{"id":289,"date":"2014-02-11T21:25:41","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T20:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/?p=289"},"modified":"2014-07-25T11:10:31","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T10:10:31","slug":"fred-astaire-george-burns-gracie-allen-are-wonderful-in-a-damsel-in-distress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/?p=289","title":{"rendered":"Fred Astaire, George Burns & Gracie Allen sing, dance and joke through “A Damsel in Distress”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 1937 RKO movie “A Damsel in Distress” cheerfully shreds the plot of the book. But it was the book’s author, P.G. Wodehouse (best known for his Bernie Wooster\/Jeeves series), who helped transform the story into a star vehicle for Fred Astaire, George Burns and Gracie Allen. And what a vehicle it is, with dancing, singing and jokes.<\/p>\n

\"Astaire,<\/a>
Astaire, Burns & Allen in a 1937 RKO publicity photo for the movie. Click twice to blow up<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fred Astaire plays a song-and-dance man named Jerry Halliday, while Burns and Allen play George Burns and Gracie Allen (We would call that post-modern; they call it vaudeville).<\/p>\n

The book is a romantic comedy about a composer of musicals, while the movie goes one step further and is itself a musical. The music, by George and Ira Gershwin, included three songs which became standards — Things Are Looking Up, A Foggy Day, <\/em>and Nice Work If You Can Get It<\/em>. With a plot so light it can hardly be called a spoiler alert to say Astaire, playing a star, gets the girl. George Burns plays Astaire’s press agent and Gracie Allen is George’s secretary. Gracie plays a confused dingbat who somehow ends each scene getting what she wants.<\/p>\n

Look for the dance sequence at a carnival, shot through funhouse mirrors. (A very different take on funhouse mirrors from the climactic scene in Orson Welles’ “Lady from Shanghai” made in 1948).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 1937 RKO movie “A Damsel in Distress” cheerfully shreds the plot of the book. But it was the book’s author, P.G. Wodehouse (best known for his Bernie Wooster\/Jeeves series), who helped transform the story into a star vehicle for Fred Astaire, George Burns and Gracie Allen. And what a vehicle it is, with dancing, … Continue reading Fred Astaire, George Burns & Gracie Allen sing, dance and joke through “A Damsel in Distress”<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[46],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":319,"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions\/319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}