Flying Down to Rio (1933)

In 1933, RKO Pictures had the bright idea of pairing Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond for their new musical blockbuster, Flying Down to Rio. The film was a smash, but not for the reasons anyone expected. The fourth- and fifth-billed stars were an RKO bit player and a Broadway man breaking into Hollywood. Their names were Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, and their pairing in this and eight subsequent RKO films would rewrite cinematic history. Most of Rio's screen time is spent on a humdrum romantic triangle involving Del Rio, Raymond, and Raul Roulien, but Fred (as Fred Ayres) and Ginger (as Honey Hayes) are still able to establish many of the trademarks of their later films. Ginger fronts the band (with Fred on accordian!) in the saucy "Music Makes Me," and Fred does some solo tap, then sings and leads the band for the spectacular airborne finale featuring chorus girls perched on the wings of biplanes. The heart of the film is "The Carioca," a company dance extravaganza that would be imitated by "The Continental" and "The Piccolino" in later films. Here Fred and Ginger take the floor together for the first time; their eyes meet and their foreheads touch. Their dance lasts only a few minutes, but it was the highlight of the film and audiences wanted more. The most prophetic moment occurs toward the beginning of the dance, when, after watching for a while, Fred grabs Ginger and tells her, "I want to try this. Come on, Honey." She declares, "We'll show 'em a thing or three." They did indeed. It was magic, and it was only the beginning. --David Horiuchi Amazon.com

Pre Code musical launching Astaire and Rogers

"Flying down to Rio" was a large scale, for studio RKO, pre-code musical starring the long forgotton very blonde Gene Raymond and the very beautiful dark Dolores Del Rio. The reason why the film is remembered at all is due, of course, to the presence of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in supporting roles.

Del Rio strikes poses rather than acts (she did reach stardom in silent films) and Raymond is a spritely but hammy leading man. Astaire has some good lines and Rogers is still in the snappy chorine phase of her career. Both had come from Broadway and it is not just their dancing which lauched their stardom together. Their personalities are much more dynamic and enjoyable than the leads. Rogers wears some very provocative clothes which would not have survived the censorship clamping down the following year.

There are some good songs but "The Carioca" is endless and much of the movement is artificially created by the editing. "Orchids in the Moonlight" is beautifully rendered by Raul Roulien and the finale is a nod to Busby Berkeley with chorus girls strapped to planes - good fun but corny.

The DVD print is good but not perfect with a white vertical line appearing intermittently. The extras are a tedious 3 Stooges short while they were still lead by Ted Healey but the Merrie Melody is excellent with superb harmony and orchestrations of a nutty song called "I like Mountain Music".

The DVD is OK value but best if purchased as part of the one of the Astaire/Rogers collections. April 13, 2008

Sappy but fun

This is a truly sappy musical; the sophistication in RKO musicals was a year away. But the film is a lot of fun, in large part because of the generally good music, slightly awkward musical numbers, the stunts, and the uncensored shots of lots of beautiful girls. Indeed, this movie may well have hastened the introduction of meaningful film censorship in 1934. Fred and Ginger don't, in fact, do very much together, but in retrospect you can see what's coming. As for stars Delores Del Rio and Gene Raymond: well, the silents are still haunting the talkies in the very early thirties, and here is a case in point. The scene on the beach after the forced airplane landing is embarrassing. That sort of thing would quickly disappear from the major studios. So sit back, relax, and wait for the airplane dancing scene. Sappy but fun. July 16, 2007

The plot is thin--but it hatched Fred and Ginger !!!

Flying Down To Rio featured the great Delores Del Rio as Belinha De Rezende, a wealthy Brazilian young lady who must enter into an arranged marriage; and Gene Raymond playing Roger Bond, an American band manager who falls in love with her practically at first sight. RKO intended for Flying Down To Rio to be a vehicle for Gene Raymond and Delores Del Rio. Rather unexpectedly, however, two other people stole the show: Fred Astaire as Fred Ayres, the band's accordionist and Ginger Rogers as Honey Hale. Audiences were very impressed and never forgot them; Fred and Ginger continued to make great movies together for quite some while to come.

But I am getting ahead of myself--by about several reviews or so! In Flying Down To Rio you get an American band rather used to being out of work run by ladies' man Roger Bond; a crooked Greek syndicate; an aerial flying show with dancing girls on the wings of the airplanes, new found love on a supposedly deserted island that turns out to be Haiti; the biggest and best Carioca dance scene you ever did see; and a stuffy old aunt looking after Belinha to make sure she enters into that not so perfectly arranged marriage. So, you may ask, how do these all fit together? Well, this is a 1930s musical designed to distract Americans from the Great Depression, so the answer is easy: they DON'T always fit together well. The plot resembles a buffet where you get a little bit of a lot; and certainly not all of the characters have depth to them here. Gene Raymond injects a lot of effort to act rather convincingly as Roger Bond who is deeply in love with Belinha De Rezende; and Delores Del Rio plays Belinha beautifully.

At the same time, we see Fred and Honey (Fred and Ginger) just beginning to shine and they easily steal the show two or three times throughout this picture. The Carioca dance scene is choreographed to perfection; and Fred and Ginger work wonders together throughout the rest of the film, too.

Will Belinha marry her husband to be Julio (Raul Roulien) and set aside her somewhat impulsive amorous feelings for band manager Roger? Will the band find work in Rio? Will the hotel where the band wants to play be able to stage a show if their permit is fouled up? Why do the Greeks want to take over the hotel? Sorry folks; no spoilers here--if you want to know the answers you'll just have to watch the film to find out!

The choreography shines through best with the numerous extensive song and dance numbers that are peppered all throughout the film; and the cinematography is rather good. The people are well framed on the screen when they need to be and there are several scene changes that take place with lines running across the screen to indicate that we are jumping to another place for the next scene. This was considered fine cinematography in its day.

The DVD has a couple of extras but if you get this DVD the film squarely remains the main event. You get a comedy short entitled Short Beer and Pretzels with Ted Healy and His Stooges and a cartoon entitled I Like Mountain Music.

I highly recommend this film for fans of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers especially since this was their first film together. Their dancing even then was outstanding, to say the least. People who enjoy musicals from the golden age of Hollywood should catch this film, too, to enjoy the numerous song and dance numbers. The dancing isn't always the best, but you will like these musical numbers anyway.

Enjoy!
May 11, 2007

Fred and Ginger's first film together...

Fred and Ginger are the main attraction in this film in which they had second billing to stars Gene Raymond and Dolores Del Rio, who is the most beautiful woman ever to have graced a Hollywood film.

The sets are incredible, especially the over-the-top Aviation Club with air motif decor and the band in motion, suspended above the patrons in a balloon-gondola. Zowie! This film, and that scene, prompted Stanley Donan to make the motion picture musical his life's work. We can understand why.

Gene Raymond has a band and Ginger and Fred are part of it. Ginger sings a red hot little number called "Music Makes Me" to get us off to a flying (if you will excuse the pun) start.

By a set of improbable circumstances Del Rio, who is Raymond's love interest, has to fly home to Rio, and guess what -- this being Hollywood -- he has a plane complete with a built-in piano to take her there, sans her auntie chaperone who is left behind on the runway.

Engine trouble develops and after an impromptu landing on a tropical beach Raymond croons "Orchids in the Moonlight" and the scenery obliges the lyrics. The next morning they discover that they have landed near a resort golf course, so they weren't that stranded after all.

Eventually they and the rest of the band make it to Rio--and at the Aviation Club Fred dances a tango with Del Rio to a reprise of "Orchids in the Moonlight"--an overlooked moment of dance loveliness.

Amid much mix up and comic capers, Fred and Ginger not only help Del Rio's father's new hotel to be a smashing success, they dance their way into movie history with the magical "Carioca".

The "Carioca" begins with a couple of sleeply looking Brazilian musicians on stage, setting up the music with their percussion. The fellows from Gene's band shrug as if to say that's not much to write home about. But the siesta is over... Enter the rest of the Brazilian band and all of the sudden the music swells with a new kind of sound and you have one of those magic moments when the tune takes over and gets inside your head. The stance for the partners is to dance forehead to forehead, ("What is that, mental telepathy?") and so the dance steps of the ensemble, as well as for Ginger and Fred, use that device throughout. Astaire and Rogers end up "showin' 'em a thing or three" by dancing their on the spot improvisation of the dance, on revolving pianos. The audience suspends disbelif long enough to go along with the idea that, awe shucks folks, Fred and Ginger are just making it up as they go along--a concept that is used repeatedly in many of their later films. Suddenly everyone wanted to be able to improvise like them, out there in front of everybody on the dance floor.

It wowed 1930s audiences and still wowes, today.

The plot thickens... As an underworld syndicate tries to force the hotel to close before it opens, by keep the hotel from getting its entertainment license. No matter! Fred devises a plan to have the entertainment take wing -- and so all of the chorus girls are wired to a fleet of biplanes and monoplanes and, at his signal, they wow the crowds with an aerial display to the strains of the title song. The girls don't have to do much dancing, but they wave their hands and kick their feet in a Charleston-esque way... (not both at the same time or they would fall to their death--which one of them nearly does). It is silliness in the extreme and yet, we love it.

Fred and Ginger are just a couple of ordinary folks in this picture, there is no top hat and tails just yet, but it works so well that it started what would become the most remarkable film dance partnership ever.

And yes, it is an RKO Radio Picture.
February 19, 2007

A delightful 1930's hallucination

Audiences wanted escapism then and boy did they get it! This film is far more surreal than anything coming out of Hollywood now. In fact, modern viewers accustomed only to contemporary films would be almost disoriented watching this, because we can't seem to bend reality to quite the same degree now.

A fun artificial dream world (and a dream Brazil) were joyfully created here with the purpose of removing the viewer from the real world. This film is a wonderful warm hallucination, not unlike a drug experience.

There is SO much here! The famous "pre-code" scene with the women bound to the airplane wings and going through their dance routines is kinky and over the top even by today's standards, and worth the price of the movie.

This is the most unique of the Fred and Ginger movies and one of the most unique films of all time. Later Astaire/Rogers films became a bit more formulaic. With this crazy film, you hardly know what's going to happen next!

I like this movie for its music too. With DVD, you can immediately get to the musical parts. To me the "Carioca" number can be played as a 1930's music video- and does it blow MTV and VH1 away!

Get this film, and enjoy something different! January 29, 2007

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