Follow the Fleet
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Movie Reviews of Follow the Fleet
Movie Review: Highly Entertaining!
Summary: 5 Stars
Taking the movies as a whole, Follow the Fleet is not as funny as Top Hat, but it is better than Swingtime. But all of them boast wonderful dancing. It's fascinating and strange to see Astaire play a sailor--and pull it off. Some of the dance numbers in Follow the Fleet incorporate humor and are quite amusing, but overall the plot isn't that funny. Still, the plot is very interesting and hard to put on pause, so don't plan to watch it in stages.Movie Review: movie musical magic
Summary: 5 Stars
I love old films, and the ones with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are some of my favorites. Among their movies, "Follow the Fleet" is at the top of the list. For me, the "Let Yourself Go" portion of the film is the best. Whenever I watch the film, I replay that section at least five times. Seeing Lucille Ball and Betty Grable in bit parts is fun. Randolph Scott and Harriet Hilliard are great supporting players. This movie is a real treat!Movie Review: follow the fleet
Summary: 5 Stars
DVD received in excellent condition. Sorry thought I had already sent a good review.Movie Review: Astaire and Rogers Go More Proletarian Than Plebian in a Still Winning Seaworthy Effort
Summary: 4 Stars
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Hollywood's premiere dance team, were usually dressed to the nines and gliding through elaborately exaggerated Art Deco sets in the 1930's. However, they go a bit more downscale for this 1936 outing, the fifth of their ten musicals together. This time, Astaire foregoes his top hat, white tie and tails to become a bubblegum-chewing sailor named "Bake" Baker; and Rogers plays dance hall entertainer Sherry Martin, who was Bake's partner - dancing and otherwise - before he enlisted. Consequently, unlike the mistaken identity ploys and romantic hesitancies prevalent in most of their previous pairings, they are already a couple from the film's outset.
Directed by Mark Sandrich (who guided five of their pairings), the film bears a narrative similarity to 1935's "Roberta" in which they are but one of two couples featured in the storyline. In fact, Randolph Scott plays the other male lead in both films, this time as Bake's womanizing crewmate, "Bilge" Smith. He is partnered with not Irene Dunne (who understandably turned down this follow-up) but Harriet Hilliard. Just married to Ozzie Nelson in real life and decades before Ozzie & Harriet, Hilliard plays Sherry's spinsterish sister Connie who falls hard for Bilge. In the silly plot, she is given a makeover by a young, bleached blonde Lucille Ball, and there is s classic three-way shot of Hilliard, Ball and a kewpie-doll adorable Betty Grable in front of a mirror.
Speaking of the story, what there is of one is credited to Allan Scott and Dwight Taylor and goes something like this...Bake and Bilge are on shore leave in San Francisco where they end up in a dance hall with their rowdy shipmates. Bake finds Sherry working there, while Bilge runs into Connie first when she comes in as a dowdy spinster and then showing up as a glamour girl. Romance blooms for both couples. Connie and Sherry inherit a steamer from their father, but they need money to keep it afloat. Multiple misunderstandings occur in both relationships, but it all works out when they turn the steamer into a theater and put on a fundraising musical revue. It's about as silly as it sounds, but it does provide a good excuse for some memorable Irving Berlin tunes and a trio of Astaire-Rogers dances.
The first two are casual in tone - a dance contest set to the percolating "Let Yourself Go" where they show off mercilessly to win and a physical shipboard comedy routine set to the toe-tapping "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket". However, their last dance is a classic return to formality with a melodramatic piece beautifully set to a stunning arrangement of "Let's Face the Music and Dance". Intriguingly, this movie contains not only an Astaire dance solo but the only time Rogers ever had a dance solo to herself in one of their movies, an energetic tap routine again set to "Let Yourself Go". Dressed in a creamy satin sailor outfit, she also sings the same song most winningly near the beginning of the film.
Acting-wise, Astaire and Rogers are in typically zesty comic form here. While Scott plays his role with his trademark cock-eyed virility, Hilliard is an extremely dull presence, and as a former band singer, she performs two Berlin love songs in a frustratingly diffident manner. Regardless, the magic generated by Astaire and Rogers in their prime make this essential viewing. The 2005 DVD has several good extras beginning with a thirteen-minute featurette, "Follow the Fleet: The Origins of Those Dancing Feet," about how Astaire and Rogers started to work together. There is also a live-action "soundie" called "Melody Master: Jimmie Lunceford and his Dance Orchestra", a poultry-themed cartoon called "Let It Be Me," and the original theatrical trailer.
Movie Review: Double Romance & Great Irving Berlin Score!
Summary: 4 Stars
Follow the Fleet was the second Astaire/Rogers film right after Top Hat and it is very different in both form and story.
Crazy Story Back-Drop:
Bake Baker joined the Navy after being jilted by "his girl." He finds himself on liberty in San Francisco and decides with the other boys to pay her a visit. Of course their meeting is fun and Rogers' sister character, a shy, intelligent type (wearing glasses of course) starts to blossom on her sister's urgings.
The whole story has two romances going on which I think weakens the movie some. We are all rooting for Bake and Sherry, while Bake's buddy (played by Randolph Scott), Bill (they call him "Bilge") has a roaming eye, and though handsome can be a real clod!
Bill is a creep, drops Sherry's sister (regardless of her sacrifices) and goes after a rich woman. This eventually gets all sorted out but brother! Pretty silly and crazy story.
[Catch the image of the Golden Gate Bridge mid-construction, with just the towers up and the Navy going through the gate. Great image!]
Facing the Music:
Despite the vapid tale, the music by Irving Berlin and the dance numbers are really great. There is a solo number by Rogers that is really energetic and exciting as she auditions for a chance with the big time New York producer. And Astaire plays both the down to earth cigar-smoking, wise-cracking sailor and also dons the debonair tuxedo in his numbers.
For me the songs did not do a lot for me with the big exception, "Let's Face the Music and Dance." What a great number!
Another great dance number is where Rogers dances one number and purposely does not change out but continues the same number when Astaire does something different. A bit of slapstick dancing I've never seen before.
Finally, in a number where the two contemplate suicide (in a play they're putting on) they "face the music and dance," with Rogers amazing, sparkling pearl dress which smacks Fred in the face! The consummate professional, he continues dancing anyway. Another great number is "Put All Your Eggs in One Basket," which is cute and silly.
Features & Bottom Line:
In the Special Features they explain not only the history of Follow the Fleet but give a deeper background into Astaire and Rogers than I've seen in other DVD's of this series.
Finally, an orchestra short featuring African American jazz dancing, toe-tapping and singing as well as a Merry Melodies cartoon, just like you'd see in 1936 theaters.
Bottom Line:
Not the best of the Astaire/Rogers films I've seen, but is a must-see for any fan of Irving Berlin and the toe tapping style of Astaire and Rogers. If you only watch the "Let's Face the Music and Dance" number, prepare a box of Kleenex, OK?