Fred Astaire gets rough

I’m a big Fred Astaire fan. I’ve seen all of his movies, most more than once (many times more than once). I was reminded today, as I idly watched one of my least favorite Fred’s, The Sky’s the Limit, that there is a weirdly violent subtext in some of his dances. If it sounds as if I’m hallucinating, and thinking of another Fred, I’m not. In four movies that I can think of offhand, Fred has dances in which he kills people, gets killed or trashes the place.

It began in 1935’s Top Hat, with the eponymous dance Top Hat, White Tie & Tails.  The dance starts with Fred accompanied by a male chorus of tap dancers, all of them also nattily attired in top hat, white tie and tails.  About 3/4 of the way through the dance, Fred suddenly turns on them and, with his feet providing the rat-a-tat-tat, “guns them down” with his cane.  When one fellow proves especially hard to kill, Fred turns his fire power on that dancer alone.  The stage cleared, Fred dances one of his inimitable solos, to great applause.

The killing continues in 1940’s Broadway Melody of 1940, although this time Fred is the victim.  Most Astaire aficionados remember that movie for the lovely Begin the Beguine tap dance Astaire does with co-star Eleanor Powell (which comes in the last third of an otherwise awful Begin the Beguine suite of dances).  One of my favorite songs, though, is Cole Porter’s little remembered Please, Don’t Monkey With Broadway, which Fred dances with co-star Georgy Murphy (yes, future Congressman George Murphy).  Part of what makes the number work really well is that Fred and George have the same triangular heads and the same tenors.  Although Murphy is a much clumsier dancer, they also manage to move well together in a two man tap.  Halfway through the dance, the two men engage in a full mock sword fight, which includes the insult, the demand for redress, the rapidly tapped fight, and Fred’s “death,” complete with scream.  The duel, of course, has nothing to do with the song’s content and, much as I love the music and dancing, the duel as always struck me as a bit odd.

Fred takes a break from killing in 1943’s The Sky’s the Limit, but it’s actually his least savory role.  He is a decorated airman who, fed up with the hoo-ha of parades and photo ops, seeks anonymity in New York.  There, he meets a lovely photographer and pursues her in a way that can only be described as stalking her.  It’s creepy.  He finally wins her heart, but then has to deal with the fact that (a) he’s lied about himself and (b) he’s shipping out.  He responds by drinking and dancing.  The song is one of Johnny Mercer’s best:  One for my Baby (and One More for the Road).  (And considering what an alcoholic Mercer was, as well as being a disappointed lover, he knew of what he wrote.)  It’s an amazing performance from Fred, who convincingly moves from tipsy to drunk, to angry drunk, all through dance.  The angry drunk part ends with him completely trashing a bar, an image I’ve always found disturbing.

Fred abandons barroom behavior and returns to his killing spree in 1949’s The Barkleys of Broadway, his last movie with Ginger Rogers.  Many people remember the “Shoes with Wings On” dance because of the famous trick film technique that has Fred partnered, not with people, just with their dancing shoes.  I’ve always disliked that number, though, finding it unnerving that those shoes are dancing around.  To me, it’s the stuff of nightmares.  I think it was for Fred, too, because what few people remember is that, just as he did in Top Hat, Fred guns those shoes down.

I’ve often wondered what I’m seeing in those little moments in Fred Astaire movies, where violence peeks out from behind the silly dialog, the lovely music and lyrics, and the divine dancing.  Is this Fred’s own particular zeitgeist?  Are these moments from more violent (or less PC) times when it was okay to sneak mayhem into a family film?  I really don’t know.  I just know that, for me, these are discordant moments that mar that otherwise complete pleasure I feel watching those movies.