Sometimes when I'm folding laundry I watch something I've saved on the dvr. Tonight I decided to watch the first thing at the bottom of the list that I hadn't watched yet, which I taped months ago (I like to go through the Turner Classic Movie channel schedule and set the timer for all the things I want to watch, but then I rarely get around to them). When I scrolled down, I discovered what I was going to be watching 'The Fred Astaire Songbook'. Well, that was king of exciting (for me), and when I turned it on, to my surprise, it was hosted by Audrey Hepburn. That was doubly exciting.
The thing they emphasized in this documentary, was that Fred Astaire, though not considered a great singer, had all the best songwriters of that era (and this century, in my opinion), writing songs just for him. People like Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer, just to name a few. They liked the way he enunciated their lyrics and kept it simple. A significant amount of the 'standards' were written for, and performed first in his movies with Ginger Rogers. I love those movies and I LOVE the 'standards'!!! They never fail to make me happy :) Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance can bite it - nobody does it like this anymore!!!
Night and Day (Cole Porter) from The Gay Divorcee
I don't think Ella and Eva will succumb to my brainwashing attempts in this case, but I think I still have a chance with Sophie. She loved their dancing a while back when I was watching one of their movies, so now that their on my brain, I'm going to turn them on for her tomorrow :)
One of my favorite things is how Ginger's dresses always flow and move perfectly with her dancing, and I'd like to walk right into those art deco sets.
Monday, December 8, 2008
I ♥ Fred and Ginger
Sometimes when I'm folding laundry I watch something I've saved on the dvr. Tonight I decided to watch the first thing at the bottom of the list that I hadn't watched yet, which I taped months ago (I like to go through the Turner Classic Movie channel schedule and set the timer for all the things I want to watch, but then I rarely get around to them). When I scrolled down, I discovered what I was going to be watching 'The Fred Astaire Songbook'. Well, that was king of exciting (for me), and when I turned it on, to my surprise, it was hosted by Audrey Hepburn. That was doubly exciting.
The thing they emphasized in this documentary, was that Fred Astaire, though not considered a great singer, had all the best songwriters of that era (and this century, in my opinion), writing songs just for him. People like Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer, just to name a few. They liked the way he enunciated their lyrics and kept it simple. A significant amount of the 'standards' were written for, and performed first in his movies with Ginger Rogers. I love those movies and I LOVE the 'standards'!!! They never fail to make me happy :) Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance can bite it - nobody does it like this anymore!!!
Night and Day (Cole Porter) from The Gay Divorcee
I don't think Ella and Eva will succumb to my brainwashing attempts in this case, but I think I still have a chance with Sophie. She loved their dancing a while back when I was watching one of their movies, so now that their on my brain, I'm going to turn them on for her tomorrow :)
One of my favorite things is how Ginger's dresses always flow and move perfectly with her dancing, and I'd like to walk right into those art deco sets.
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3 comments:
I see that we share in some similar loves! (Remember when AMC played good OLD movies??? Thank goodness for TCM!)
My brainwashing attempts have not gone over well with my children. Joslyn can't get past the black and white. I've tried some of the Hitchcock movies on them which have gone over oKAy. I doubt I'll ever get them to watch more than 10 minutes of Dr. Zhivago *sigh*.
Best of luck to you with Sophie!
I totally agree with you! Naomi hasn't seen the light yet, but we watched "Holiday Inn" the other night, and Boyce was totally entranced. All is not lost!!
Well the brainwashing didn't go quite as planned. She was asking for Spongebob about 10 seconds into the first dance :( But I'm not giving up yet!
Julie, I had a TV in my bedroom, and I would stay up late watching old movies on AMC, back when Bob Dorian introduced them. Yeah, AMC pretty much sucks now as far as classic movies go. TMC is where it's at now.
Don't give up Laura!
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