Toronto Film Society presented Follow the Fleet (1936) on Monday, July 15, 1985 in a double bill with Flirtation Walk as part of the Season 38 Summer Series, Programme 2.
Production Company: RKO Radio. Producer: Pandro S. Berman. Director: Mark Sandrich. Sccreenplay: Dwight Taylor and Allan Scott, based on the play Shore Leave by Hubert Osborne, as produced by David Belasco. Music and Lyrics: Irving Berlin. Musical Direction: Max Steiner. Dance Direction: Hermes Pan. Photography: David Abel. Photographic Effects: Vernon Walker. Art Director: Van Nest Polglase. Set Dressing: Darrell Silvera. Gowns: Bernard Newman. Technical Advisser: U.S.N. Lt. Commdr. Harvey Haislip. Editor: Henry Berman. Songs: “We Saw the Sea,” “Let Yourself Go,” “Get Thee Behind Me, Satan,” “I’d Rather Lead a Band,” “But Where are You?.”
Cast: Fred Astaire (Bake Baker), Ginger Rogers (Sherry Martin), Randolph Scott (Bilge Smith), Harriet Hilliard (Connie Martin), Astrid Allwyn (Iris Manning), Harry Beresford (Capt. Ezra Hickey), Russell Hicks (Nolan), Brooks Benedict (Sullivan), Lucille Ball (Dopey), Betty Grable, Joy Hodges, Jeanne Gray, Addison Richards, Edward Burns, Frank MIlls, Frank Jenks.
Follow the Fleet was the fifth film in the phenomenally successful Astaire-Rogers pairing. It banished the continental chic of the earlier films, such as Roberta, by casting Astaire as a gum-chewing sailor and Rogers as a dancehall hostess, against a setting of San Francisco and the U.S. Navy. Randolph Scott, usually thought of as a Western hero in the Joel McCrea-Gary Cooper mold, is a carryover from Roberta, of which this film is something of a reworking.
Here, the fabulous duo are former dancehall partners who are reunited when Astaire and his sailor buddies pile into the dancehall where Rogers works. The plot–which of course takes second place to the dance numbers–involves Rogers and Astaire trying to help her mousy sister, Hilliard, hook his navy buddy, Scott, who is being pursued by a rich society playgirl (Astrid Allwyn). Incidentally, watch for a glimpse of Lucille Ball (as a blonde!) in a scene at the gaming table. Also in a bit part is Betty Grable.
But, of course, the audience came to see the dance numbers. By 1936 Rogers, never short on energy and ambition, had, under Astaire’s coaching, improved handsomely as a dancer. She had eveloped extraordinary range, and the dances in the film are designed to show it off.
For example, “Let Yourself Go” was sung by Rogers with a trio consisting of Betty Grable, Joy Hodges and Jeanne Gray, and danced to by Rogers and Astaire as the winning entry in the Paradise Ballroom dance contest. Here in a capsule are the Swinging Thirties, the era of Benny Goodman and “Stompin’ at the Savoy.” Some of the bests exhibition dancing was performed in the dancehalls of that era by non-professionals, and for this sequence choreographer Hermes Pan recruited a group of them from the Paloma and other Los Angeles area ballrooms. In the editing room, Astaire and Rogers, whose routine was filmed separately, were pitted against the snazziest of these couple. Incidentally, Harriet Hilliard, w hose first film this was, had been a radio vocalist with Ozzie Nelson’s orchestra. A blonde, she turned brunette for the film out of deference to Ginger Rogers.
Astaire’s practice was to prepare and if possible film all but the most complicated of the dances before main production got under way. In this case, Astaire was at the studio and rehearsing two months in advance. He always worked in seclusion, except for Hermes Pan, the pianist, and Ginger. Neither the producer, Pandro Berman, nor director, Mark Sandrich, ever saw a routine until it was pretty well set. RKO by this time had great faith in Astaire, and let him do things as he saw fit–and they were amply rewarded.
Hermes Pan had been with Astaire since Flying Down to Rio, when he put together the famous “Carioca” number. Together they made 19 films and four TV specials.
Some famous names associated with Follow the Fleet are songwriter Irving Berlin (still alive in his 90s) and Max Steiner, the great composer who is best remembered for the score of Gone With the Wind.
Producer Pandro S. Berman had a long and varied career in Hollywood, even giving the world, in 1958, Jailhouse Rock, an Elvis Presley musical with dance numbers!
The years of exercise, training, self-discipline and careful diets seem to have paid off for Fred and Ginger, for at last report they are still healthy and active. During the 1930s and for one last time in 1949, they brought incomparable pleasure to moviegoers, helping them to forget the grim world outside the theatre. “Thanks for the Memory.”
Notes by John Thompson
Season 77 is lovingly dedicated to our dear friend and longtime board member Frances Blau. Our 10-programme Sunday Matinée Series is sponsored by Susan Murray in honour of Richard...