87 years ago, someone at RKO had the brilliant idea to pair up an up-and-coming vaudevillian with a brassy character actress used to playing comic relief. The result was pure movie magic. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers quickly became two of their studio's biggest stars and their collaborations live on as some of the most glamourous musicals to ever grace the Silver Screen. Thanks to HBO Max, the majority of those flicks are now available to stream. The only one that isn't, Follow the Fleet, can be rented from Amazon if you wish to see its dancing delights.
With that in mind, it seemed like a good time to delve into the wonderful world of Fred and Ginger onscreen. Here's a ranked list of their ten movies together…
10. CAREFREE (1938)
A disastrous attempt at doing a manic screwball comedy about the matter of psychoanalysis, Carefree's got some technically impressive musical numbers going for it. A slow-motion incursion into the unconscious mind deserves special praise for its visual beauty and sheer inventiveness. However, the plot that strings those numbers together is hopelessly contrived, and not even the charming duo of Fred and Ginger can make sense of it. Astaire, in particular, seems lost in a movie that demands he try a type of broad comedy for which he was uniquely unsuited.
9. FOLLOW THE FLEET (1936)
Any Fred and Ginger movie made after 1933 has no excuse for sidelining them as shamelessly as Follow the Fleet does. The flick's an insipid love story between a Navy sailor and a dowdy maid turned glamour girl played by Randolph Scott and Harriet Hilliard. Fred and Ginger sort of work like fairy godmothers at the margins of the romance, lending support to the protagonists while taking care of most of the song and dance of this musical. One big strength of the movie, along with the stellar dance interludes, is its glitzy wardrobe designed by Bernard Newman.
8. ROBERTA (1935)
Perhaps Fred and Gingers' most disjointed movie, Roberta often feels like two romcoms haphazardly stitched together. On one hand, it's a gentle love story between Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott as a destitute princess and a prudish football player trying to run a Parisian dress shop. On the other, it's a screwball-adjacent frolic starring Fred and Ginger as a pair of American performers flirting and dancing their way through the City of Lights. While it's far from a masterpiece and Scott's a charmless romantic lead, Roberta's still thoroughly entertaining, full of costume porn and featuring a hilarious performance by Rogers. Watching her deliver sarcastic one-liners in an overwrought Slavic(?) accent is great fun.
7. THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE (1939)
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle marked the end of an era. While Fred and Ginger still did another movie together ten years after, this represents the last of their classic run of RKO musicals. It's an oddly atypical note to close this chapter of the stars' careers, being their only biographical work as well as the single one of their movies that can be justly categorized as a drama. While the chains of biopic conventions drag it down a bit, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle manages to overcome them thanks to two great leading performances and sublime dancing interludes. For Rogers, who yearned to be considered a serious actress, the role of Irene Castle proves to be a better proof of her talents than the one that earned her the Oscar the following year.
6. THE GAY DIVORCEE (1934)
The plot mechanisms that we tend to associate with the movies of Fred and Ginger originated with The Gay Divorcee. The movie hinges on a dynamic characterized by antagonism that's overcome by the advent of dance-induced passion. Fred meets Ginger and they rub each other the wrong way until dance reveals they were made for each other. All this while wearing fabulous clothes and singing Cole Porter tunes peppered with double-entendres. Unfortunately, while funny and electrified by its stars' chemistry, The Gay Divorcee features some of the least interesting musical numbers Fred & Ginger ever performed. "The Continental", which won the first Best Original Song Oscar, may have been popular but its appearance in the film is overlong and dully choreographed. The couple's rendition of "Night and Day" is the only musical scene worthy of genuine applause.
5. THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY (1949)
Made a decade after Fred and Ginger's last RKO musical, MGM's The Barkleys of Broadway is a fitting finale for one of cinema's most fabulous duos. This Technicolor extravaganza starts after most Fred and Ginger vehicles end, with the pair married and enjoying ample success in show business. A marital crisis gives shape to the script, but it's the stars that inject humanity into the narrative, varnishing the simplistic script with layers of metatextual meaning. More than ever, the couple's playing up their star personas, mining them for comedic and dramatic potential. It's an autumnal farewell, as spectacular as it's bittersweet.
4. FLYING DOWN TO RIO (1933)
Considering what big stars they'd become, it's a bit shocking to find Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers playing supporting roles in their first onscreen pairing. Rather than a Fred and Ginger movie, Flying Down to Rio is a Dolores del Río vehicle first and foremost, structuring itself around the romantic story between the Mexican starlet and Gene Raymond. Still, it's the supporting players who steal the spotlight, spectacularly so at times like in the dazzling showstopper "La Carioca". Thornton Freeland's direction is as inspired as Fred and Ginger, deliriously creative with the staging of the dance, and the editing, courtesy of Jack Kitchin, is frenetic in a way that was uncommon for this decade of American film.
3. SHALL WE DANCE (1937)
I may prefer two other Fred and Ginger movies to Shall We Dance but, from their ten collaborations, it's, by far, the best comedically. Elegantly structured, full of funny quips and modulated to its stars' strengths, the picture's a frothy dream of musical romance with Astaire, especially, proving to be a swoon-worthy leading man. The dancing could be better since neither performer is all that suited to the balletic flights of fancy that the script encourages, but the score by George and Ira Gerswhin more than makes up for it.
2. SWING TIME (1936)
In the Fred and Ginger movies, the narrative's a negligible thing that simply exists as a conduit to showcase great dance, Astaire's charm, and Roger's charisma. Swing Time takes this to the extreme, rendering its plot a barebones affair with no pretension of dramatic heft whatsoever. This makes the film a sort of choreographed poem, pure emotion expressed through dancing and the power of song, through the idioms of cinema and the magnetism of two movie stars at the top of their game. Even the romantic hijinks are downplayed, resulting in one of the sincerest love stories these actors ever performed.
Be warned, though, that Swing Time features a musical number in blackface. While Astaire's dance is technically remarkable, it's very difficult to appreciate such things beneath the layers of racist caricature.
1. TOP HAT (1935)
Fred Astaire singing about the sheer elegance of wearing a top hat, white tie, and tails. Ginger Rogers floating through the screen in a flurry of feathers. A collection of some of the best musical numbers ever put to film danced with passionate virtuosity. Such are the ingredients that make Top Hat the best Fred and Ginger film. This classic's a dream of Art Deco and ballroom fashion, of witty humor and ethereal romance. The massive and exceedingly fake-looking Venice set is the cherry on top of this delicious dessert of sugary cinema. Whenever I watch this one, I'm in heaven.
What's your favorite Fred & Ginger movie?