December 21, 2023 marked the 90th anniversary of the opening of Flying Down to Rio, the first film to team Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Over the next six years, Astaire and Rogers starred in eight more R-K-O films together. Not only did these films showcase their incredible dancing, they also a showcased 1930s design trends. Driving for Deco will take a look at all nine films.

Pre-History

Fred Astaire

By the time R-K-O teamed Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in Flying Down to Rio, both were veterans of show business. Astaire, born on May 10, 1899 in Omaha Nebraska and his older sister, Adele began taking dancing lessons at a very early age. By the end of 1905 they started trouping in vaudeville.

By the early 1920’s, they made the leap to Broadway headliners in such shows as Lady Be Good (1924), Funny Face (1927), Smiles (1930) and The Band Wagon (1931).

After achieving great success on both the Broadway and London stage, Adele retired in 1932 to marry Lord Charles Cavendish. For the first time in his life, Fred was now a solo performer. Astaire was nervous about performing without his sister. In The Gay Divorce, Astaire teamed with Claire Luce and the show was hit. Opening at the end of November, 1932 and closed in July 1933.

It was during the run of The Gay Divorce that Astaire made a screen test for producer David O. Selznick, who at that time was head of production at R-K-O. While Astaire waited for R-K-O to cast him in a film, the studio loaned him to M-G-M where he made his motion picture debut in Dancing Lady, starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable.

After filming Flying Down to Rio, Astaire went to London for the West End run of The Gay Divorce, closing after a respectable run of 180 performances. Astaire did not need to worry about continuing his career solo. Although Fred Astaire did not know it at the time, The Gay Divorce would be his last Broadway and West End show.

Ginger Rogers

Ginger Rogers had only been a show business professional for only eight years when she was teamed with Astaire in Flying Down to Rio. Born on July 16, 1911 in Independence, Missouri, some of Rogers’ childhood was spent in Kansas CIty, before moving to Fort Worth, Texas in 1920.

Rogers’ mother Lela left her daughter in her parents care in 1915 when she went to Hollywood with an essay she had written in hopes of turning it into a film. This led to a job as a script writer at the Fox Film Corp. Lela eventually returned to her family and in the 1920s became theatre critic for a Forth Worth newspaper. This exposure to theatre at an early age led Rogers to pursue a career in show business.

Winning a Charleston contest in 1925, whose prize was a six month tour on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit, began Rogers’ show business career. At seventeen Rogers married vaudevillian Jack Pepper and they formed the team “Ginger and Pepper”, within a year their teaming and marriage was over and she went on touring as a solo again. When her tour reached New York City, she stayed. Landing jobs singing on the radio, led to her Broadway debut in the musical Top Speed.

Within two weeks of the shows opening, Rogers was offered the lead in Girl Crazy with music by George and Ira Gershwin.  In a bit of foreshadowing, Fred Astaire was hired to help with some of the choreography for the show. Girl Crazy catapulted Rogers to stardom at age 19.

Making her screen debut in the 1929 short subject A Day of a Man of Affairs, Rogers made two more shorts in 1930 before signing a seven year contract with Paramount. While at Paramount, she made five films at their Astoria, New York studio before getting out of her contract and moving with her mother to Hollywood. In Hollywood, Rogers signed a three picture deal with Pathé then freelanced, making films for a number studios. Her movie breakthrough came at Warner Brothers with her roles in 42nd Street (1933) and Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). After shooting Gold Diggers Rogers signed a long-term contract with R-K-O and was soon cast in Flying Down to Rio.

 

Hermes Pan

There were many talented people who contributed to the success of the Astaire-Rogers films. But, arguably, the most important contributor was Hermes Pan. Born in 1909 to a Greek immigrant father and mother with English – Scot-Irish heritage in Memphis, Tennessee. The family moved to New York City in 1923 a year after his father’s death. At 19, Pan’s dancing career began professionally when he landed a job in the chorus of the Marx Brother’s Broadway show Animal Crackers. Pan worked with Ginger Rogers in Top Speed, in 1930. Soon Pan and his sister Vasso moved to Los Angeles. There he found work in the movies as an assistant dance director at R-K-O. In 1933 he met Fred Astaire (who Pan bore a strikingly similar appearance too) on the set of Flying Down to Rio. Astaire was trying to figure out a step for The Carioca and Pan was invited over to assist Astaire. From that point on a long professional relationship and friendship was born. Pan would assist Astaire in creating the choreography for a number of his future musicals. Pan would also learn Ginger Rogers’ steps and teach them to her while Astaire was working on his solo routines.

R-K-O Radio Pictures

In 1928, four fully vertically integrated movie studios dominated Hollywood. By the end of the year, a new player joined M-G-M, Paramount, Fox and Warner Bros., one whose parent company, R.C.A., created to exploit their new sound on film system, Photophone.

In late 1927, with all the major film studios aligned with Western Electric’s Vitaphone or Movietone sound systems, David Sarnoff needed a foothold in Hollywood for R.C.A. Photophone. Sarnoff approached Joseph P. Kennedy to install Photophone in Film Booking Office of America’s studio (FBO). During negotiations R.C.A. acquired a substantial interest in FBO. A year later, Sarnoff merged the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) vaudeville circuit with FBO. And on October 23, 1928 announced the creation of Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), the first Hollywood studio created specifically to produce talking pictures. Street Girl, R-K-O’s first official release hit the screen on July 30, 1929.

R-K-O had its first mega-hit with the release the screen adaptation of the Ziegfeld musical Rio Rita in the fall of 1929.

R-K-O would receive their only best picture Academy Award with the 1931 version of Cimarron.

After these early successes, R-K-O’s over spending on theatres and increased production, combined with the deepening Depression, caused the studio to fall on very shaky financial ground. After David O. Selznick took over as head of production in 1931 the studio began to regain some fiscal solvency. Selznick’s green lighting of Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack’s production of King Kong (1933) restored the studio’s financial health.

Soon after the release of King Kong, Selznick left R-K-O for M-G-M, in his place Merian C. Cooper took over as head of the studio’s productions. And one of the first films made under Cooper’s tenure would be Flying Down to Rio.

Musical Films

With synchronized sound finally becoming successful in the late 1920s, the one genre that had alluded motion pictures, the musical, finally became a viable option. With the release of M-G-M’s Broadway Melody in February of 1929, the musical film took off.

All the Hollywood studios put musicals into production, and the public loved them. These films matched the giddy mood of the late 1920s. But by the summer of 1930 with the glut of musicals in release, combined with the deepening Depression, audiences began to reject them. From a high in 1930 with 79 musicals hitting theatres the number dropped to 7 in 1932, the darkest year of the Great Depression. When Franklin Roosevelt won the 1932 presidential election, optimism, if not actual economic prosperity, started to slowly return. In this atmosphere, Warner Bros. took a gamble and produced 42nd Street.

Its enormous success made the other studios follow their lead and musicals once more were on movie screens. And R-K-O put into production their most expensive film of the 1933-1934 season.

Flying Down to Rio

On August 23, 1933 production started on a musical film at the R-K-O studio that no-one  thought would create the most popular dancing team in movie history. Principal photography took only five weeks and wrapped up on October 6th. With an extra week or so of retakes shot between late October and November 7th.

 Dolores del Rio, Gene Raymond and Raul Roulien are the top three billed stars of the film.

The plot is typical of musicals of the early 1930s. Boy meets girl, girl is engaged to boy’s best friend,  how will it all end?

The other major plot point concerns Belinha’s father not being able to secure an entertainment permit for his new hotel in Rio de Janeiro. Without the permit the entertainment needs to take to the air, with dozens of chorus girls on the wings of airplanes. It sounds silly and it is. But it is also a lot of fun and entertaining.

Directed by Thorton Freeland and with music by Vincent Youmans and lyrics by Gus Kahn and Edward Eliscu and produced by Merian C. Cooper.

Art Direction

Like most R-K-O films of the 1930s Van Nest Ploglase and Carroll Clark are credited as Flying Down to Rio’s art directors.

The film opens up in Miami, Florida, where Roger Bond and his Yankee Clippers are performing at the fictitious Hotel Hibiscus.

The Streamline Moderne style of architecture that one associates with Miami was still a few years away, with the opening of the Reef Apartment-Hotel in 1935. At the time of Flying Down to Rio, Spanish Colonial Revival architecture was the predominate style of Miami. And the sets of the Hotel Hibiscus, while having a few Art Deco touches, is mostly a weird amalgam of primarily Spanish style and some Venetian set pieces, including a canal and gondola. As  seen in the “Date Grove” where the Yankee Clippers are playing.

The main lobby does have geometric Art Deco elevator doors. These can been seen in the background, as a very late-for-the-broadcast Roger Bond (Raymond) and Fred Ayres (Astaire) run through the lobby.

After the band gets fired from their Hotel Hibiscus gig, they land a job in Rio de Janeiro and the action shifts to South America. But much like the rest of the film, the art direction stays mostly Spanish Colonial Revival and Mediterranean. Typical of early 1930s films, the audience is introduced to the new local through a series of stock shots of Rio de Janeiro.

Roger Bond’s house in Rio keeps with the Spanish Revival style. The only modern piece in it is a Manning-Bowman Carafon thermos set (1931-1940), seen in the background sitting on  a traditional cabinet.

This Manning-Bowman thermos sold well in the 1930s and were used as props in many films of the decade. A complete set with tray and glasses can be found in the Yale University Art Museum.

Now the action shifts to the Carioca Casino. Carioca is a word that refers to the citizens of Rio de Janeiro. This is the moment that made Flying Down to Rio a sensation: the first, on-screen dance of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It also introduces something that would dominate in the next three Astaire-Rogers films, “the Big White Set”. These enormous, mostly white sets would be the setting for the films big production numbers, which in this film is “The Carioca”.

Again, the set is inspired by Spanish style architecture with its tile and wood work. It is also has an open air garden look with trees and rough wood railings and a butterfly motif.

The Carioca, as a dance, is a combination of samba, maxixe, fox trot and rhumba, all-the-while dancing with foreheads touching. Watching these couples, the Astaire and Rogers characters decide to give it a try and do so on the stage located just below the orchestra. Of course they’re a huge hit and in that one number they steal the film away from the three top billed leads.

After the solo dance by Astaire and Rogers, the number continues. First the white dance chorus, followed by Etta Moten (1901 – 2004) singing “The Carioca” then the Afro-Brazlian dance chorus comes in, before going back to Astaire and Rogers doing a tap version on the stage which now revolves and ending with a couple of semi-overhead shots of the all the performers in the number.

The white dancing chorus

Etta Moten singing “The Carioca”.

The Afro-Brazlian dance chorus’ turn at “The Carioca”.

After a few more scenes playing up the the romantic plot triangle, the film gets to the Aviators Club, the only truly moderne set in the movie.

Of course here most of the set pieces are based on aviation themes. The table supports are made to look like the ropes holding the basket of a hot air balloon. Hanging over a section of the dining room are private tables inside a replica a dirigible gondola. The orchestra plays from a hot air balloon basket that lifts up and floats over the dance floor. There are chrome railings and a large compass rose on the dance floor.

Julio greets Fred as he arrives at the club and clearly seen in the background is a very iconic piece of furniture. A Biltmore chair designed by the famed KEM Weber for Albert Chase McArthur’s Arizona Biltmore in 1928.

Soon after Fred arrives, the orchestra lifts up over the dance floor and plays a reprise of “When Orchids Bloom in the Moonlight”, first heard earlier in the film when Roger serenades  Belinha on a secluded beach.

As the orchestra plays, the dancers emerge from the “airship” gondola and begin their tango.

Then the camera goes overhead, à la Busby Berkeley, showing the orchestra floating over the dance floor. The basket’s support ropes add geometric patterns to the shot.

During the number, Belinha gets up from the table, going out onto the terrace and is soon followed by Julio. Julio sings a chorus of “When Orchids Bloom in the Moonlight” to Belinha, while rear projected scenes change during the song behind them. And for the only time in any of the R-K-O Astaire / Rogers films, color is used. During this one moment the film employs tinted film stock, whose colors change with the shifting backgrounds.

Julio serenading Belinha on the terrace in pre-tinted color stock.

Roger comes upon Belinha and Julio and realizes for the first time that his best friend is his hitherto unnamed rival for Belinha. Belinha gets out of the awkward situation by dancing at tango with Fred concluding the number.

The sequence ends and it isn’t long that before we see the band and chorus girls rehearsing on the grounds of the hotel. To a reprise of “Music Makes Me”, Fred Astaire has his first on screen solo dance.

Fred’s solo to the reprise of “Music Makes Me”. Frame grabs from the Warner Bros. DVD.

Because Belinha’s father has still failed to obtain an entertainment  license for the hotel, no-one is allowed to perform anywhere on the grounds. So the chorus girls take to the skies for the “Flying Down to Rio” finale.

While on the ground Fred sings while the band plays “Flying Down to Rio”. Then Fred waves to Honey  to begin the aerial show.

Honey signals to the girls to begin the show.

Through the use of mock up planes suspended from the sound stage roof, wind machines and rear projection the illusion is created that the chorus is flying a few thousand feet above Rio de Janeiro.

Of course the show is a great success and the hotel is saved. Roger, not wanting to hurt his best friend, decides to take the one of the Pan American Airways Clipper flying boats back to the States. The interior of the Sikorsky S-40 flying boat is the only other modern set piece in the film, but while modern does not really have any characteristics of Art Deco styling.

Julio, knowing Roger is on the plane and knowing that Belinha is in love with Roger, does the noble thing. He takes Belinha on board and sits her across from Roger.

Once airborne he asks the captain to marry Roger and Belinha, then parachutes out of the plane.

The film was a massive hit and helped bolster R-K-O out of financial difficulties. Of course what secured Flying Down to Rio’s place in film history was the teaming Astaire and Rogers. Their dancing of the “Carioca” started a craze that spread rapidly in 1934. And created a demand for another Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers teaming. It was no accident that the film’s last shot is on Astaire and Rogers and not the three top billed stars.

Before the end of 1934 Astaire and Rogers would be seen together on the screen again, this time in their first starring film with wonderful Art Deco sets. The Gay Divorcee will be the subject of part two in this series.

End Credit frame grabs from the Warner Bros. DVD.

 

Sources

Croce, Arlene. The Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Book. Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, New York, 1977

Jewell, Richard B. RKO Radio Pictures A Titan is Born. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, 2012.

Lasky, Betty. RKO The Biggest Little Major of Them All. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1984.