the combination of tap dancing, jive and waltz. Their dance steps were lively and briskly, and flawlessly performed. The lyrics of the song somehow was like convincing or persuading the girl to accept the boy's love. Astaire did pleases Rogers with his singing, because we can see the way Rogers acted was from disliking him to befriended him. We can also see this through Rogers started mimicking Astaire's dance steps at the beginning of the dance, and the hand-shaking with him at the end of the dance. So the whole dancing represented the communication of two of them. Lovely.

Moving on to the costumes, although both of them were wearing suits, but I have to admit that Rogers' horse riding pants really grasped my attention. I could never forget those cute pants of hers.

I believe these pants were popular at that time. Rogers looked so charming with it.

Compared to Astaire's baggy pants, Rogers' was wearing a narrow-legged pants, i think this contrast made their dance even more hilarious and entertaining. We audience can easily differentiate them in the dance.

Another interesting thing was I noticed their dancing shoes were in black, both of them, and the dance floor was paled. I think in black and white movies, color contrast is a very important issue, the reason they wore black instead of nicely colored shoes was giving the audience a clearer vision of the whole dance scene, like the dance-steps.

In order to show the whole dancing scene, the camera movements was panning, full shots, zoom-in and zoom-out. It doesn't really use many movements. The setting was in the woods, but i believe it actually took place in a wood-setting studio with artificial thunder and rain. To conclude this, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers has performed it in a very cute way, well for me, it was a really cute number.

Secondly, in Singin' in the Rain, the performing of You Were Meant For Me by Gene Kelly (as Don Lockwood) and Debbie Reynolds (as Kathy Selden) was way more romantic. At first, Kelly was praising how beautiful Reynolds was, as the scene goes on, Kelly started singing softly to Reynolds. The music was very soothing and soft, it was like a man whispers to a woman he loved, telling her how she meant for him through the lyrics. Kelly looked at her fondly throughout the whole singing, watching the way Reynolds acted, I believe every woman would have melted before Kelly's gaze.

Once they started dancing, the chemistry between them were amazing. The dance forms was spinning, tap dancing, and waltzing. Kelly/Reynolds dance was more romantic compared to Astaire/Rogers lively dance. They fell deeper for each other as the dance goes on. Through their dancing, I could feel they were really happy to be together, like they were so right for each other.

Unlike Astaire and Rogers both wearing masculine suits, Reynolds was wearing an elegant purple dress, and Kelly was wearing a v-collar sleeveless cardigan outside, and a white shirt inside, with white pants, he looked smart and gorgeous. Besides those nice clothing, the setting was romantic too, it was a purplish sunset. With all those filming tools and instruments, the whole setting seemed a little different from Isn't This a Lovely Day's setting's cleanliness, it seemed a bit messy, in my opinion. But I must say, the atmosphere of this number was better, maybe it was a color movie, made the frames looked better indeed. I love color movies.

Next, the camera movements of this number were more, there was close-ups, high angle shots, low angle shots, full shots, zooming. There was a close-up of Reynolds which was my favorite scene. It was shown above, the way they shot, the way she gazed, it was so wonderful by just looking at her lovely eyes.

Last but not least, the similarities between the two dances was the singing and dancing style. Both songs were sang by the male lead, and both dances contained tap dancing. The major difference between them was the feelings and emotional changes among the characters. The situation of Astaire and Rogers was like in the very beginning of a relationship, the courtship, meaning the girl still doesn't like the boy very much yet, at first; after dancing with each other, the girl changed her attitude towards the boy, she somewhat liked him in the end. In the contrary, Kelly and Reynolds was two lovebirds, they had already fall for each other, the dance was just stronger their relationship. However, no matter how are they alike or different, each number represented different state of relationships, we can watch them and still think of our own experiences, still touched by those marvelous acting and dances.