Touches You

A Masterpiece!

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Flying Down to Rio is a 1933 black and white musical "romance" film (I'm hesitant to call it that) that follows Gene Raymond, who falls in love with Dolores Del Rio. He gets his band fired from a gig, and offers to fly her back to Brazil, but they get stranded on an island, fall in "love," get into a fight, and split up. Gene Raymond soon gets back to Brazil, and meets Dolores Del Rio's fiance. Complications ensue, including her father's new hotel, but they soon get back together.So, Gene Raymond and Dolores Del Rio's romance is unbelievable. He dances with her once, then they get stranded on an island. He purposefully sabotages his plane so he can spend more time with her, instead of getting her back to Brazil. I guess they make out? Then they fight, and he hits her, then once they're back in Brazil....she's in love with him?Okay?I don't understand why Dolores Del Rio didn't just stay with her fiance. He seemed like a caring guy who actually loved her. Gene Raymond saw her, didn't even know her name, and fell for her just for her looks. He didn't even know anything about her.Now Gene Raymond's character is awful and unlikable. He constantly gets his band fired from gigs because all he cares about is sex/women. He feels little sympathy afterwards, and just continues his ways every time. Besides that, I really can't tell you anything else about his character. He likes sex. He's a "bandleader." He abandons Fred Astaire in Miami so he can take Dolores Del Rio with him instead of him.At least Gene Raymond actually HAS a character. Dolores Del Rio is so bland and has no personality. She's only there for Gene Raymond to fall for. No character, at all. She really doesn't do much the whole film, either. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are easily the best characters in the movie, even if they do have little personality. At least they have more than Dolores Del Rio. Ginger Rogers is a wise cracker. Fred Astaire wants to keep Gene Raymond in line so they don't get fired. I wish they had more screen time, because their "romance/friendship" was so much more believable. You know that they traveled together for a long time, and must've built up some chemistry.And as this is a Rogers/Astaire film, the dancing is amazing. The "Carioca" number is easily the best scene in the movie, and of course, they dance beautifully. But sadly, that was their only dance together in the movie, because of course, we had to make time for Gene Raymond and Dolores Del Rio. Ginger Roger's "Music Makes Me" number in the beginning is kind of weak, but it was still catchy and enjoyable. I really don't like her singing voice that much, but the song is still pretty fun."Orchids in the Moonlight" is a sweet, romantic ballad. I liked it when Dolores Del Rio's fiance sang it to her.The end, where the girls were dancing on the planes, was a pretty fun sequence, but in my opinion, it was a bit too short.The humor was somewhat funny. I never had any laugh out loud moments, but I smiled a lot, especially at Ginger's Roger's comments and the scene where Fred Astaire was carried out of the bakery.All in all, this movie wasn't good. Paper thin plot and unlikable/virtually non existent characters were abundant. But the dance numbers were amazing, and some of the humor worked. So if this movie wasn't a musical, I would probably hate it and give it a one star. But at least we had a fun dance number, some okay humor, and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. So, I don't recommend it, but if you're a die hard Astaire/Rogers fan, just watch it (even though they're not even main characters.) But if you're new to them, I recommend watching Top Hat, Swing Time, Follow the Fleet, or Shall We Dance first.

Now part of an inexpensive DVD set of some of the Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers films. Although Fred was a well established musical and acting talent in theater productions, this was only his second film appearance. Earlier the same year, he had been a featured dance partner for Joan Crawford, in her semi-autobiographical film "Dancing Lady" , which included another up and coming star, Clark Gable, as the leading male dramatic star. In this film, he is again billed as a secondary character, below the much younger, but more film-experienced Ginger, and well below the top-billed romantic triangle-actors of Dolores del Rio, Gene Raymond, and Raul Roulien. Nonetheless, he is given a significant role in the screenplay, as well as several solo or partnered singing or dancing scenes. Already, he seems quite comfortable in his roles. He is loosely paired with Ginger as a dance partner and developing romantic couple, although these are not pursued as definitive. Fred and Ginger have only one dance together, and this is but one segment of the very long and varied dance fest to the catchy Latin-sounding "Carioca". Clearly, this was the take home dance song, among the few offerings composed by Vincent Youmans, Gus Kahn, and Edward Eliscu, and it was exploited for all it's potential. It was hoped that the new dance format accompanying this song, including the touching of foreheads of the couples, would catch on as a dance craze. However, this didn't happen. I thought it looked interesting. As performed by some of the more exuberant dance couples, it would have been censored late the following year, when the Hays commission standards were raised, as too erotic. Some of the dance choreography looked like it was inspired by Busby Berkeley, who was then with Warner....The second most memorable song was "Orchids in the Moonlight", sung by Raul Roulien to his sweetheart: Belinha(Delores), then danced a bit to by Fred and Delores, as a couple.The highly contrived screenplay begins with Fred, as the backup leader of a traveling band fronted by Raymond, taking over the podium when Raymond spies Dolores in the Miami audience, and goes to strike up a conversation. As a result, the band loses its contract: a repetitive occurrence, thanks to the skirt chasing of Raymond's character(Roger). Both Dolores and Raymond have reasons to next move to Rio, Brazil. Raymond secretly arranges to fly Dolores there in his small 2 person plane, initially in disguise. They have a romantic encounter during a forced landing, but Dolores says she's already engaged. Nonetheless, Raymond is hopeful he can change this situation. The band is booked to perform at a hotel owned by Dolores's father. Later, they are told they can no longer perform there, because the hotel lacks a permit for them to perform. Raymond conceives the crazy idea of having the chorus girls do movements on the wings of airplanes flying above Rio, while the band plays in a public area below. This is implied as being a big success(Should have been arrested as a very dangerous stunt, instead!). While flying one of the planes, Raul spies Dolores and Raymond kissing, through his binoculars(Ha!). Upon landing, he rushes to find Dolores, telling her she will soon be on her honeymoon. They rush in his car to the 'flying boat', near ready to take off for the US. One of the passengers is Raymond, who has finally given up trying to convince Dolores to break her engagement with Raul. Once they are in flight, Raul asks the pilot if he can perform a marriage ceremony. He agrees. I won't divulge the 'unexpected' ending to this increasingly daffy story.Dolores was at the early height of her film fame during the late silent era, when she was widely hailed as the female equivalent of Valentino. After a sputtering film career during the early talky period, she quit films for a while, to later reemerge in the 40s as a star of Mexican films, and character actress in some Hollywood films. She still had some Hollywood roles in her early 60s. I remember her presence in "Cheyenne Autumn" and "More than a Miracle", in the mid-'60s, for example. Plenty of background shots of Rio , including flying close to Sugarloaf, give the audience the feel that they are in Rio.Initially, Fred was not keen on the idea of making a series of films costarring Ginger, as he wanted to establish himself as a top solo performer. However, he eventually gave in to popular sentiments.During the portion of the Carioca extravaganza when lyrics were sung, there were supposedly 3 Brazilian women who successively supplied the solo vocals: Alice Gentle initially. Then, the clearly very young and beautiful Latino Movita Castaneda, and lastly the African American Etta Moten. Movita much later became the second Mrs. Marlon Brando, and is currently the last living member of the cast of this film, at age 98. Etta lived to 102, and became prominent in political affairs relating to African Americans, including more dignified roles in films.

With its story set first in Miami and then in Rio De Janeiro, this 1933 "Boy-Meets-Girl" Comedy/Romance/Musical was so annoyingly corny and predictable that it was downright sickening for me to watch. Its story was a complete "air-head" insult to the intelligence of any thinking person.On top of a couple of badly-staged musical numbers, which were clearly "Busby Berkeley" type rip-offs, this decidedly dull-witted piece of pure escapist fluff also contained a number of really terrible songs, as well.There was not a single memorable character in the entire story. These boys & girls were all a bunch of one-dimensional paper-dolls, with the women, as usual, wearing way too much make-up and dressed to the nines in the most ridiculous-looking fashions imaginable.I understand that this movie is considered to be a big deal by many film-buffs just because it was the first picture to feature the likes of Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers dancing (this time the Carioca) together.Well, if that's all that this film is notable for, then, from my point of view, it only deserves a 3-star rating. Believe me, there are certainly much better 1930's Musicals out there that are more worth your while.*Note* - I'd say that it was this DVD's bonus features which were far more entertaining to watch than the main attraction.#1 bonus was the 1933 comedy short called "Beer & Pretzels" which co-starred Curly, Larry & Moe, before they became known as The Three Stooges.Also included as a bonus was the "Merrie Melodies" cartoon titled "I Like Mountain Music".

"Flying Down To Rio" is noted these days for being the first film which paired Astaire and Rogers, and for it's incredible finale with pretty young things strapped to the wings of airplanes in flight (courtesy of some convincing back projection.) The plot is light and fluffy as a soufflé and there are some wonderful character actors like Franklin Pangborn, Eric Blore and one of my favorite battle-axes Blanche Frederici "I think I shall go and eat an aspirin" along for the ride. Some years ago I had the privilege of talking by phone to Ms. Etta Moten, billed in the credits as "the colored singer." Ms. Moten enlightened me as to what it was like to be an African-American in 1930s Hollywood. Ms.Moten played in "Rio" as well as "Golddiggers of 1933". In both films nothing was required of her but to sing a song, but at least in neither film was she required to be a maid or other type of household help. Ms. Moten further told me that color sequences were planned for "Rio", in particular the "Carioca" number in which she appeared. She told me to look closely at the elaborate set. It consisted of many colored tiles which would have shown up beautifully in color. However, RKO was not doing well at the time, and there was simply no money for Technicolor. Color or not, "Flying Down To Rio" is an entertaining film which made a lot of money for RKO during the cash-strapped days of the depression.