Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

This movie, made at the zenith of Astaire and Roger's popularity, is one of their lesser works—especially given the time in which it was made. They had already made: Flying Down to Rio (1933), The Gay Divorcée (1934), Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936) and Swing Time (1936), and Shall We Dance (1937). The movie (Carefree) would be followed by The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) and later, The Barkleys of Broadway (1949). So this would be the 8th of their 10 movie dancing projects together.As the movie opens, we see Steve Arden (Ralph Bellamy) in what would become one of his best stock straight-man roles, that of the want-to-be husband waiting to marry the movie's leading lady, who invariably ends up with the film's leading man. This is a role that he had held in Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth (1937) and would later hold in Howard Hawks' His Gal Friday (1940), losing the leading lady to the Cary Grant it both cases. In this case, his would-be wife is Amanda (Ginger Rogers). Since Steve fails to get Amanda to the alter, he calls on his old friend and psychoanalyst Tony Flagg (Fred Astaire) to help persuade her to overcome her lack of commitment to him. As Amanda and Steve's friends and family—I loved Luella Gear's dry humor as Amanda's Aunt Cora--following Tony and Amanda around to see how he is progressing with the persuasion. The movie takes us from place to place where a lot of singing, dancing, and comedy unfold. The most memorable song in the movies is Irving Berlin's 'Change Partners and Dance.'Another memorable moment is the dance that Astaire did at the driving range while hitting golf balls as part of the routine. Fred and Ginger had a couple of memorable dances in the movie: A swing number called 'The Yam,' and a slow motion dream sequence, 'I Used to Be Color Blind. The latter was a sequence that was OBVIOUSLY meant to be shot in color and wasn't due to RKO's budgetary restrains at the time.

Those who say that Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire made the same movie ten times over must not have seen at least half of their films. FLYING DOWN TO RIO is utterly different to anything that follows, and FOLLOW THE FLEET is as easily distinguishable from SWING TIME in its plotting as it is from SINGING IN THE RAIN. THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE isn't even a comedy even if it is a musical. And then there's CAREFREE.CAREFREE has a different flavor to anything that came before it. As many have said, it's really a Screwball Comedy with a few musical numbers tossed in. Amanda (Ginger Rogers) is either a classic screwball heiress or at least something very close to it (she may have hit it big through her singing career). It's Ginger's character that is the center of this film, not Fred's, and it's easy to understand why the European title was, indeed, 'AMANDA'. The sets, costume designs, orchestrations, even the style of the dances tend to point ahead to the forties rather than back towards the thirties. 'The Yam' almost seems like something that Mickey and Judy would do rather than Fred and Ginger. The story is structured as a parody (of psychoanalysis) and its humor is more physical than verbal. In many ways, CAREFREE is quite different.For the first time, Fred Astaire plays something other than a glorified juvenile. I find him more convincing as a psychiatrist (albeit a very poor psychiatrist) than some do; in any event, it was a necessary move for his career. That comedy seems emphasized over the musical numbers runs parallel with the development of Ginger Rogers' career, which had very few musicals left in it. CAREFREE seems like a return to the old partnership, but I think it equally serves as an early step into the future for both of its stars.The Irving Berlin score is good but not up to his earlier efforts for Astaire and Rogers. It's not up to what Kern and the Gershwins had produced for them, either. 'The Yam' proved a much better song to dance to than it was to sing, and 'I Used to be Colorblind' obviously begs for the color treatment that it never received. CAREFREE was the first Astaire/Rogers film (and I believe the only one) to not turn a profit. This was not so much due to a lack of revenue, which was approximately equal to THE GAY Divorcée's, but to increased costs, particularly the stars' salaries. Previous success had priced them into the position of needing a huge hit in order to turn a profit. CAREFREE did well, but it wasn't a huge hit.Astaire's golfing solo dance was probably more notable for his golfing than it was for his dancing. All duffers (such as myself) are astounded, but if you've never held a golf club in your hands it probably doesn't seem like much. That slow motion and a kiss are the most memorable things about the 'Color Blind' number says everything you need to know about its terpsichorean importance. Personally, I like 'The Yam' a lot. Travelling all over the country club, it's actually Fred & Ginger's longest dance number together and builds to a thrilling climax during which, for once, you can actually see Fred Astaire straining during a dance as he repeatedly lifts Ginger Rogers over his leg and around those tables. The hypnotic dance to Change Partners strikes me as rather gimmicky and is the shortest of their major duets.Fred acts his role well but really has little to do. Ginger has all the major comedic set-pieces and carries them off with flair. It's probably the only time in the series other than ROBERTA in which she was able to use her full comical abilities. Both actors met the poignancy angle of the script exceptionally well (as they had in SWING TIME) and you wonder what they might have produced if RKO had given them more opportunities in that direction. I also enjoyed Luella Gear as Ginger's aunt. Ginger had lacked an older female to confide in during SHALL WE DANCE and the character was greatly missed.CAREFREE is a fine film. I'd rank it somewhere from 5-7 in the Astaire/Rogers cannon depending on my mood.

Psychiatrist Fred Astaire is asked by friend Ralph Bellamy to speak with Bellamy's fiancée Ginger Rogers. Ginger seems to have cold feet about their wedding and Ralph wants Fred to somehow help her overcome her issues and marry him. Things get out of control thanks to drugs, dreams, and hypnosis. Ginger falls for Fred but Fred thinks it isn't real so he hypnotizes her into thinking she loves Ralph. Then Fred realizes he loves her and it's screwball comedy greatness from then on.An atypical Fred & Ginger movie but one of my favorites. More comedy than musical but it's very light and fun. Ginger is adorable and hilarious here. Love her repeated "ha ha ha" bit. You have to hear her delivery to get it. Fred's good as usual, though his character is the worst psychiatrist ever. While the hypnotism stuff is way out there, it does lead to a wonderful dance number at the end where the duo move like Ginger is under a trance. There are no real classics in the musical numbers but they're all pleasant and enjoyable. "The Yam" is lots of fun and probably the highlight. The supporting cast is terrific. Stage actress Luella Gear shines as Ginger's friend. Her first scene with Jack Carson is a hoot. Another movie where Ralph Bellamy doesn't get the girl. Poor guy. It's a great movie but it might not appeal to all Fred & Ginger fans for the fact that it's light on musical numbers (there's only four). Try to keep an open mind and give it a shot.

If you attempt to look at the plot carefully (never a good idea in a musical) this is a rather repellent movie. The practice of Psychotherapy wasn't as well known or as well respected as it is today, and the film was clearly written by someone who seemed to think of it as some fad medical cure indulged in mainly by rich and foolish women. As such we get to see Fred Astaire, the therapist, subjecting Ginger Rogers, the patient, to all manner of barbaric (to modern eyes) treatments in order to find out why she won't marry his best friend. Eventually Astaire uses hypnosis to force her to marry him, and then force him not to. Clearly, movie doctors were not subjected to as severe a code of ethics as are real ones.Its a pretty typical outing for Astaire and Rogers. Astaire's dancing is extraordinary (the dance scene on the golf course is great, as is the one where he dances with a hypnotized Rogers). Rogers' comic timing is, as always, wonderful. The secondary characters are all two-dimension cut-outs, but they're entertaining ones. If the characters didn't have quite the same sparkle to their interplay, remember, this was Astaire and Rogers' eighth film together and artistic differences were beginning to create a strain.My biggest issue with this movie was the scene in which they sing the song "I Used To Be Colorblind". This was dream sequence, and it lasted about five minutes. "Carefree" is a black and white movie and the intent originally was to film the dream sequence in color a'la "Wizard of Oz". Apparently, somewhere in the production process, people balked at the cost and it was produced in black and white along with the rest of the film. Being filmed in black and white makes the song, and the entire sequence makes not one lick of sense, because the song is about how crisp and clear the world seems in color. Not only that, but since it was designed to be viewed on color film, not in black and white, the sets weren't designed with that same high degree of contrasts they would have if they had been designed to be viewed in black and white. As such, things in the dream sequence are LESS clear than in the rest of the movie, not more. I'm just appalled that the studio could spring for a few minutes of color footage for a film with such proved money-makes as Astaire and Rogers.