Friday with Fred Astaire

“Broadway Melody of 1940” co-starring Eleanor Powell

Fred Astaire took time off from work in 1939 to vacation in England, France and Ireland as the Nazis were rising in Europe. Aware that he was at a career turning point, he wanted to rest and reflect before his next movie, the motion picture musical Broadway Melody of 1940, which he had contracted to make for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

The result is this marvelous movie, shot in 27 days, pictured in the promotional poster. For an hour and 40 minutes, with entertaining vignettes, Cole Porter’s lyrics and music and Adrian’s shimmering lamé gowns, the screen’s greatest dancer matches with Eleanor Powell for a jaunty, breathtaking musical. The movie features Merrill Pye’s lavish sets, including what was then the largest set ever built—6,500 square feet made of mirrors—some of Hollywood’s best tap dancing (on black-mirrored floors) in what movie scholar Jeanine Basinger called “the last hurrah of 1930s escapist glamor.” MGM re-released Broadway Melody of 1940 in 1948 as Broadway Melody.

Friendship …