Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Hot 888 Mama . . . and a war broke out? And I'm not talking about those STEP UP or BATTLE AMER!CA-type "dance-war" flicks. THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE is a dance movie which closes with a REAL WAR (specifically, the WWII under card, as it's taught today). One minute you have noted hoofer Fred Astaire doing a stern-faced tango. The next, he's firing the twin machine guns of a WWI fighter biplane with a lunatic grin on his face. This is definitely a film with a serious attention deficit disorder. Vernon and Irene are shown to be deeply in debt as total, hopeless failures stranded in a foreign country. After their chance swing around a dance floor earns them their first supper in days, a wordless 20-minute montage immediately commences by the end of which they are the 1913 version of William & Kate, Brad & Angelina, and Barack & Michelle all rolled into one. As soon as dialog resumes, dance gives way to war, and a few cheesy aerial scenes later, it's "goodbye, farewell, Au Revoir." But the band plays on. For a bit.

MartinHafer BEWARE--SPOILER AHEAD--READ AT YOUR OWN RISKThis film is one of the most unusual Astaire-Rogers musicals because for once the story is about a real couple, Vernon and Irene Castle--famous dancers in the early part of the 20th century. So we have a musical bio-pic, though in many other ways it's very similar to the rest of the films Astaire and Rogers made together. Once again, there are strong supporting comic players (Edna May Oliver and Walter Brennan) and plenty of ballroom-style and tap dancing. But what truly makes this different is that the film is forced to stick to the main facts about the people they are portraying, so there is no fairy tale happy ending, since Vernon was killed towards the end of WWI. Those who want the happy ending and demand the Astaire-Rogers formula remain intact will be disappointed, but I was actually pretty impressed that the story DIDN'T include some sort of sappy ending or ended on a cliché. While not a great film, the acting, dancing, direction and writing were just fine and I do respect the fact that it is not just the "same old story".

writers_reign There was probably a good reason why RKO put these top-rated stars into a vehicle that was alien to everything they had done before; it's interesting to speculate that perhaps the studio felt the franchise was winding down and needed kick-starting in a new direction, or maybe the studio felt the partnership was growing too demanding and wanted to 'teach them a lesson' or, to explore another avenue, maybe they HAD been unable to persuade Astaire to sign another contract and decided his last contractual obligation would be in a movie weighted towards Ginger. Whatever, they came up with a bio-pic of two dancers who had revolutionized ballroom dancing a quarter of a century earlier but were, at the time of filming, virtually forgotten. Unlike the others in the franchise this time around there would be no mistaken identity ploys to keep the couple apart until the last reel, no new score (just a single new number) from the likes of Berling, Kern or Gershwin AND for good measure an unhappy ending.Vernon Castle was an Englishman from Norwich who moved to America and appeared in a dozen or so Broadway shows before forming a dance partnership with his wife, Irene, which brought them fame and fortune. He enlisted soon after the outbreak of World War I and was killed in February, 1918, and the film more or less follows that outline. This time around there is virtually no chasing the girl; they meet and marry within two reels, spend another reel starving then become an overnight sensation, enjoy it for five or six years until Vernon dies in an airplane accident.Fred and Ginger do what they did best, sing and dance but this time in a completely different style to the one fans were used to and expected. Nevertheless they still manage to charm and captivate and actually carry much more of the film with no Eric Blore, Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes or Helen Broderick to share the load. In lieu of these comic stalwarts we get Walter Brennan (playing the part of a man who, in real life, was Black) and Edna May Oliver, both of whom are up to the little they get to do. Apparently it disappointed fans on its initial release but today it stands up well and reminds us just what our grandparents, parents, and even ourselves loved about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

theowinthrop Do people watch Astaire and Rogers films for more than the pleasure of their dancing and singing? Both performed the dialog parts in their musical comedies well too, but most people think of their movies as a series of opportunities to see great dance numbers and to hear music by Gershwin, Kern, Berlin, Porter, or Youmans. I doubt if they recall the plots."Flying Down To Rio" deals with a traveling orchestra that assists in advertising a hotel in Rio De Janairo. Nobody recalls that, but they recall Youmans' melody "Orchids in the Moonlight" and his dance (for Astaire and Rogers) "The Carioca". They also remember the big production number of the young women on the airplane wing ("Ah, Rio, Rio by the Sea - Oh!"). Except for that, few recall the hero is Gene Raymond and the heroine is Delores Del Rio. The running gag of the three agents of the bank that is trying to sabotage the new hotel (and who are only seen as top hatted shadows) may be recalled - but it isn't really worth recalling.In the later musicals the same problems exist. The story of "Gay Divorcée" (originally "Gay Divorce" on Broadway) is how Rogers hires Eric Rhodes to be found with her at a resort hotel so her husband can have grounds for divorce. The Porter score including "Night and Day" and "The Continental" was good - but who recalls the plot (though Rhodes is very funny as the perpetual hired "other man" for instant divorces. The final irony of the plot (almost like a flat joke's punch line) is that Eric Blore knows a nasty secret about the husband, who (for his own reasons) does not want a divorce.The series did try to tie the couple down to more than frivolous plots dealing with mistaken identities or fake personalities. FOLLOW THE FLEET and CAREFREE tried to have plots dealing with sailors putting on a show and with a psychologist falling in love with a patient who was engaged to his best friend (Ralph Bellamy, of course). Both were amusing, but rather slapdash. CAREFREE had a curious concluding moment, when a hypnotized Rogers is literally slapped out of her state of hypnosis. Rogers looks like she has been the victim of domestic violence as she is married.By 1939 Astaire and Rogers were tired of the series, and wanted to go their separate ways. The public was also getting tired of the series. So finally they were given a property that reversed the formula. Instead of the music and dancing ornamenting a bare plot, the plot incorporated the music and dance by telling the story of the greatest ballroom dance team of the first half of the 20th Century, Vernon and Irene Castle.I have often felt that had Vernon Castle lived beyond 1917 into the period of talkie movies, and stayed married to Irene, they might have been in some of the Astaire Rogers films (the choreography of two rival couples dancing would have been fascinating). Vernon might have played a mentor or rival or father to Fred. But it wasn't to be. As the film shows Vernon (who was English-born) enlisted in the Air Corps in 1917, and was killed in a freak accident saving the life of a pilot he was training (the scene in the film is quite savage in showing the crash).In the four years (1913 - 1917) when they swept the world with their mastery of dancing, Vernon and Irene Castle became leading celebrities. The film follows the slow steps to fame they took, including getting stuck for awhile in Paris because Vernon was hired only to be a comic actor, not to be a dancer. It shows how Edna Mae Oliver (as their agent and friend) gets them the breaks they deserve, and how they end as figures of social change (ballroom dancing regained popularity, and they did create not only fashions for men and women but also "the Castle Walk" dance step). That this all happened in four years suggests what their impact would have been if they lived into the 1940s together (Irene Castle died in the 1960s).There are some delightful moments in the film: Ginger Rogers auditioning for her date Fred Astaire by doing "Yama Yama Man" complete with a costume in her parlor. She is imitating the originator of the song, Bessie McCoy. Walter Brennan trying to protect Rogers from Astaire (whose intentions he constantly suspects). Watch him in a small scene watering the grass of the lawn, and ignoring Astaire's questions. Oliver noticing the rhythmic swaying of the overhead lamp in her apartment due to the dancing going on upstairs (where Fred and Ginger are dancing). But what is best is the feeling of impending doom over the couple. We know Vernon is going to die so that means their success and their life together will end soon.This sense of doom makes "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle" unique among the Astaire - Rogers films - it is a downer. There is no getting away from the loss of happiness Irene Castle suffered, nor the loss of talent the theater and dance world suffered. The concluding moment of the film always haunted me - Irene and Vernon dancing in spirit together, twirling in a never-ending, eventually disappearing embrace. When I saw the film the first time, Irene Castle was still alive. The second time she was gone but the two stars were still living. Now Fred and Ginger are gone too. That final ghostly dance manages to encompass two sets of dance legends, and increases the sadness that surrounds this - to me - best of their films.