Roberta

Roberta
March 8, 1935
RKO
Romance, Musical
DVD
C+

As with the W. C. Fields films, I got a package of four Fred & Ginger movies, in this case just for Flying Down to Rio.  This film is disappointing, considering one, it's based on a book by Alice Duer Miller (whose Come out of the Kitchen is a fun read:  http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/03/come-out-of-kitchen.html); two, it has some good songs, including the Oscar-nominated "Lovely to Look at"; and three, Fred & Ginger aren't as peripheral as they are in FDtR.  Unfortunately, they're still playing the supporting couple, and this time the main pair are both charm-free: Randolph Scott, coming across as a killjoy Joel McCrea, and Irene Dunne, who ruins "Lovely" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" by singing in that horrific mid-'30s to early-'40s pseudo-operatic style that too many female singers used in the movies.  Watch this one with your hand on the remote, fast-forwarding till you get to any scene with Fred in it, and even then be prepared for too much Scott and Dunne.  (Ginger has much less to do than Fred.)

OK, and you can keep an eye out for various cameos.   Not only is one of the fashion models Lucille Ball, but William "Fred Mertz" Frawley plays a bartender!  And another fashion model, Wanda Perry, would have a small role in Ball's Mame.  Model Donna Mae Roberts would appear in 1943's The Gang's All Here.  Of the Wabash Indianians, Hal Borne was in Flying Down to Rio, while "tricky-voiced" Candy Candido would do a memorable voiceover as an apple tree in Wizard of Oz.  Rita Gould would appear in The Women.  No one plays Roberta; it's just the name of the design studio Scott's aunt owns.  The fashions range from forgettable to regrettable to acceptable.