The Fred & Ginger movies ranked

by Cláudio Alves

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… 

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"Monkey Business" Giggles

I caught a retro matinee of Howard Hawk's silly delight Monkey Business (1952) for my birthday last weekend. I'd never seen it before and was giggling throughout. Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Hugh Marlowe, and Charles Coburn were in great form but Ginger Rogers completely steals the movie -- no small feat with that cast!

She plays the ridiculously patient and then suddenly immature wife of a chemist (Grant) who is trying to find a formula for de-aging that he's testing on monkeys. Hijinx ensue! My main takeaway this week has been that modern comedies try too hard to have a message, a character arc, and "heart" to go with the laughs. This spring's I Feel Pretty and Life of the Party had this problem and one assumes the newly opened Tag does, too, merely because almost all comedies now do. Heart and message and meaty arcs (if you have to have them) should just spring from silliness rather than be inorganically thrown on top of the comedy like a blanket. That blanket is wet and it dampens the fun.

Do you have this problem with modern comedies and what do you love most about Monkey Business if you've seen it? 

The Furniture: Top Hat's Dancing Sets

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

Only 8 days until Oscar nominations! To mark the occasion, or perhaps to fill the time with something other than anticipation, let’s look back at the 8th Academy Awards. The year was 1935. Bette Davis won a consolation prize, Best Actress for Dangerous after the failure of a write-in campaign for 1934’s Of Human Bondage. John Ford won his first Oscar for The Informer, which beat Mutiny on the Bounty in nearly every category except Best Picture. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the film debut of Olivia de Havilland, won a write-in victory in Best Cinematography.

This was the last year with only three nominees for Best Art Direction. The victory went to The Dark Angel, a drama of romance and World War One. Its biggest competition may have been The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, an imperial adventure set in the British Raj. It apparently promoted European superiority so effectively that Adolf Hitler saw it three times. It received seven nominations, winning for Best Assistant Director.

If this all seems dour, don’t worry...

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Beauty vs Beast: The Maniac From Uncle

Jason from MNPP here using this week's "Beauty vs Beast" to wish one of my favorite actors of Classic Hollywood a happy birthday today - the great Joseph Cotten was born on this day in the year 1905. Cotten got his start on Broadway, where he caught the eye of some fella called Orson Welles - I suppose you can do worse for yourself than have your very first movie in theaters end up being Citizen Kane.

Just two years later Cotten took the job I always identify him with, as "Uncle Charlie" opposite Teresa Wright as his niece (also named Charlie, cuz doubling) in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. Hitch considered this his greatest film and I'd rank it up there (although "greatest" is a bit much when everything he made between 1954 and 1963 is sitting there) and mainly due to Cotten's subtly deranged work. Wright is also wonderful though - her best work, I think, by far. So where oh where does the Merry Widow's Waltz stop...

PREVIOUSLY Speaking of waltzes we danced the week away with Fred & Ginger for last week's hoe-down, and y'all decided that backwards in heels was your winner, giving Miss Rogers an eight point toe up over her competition. Said Claran (and I'm surprised there wasn't more of this):

"This is CRUEL!!! I propose a tie, since Top Hat wld not hav been so successful w/o their magical chemistry together. As indv performers, they r not so memorable, but as a team, they are certainly on TOP. "

Beauty vs Beast: The Charm About You

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" - this Wednesday marks 118 years since the birth of the dancing legend Fred Astaire, light as air, and so let's tackle (with as much grace as we can muster) his greatest film opposite his greatest co-star, 1935's Top Hat with Ginger Rogers. The story, as much as is there one is a case of mistaken identities - Jerry (Astaire) tap dances his way into the heart of Dale (Rogers) while she thinks he's somebody else, yadda yadda, they bicker and they dance and they make eternal movie magic.

PREVIOUSLY The monkey won! Last week's King Kong competition ping-ponged between the ape and the blonde but in the end twas the Beast that finally killed the Beauty this go-round with 55% of your vote. Said Edward L:

"I call this a tie. Kong is the mightiest film character...but all he wants is Ann, so she's got to have something too."