The Fred & Ginger movies ranked
Wednesday, September 2, 2020 at 4:00PM 
87 years ago, someone at RKO had the brilliant idea to pair up an up-and-coming vaudevillian with a brassy character actress used to playing comic relief. The result was pure movie magic. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers quickly became two of their studio's biggest stars and their collaborations live on as some of the most glamourous musicals to ever grace the Silver Screen. Thanks to HBO Max, the majority of those flicks are now available to stream. The only one that isn't, Follow the Fleet, can be rented from Amazon if you wish to see its dancing delights.
With that in mind, it seemed like a good time to delve into the wonderful world of Fred and Ginger onscreen. Here's a ranked list of their ten movies together…
10. CAREFREE (1938)
A disastrous attempt at doing a manic screwball comedy about the matter of psychoanalysis, Carefree's got some technically impressive musical numbers going for it. A slow-motion incursion into the unconscious mind deserves special praise for its visual beauty and sheer inventiveness. However, the plot that strings those numbers together is hopelessly contrived, and not even the charming duo of Fred and Ginger can make sense of it. Astaire, in particular, seems lost in a movie that demands he try a type of broad comedy for which he was uniquely unsuited.
9. FOLLOW THE FLEET (1936)
Any Fred and Ginger movie made after 1933 has no excuse for sidelining them as shamelessly as Follow the Fleet does. The flick's an insipid love story between a Navy sailor and a dowdy maid turned glamour girl played by Randolph Scott and Harriet Hilliard. Fred and Ginger sort of work like fairy godmothers at the margins of the romance, lending support to the protagonists while taking care of most of the song and dance of this musical. One big strength of the movie, along with the stellar dance interludes, is its glitzy wardrobe designed by Bernard Newman.
8. ROBERTA (1935)
Perhaps Fred and Gingers' most disjointed movie, Roberta often feels like two romcoms haphazardly stitched together. On one hand, it's a gentle love story between Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott as a destitute princess and a prudish football player trying to run a Parisian dress shop. On the other, it's a screwball-adjacent frolic starring Fred and Ginger as a pair of American performers flirting and dancing their way through the City of Lights. While it's far from a masterpiece and Scott's a charmless romantic lead, Roberta's still thoroughly entertaining, full of costume porn and featuring a hilarious performance by Rogers. Watching her deliver sarcastic one-liners in an overwrought Slavic(?) accent is great fun.
7. THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE (1939)
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle marked the end of an era. While Fred and Ginger still did another movie together ten years after, this represents the last of their classic run of RKO musicals. It's an oddly atypical note to close this chapter of the stars' careers, being their only biographical work as well as the single one of their movies that can be justly categorized as a drama. While the chains of biopic conventions drag it down a bit, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle manages to overcome them thanks to two great leading performances and sublime dancing interludes. For Rogers, who yearned to be considered a serious actress, the role of Irene Castle proves to be a better proof of her talents than the one that earned her the Oscar the following year.
6. THE GAY DIVORCEE (1934)
The plot mechanisms that we tend to associate with the movies of Fred and Ginger originated with The Gay Divorcee. The movie hinges on a dynamic characterized by antagonism that's overcome by the advent of dance-induced passion. Fred meets Ginger and they rub each other the wrong way until dance reveals they were made for each other. All this while wearing fabulous clothes and singing Cole Porter tunes peppered with double-entendres. Unfortunately, while funny and electrified by its stars' chemistry, The Gay Divorcee features some of the least interesting musical numbers Fred & Ginger ever performed. "The Continental", which won the first Best Original Song Oscar, may have been popular but its appearance in the film is overlong and dully choreographed. The couple's rendition of "Night and Day" is the only musical scene worthy of genuine applause.
5. THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY (1949)
Made a decade after Fred and Ginger's last RKO musical, MGM's The Barkleys of Broadway is a fitting finale for one of cinema's most fabulous duos. This Technicolor extravaganza starts after most Fred and Ginger vehicles end, with the pair married and enjoying ample success in show business. A marital crisis gives shape to the script, but it's the stars that inject humanity into the narrative, varnishing the simplistic script with layers of metatextual meaning. More than ever, the couple's playing up their star personas, mining them for comedic and dramatic potential. It's an autumnal farewell, as spectacular as it's bittersweet.
4. FLYING DOWN TO RIO (1933)
Considering what big stars they'd become, it's a bit shocking to find Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers playing supporting roles in their first onscreen pairing. Rather than a Fred and Ginger movie, Flying Down to Rio is a Dolores del Río vehicle first and foremost, structuring itself around the romantic story between the Mexican starlet and Gene Raymond. Still, it's the supporting players who steal the spotlight, spectacularly so at times like in the dazzling showstopper "La Carioca". Thornton Freeland's direction is as inspired as Fred and Ginger, deliriously creative with the staging of the dance, and the editing, courtesy of Jack Kitchin, is frenetic in a way that was uncommon for this decade of American film.
3. SHALL WE DANCE (1937)
I may prefer two other Fred and Ginger movies to Shall We Dance but, from their ten collaborations, it's, by far, the best comedically. Elegantly structured, full of funny quips and modulated to its stars' strengths, the picture's a frothy dream of musical romance with Astaire, especially, proving to be a swoon-worthy leading man. The dancing could be better since neither performer is all that suited to the balletic flights of fancy that the script encourages, but the score by George and Ira Gerswhin more than makes up for it.
2. SWING TIME (1936)
In the Fred and Ginger movies, the narrative's a negligible thing that simply exists as a conduit to showcase great dance, Astaire's charm, and Roger's charisma. Swing Time takes this to the extreme, rendering its plot a barebones affair with no pretension of dramatic heft whatsoever. This makes the film a sort of choreographed poem, pure emotion expressed through dancing and the power of song, through the idioms of cinema and the magnetism of two movie stars at the top of their game. Even the romantic hijinks are downplayed, resulting in one of the sincerest love stories these actors ever performed.
Be warned, though, that Swing Time features a musical number in blackface. While Astaire's dance is technically remarkable, it's very difficult to appreciate such things beneath the layers of racist caricature.
1. TOP HAT (1935)
Fred Astaire singing about the sheer elegance of wearing a top hat, white tie, and tails. Ginger Rogers floating through the screen in a flurry of feathers. A collection of some of the best musical numbers ever put to film danced with passionate virtuosity. Such are the ingredients that make Top Hat the best Fred and Ginger film. This classic's a dream of Art Deco and ballroom fashion, of witty humor and ethereal romance. The massive and exceedingly fake-looking Venice set is the cherry on top of this delicious dessert of sugary cinema. Whenever I watch this one, I'm in heaven.
What's your favorite Fred & Ginger movie?
Reader Comments (14)
Well shoot, now I have to see them all, all over again! I'm pretty sure I also think Top Hat is their best movie. Wasn't it the only one nominated for Best Picture?
But anyway, I recently watched The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle and I swear that I had never seen it before or couldn't remember it, but it put me in the strange position of liking most everything about it except for the dancing! Since it's an ersatz biography of dancers, it seems they felt compelled to dance in the style (more or less) of the original Castles. And I'm sorry to say the Castles circa 1910 or so were not nearly as inventive or impressive as Fred & Ginger. Oh, and Irene's clothes were also not nearly as nice as Ginger's glamorous costumes.
Dave in Hollywood -- I too felt like THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE was trying to bend the Fred & Ginger formula to the demands of a period biopic. However, I do like the dancing and costumes precisely because of how they seem so different from the rest of their nine pictures. I first watched the movie in the middle of a Fred & Ginger marathon so the variation was greatly appreciated even though I adore their more formulaic efforts too.
That number when Vernon and Irene foxtrot their way through the American map is wonderfully weird, like period movie conventions clashing with glamourous musicals.
Thanks for commenting. I'm glad to know I'm not the only fan of this duo around these parts :)
My ranking would be pretty close to yours but Swing Time would get the top spot. Their number in the dance studio is my favorite of all their dances, even if its not nearly the most ornate.
I'll admit some of my rankings are based on sentimentality since growing up watching them on TV some are more tied to memory than others.
Such is the case of The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. I know it's not technically one of their most accomplished films but it must have been a favorite of one of the stations programmers since it played far more than any of their others and now I have a soft spot for it. Plus Edna May Oliver is at her persnickety best in it!
Barkleys of Broadway is super until Ginger gets to that horrendously awful Sarah Bernhardt performance and it knocks it down a couple of pegs.
My ranking:
Swing Time
Top Hat
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
The Gay Divorcee
Shall We Dance
Flying Down to Rio
The Barkley of Broadway
Carefree
Follow the Fleet
Roberta
There are problems narratively but I’ve always loved Follow the Fleet. Would have been top 5 for me. Great write up!
For me, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire's finest hour is their sixth film Swing Time, a joyous celebration of dance.
Prior to Swing Time, Astaire and Rogers made movies that were little more than painful exposition leading to another spectacular dance number. Not that audiences in the 1930 minded. Depression era hordes queued up at the box office in record numbers to relish the exquisite joy of the two. But Swing Time is different. There is almost half an hour before the first dance. When John Garnett, a professional hoofer who has successfully hidden his talent, leads his newly acquired instructor Penelope Carroll to the dance floor to demonstrate what he has learned, the two burst forth with a vivacious attitude that almost beckons, dares the camera to keep up. In under three minutes of uninterrupted joy, the two fling inhibitions aside. The dance concludes with a fantastic series of leaps at tremendous speed over a low railing at the edge of the dance floor before strutting triumphantly, victoriously out of camera range. The confidence and artistry displayed prompt a quickening pulse, an admiration that is usually reserved for gold medal Olympic athletes. These two are at the top of their game.
Most of the Astaire and Rogers collaborations feature a lovely tune that captures the wistfulness of love. Astaire will sing it. And Oscar will respond. Between 1934 and 1937, no less than seven songs from Astaire and Rogers films were nominated for Oscars. Of the two that won, "The Way You Look Tonight" from Swing Time remains a beloved classic more than 80 years later. With music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, the song is surprisingly dark. The film presents the number simply. Astaire is seated at the piano and accompanies himself. The lyric contradicts the euphoria of early infatuation that is being shown, "Some day, when I'm awfully low, when the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you and the way you look tonight." The elegance of the melody and John's warm vocal lure Penelope from the bathroom where she is washing her hair. She is drawn nearer by the ode to her beauty. Penelope stands behind John and rests her hand tenderly on his shoulder as he sings. As the last note fades and both characters realize that suds topping her head is not the most glamorous of looks, she scurries from the room. But the camera returns to John's face. The moment only reinforces these incipient wisps of passion that are emerging.
This romance grows till the film's final number when the would be lovers realize they must part. "Never Gonna Dance" is a physical demonstration of the enormous loss each character feels. A lovely art deco set with black floors polished to a high gloss sheen contains two separate staircases. In a mad passion, a crane shot studies each dancer almost flinging their bodies up a separate staircase to meet at the top. There the two whirl and spin with abandon till Rogers literally spins off the floor leaving John alone, forlorn. There is an elegance to this effortless exhibition of great athleticism that touches our hearts. Swing Time is the rare rom-com that elevates the genre with its superb artistry.
Essential additional discussion:
The magnificent musical number "Bojangles of Harlem" Is extraordinary. And yet, in today's political climate, the feast for dance lovers is complicated to admire. Here Astaire seeks to pay homage to his contemporary, the gifted black dancer Bill Robinson. The number acknowledges race. The chorus girls wear outfits that are half black and half white to visually speak to racially unity. In a marvelous piece of production design, Astaire dances with three looming black shadows projected onto scrims at the back of the stage. Again this is a visual cue that hints at Astaire's respect for Robinson's talent, how it dwarfs his own.
Yet, the production design starts the number off at a distinct disadvantage to gaining sympathy. An enlarged pair of shoe soles are adorned with big lips and other features to resemble the caricature of a black man. The set design parts to reveal enormously long legs which lead to Astaire seated in blackface. Ugh. All that follows and celebrates the talent and showmanship of Robinson struggles to overcome the opening that prompts an audible groan of regret.
I choose to celebrate the beauty of Astaire's brilliant performance while keeping in mind that that the racist aspects of the production reinforce life in 1936 where dancer Josephine Baker was top billed in the Ziegfeld Follies in New York. Time magazine reviewed her in print as the Negro wench with limited talents. She was replaced in the production. In spite of the flaws, I am moved by Astaire's earnest tribute to a black dancer.
Top Hat better than Swing Time? How dare you? Team Swing Time forever.
The RKO movies are sheer bliss
OMG, thanks for this. I've only seen SWING TIME and wanted to know where to go next. This will be a great resource. But should I start at the top or the bottom?
Top 2 is pretty intractable, but I'm another SWING TIME guy.
I'd say FOLLOW THE FLEET is ranked too low here. The story is, as ever, totally perfunctory, but the music more than makes up for it. "We Saw the Sea" and "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket" are delightful, and of course "Let's Face the Music and Dance" is among the greatest dances in all ten films.
Love Fred and Ginger. Top Hat and Swing Time are the best and I won't quibble over which is better. However, I will defend Carefree. A screwball comedy masquerading as a musical ...or vice versa. No matter-I think its loads of fun and Ginger gets the opportunity to shine in a comedic role at a time when her soli career was gaining traction. Love Fred's golf number, The Yam and the lovely Change Partners. I only wish Helen Broderick had been Ginger's sidekick as she was perfect in Top Hat and Swing Time.
Justice for Roberta. It is disjointed and Fred and Ginger steal the film, but it's good breezy fun and features the wonderful Oscar nominated song Lovely To Look At. (Along with the iconic Cheek To Cheek losing best song to Lullaby of Broadway)
I personally slightly prefer Swing Time to stop Hat, although the blackface is obviously an issue.
Great to read an article on all the Astaire-Rogers films!
I agree with your top four, in that order. I'd put Follow the Fleet higher up. It's pretty light, even in this company, but as well as the virtues you list, it's got one of my favourite numbers: Ginger singing "Let Yourself Go".
Dave in Hollywood: The Gay Divorcee was also nominated for Best Picture.
It's been a while since I watched them all, but my order for now would be:
1. Top Hat
2. Swing Time
3. Shall We Dance
4. Flying Down to Rio
5. The Gay Divorcee
6. Follow the Fleet
7. Carefree
8. Roberta
9. The Barkleys of Broadway
10. The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
For what it’s worth, there isn’t a single Fred Astaire movie on HBO Max as of today November 19,2020 and I have no idea why they’ve been taken off this service. So disappointing.
It’s one of the reasons I joined. Unacceptable.