Two movie classics turn 90: Astaire and Rogers begin, Garbo and Gilbert end

Susan King
·7 min read

Nine decades ago this December, moviegoers were witnessing the beginning of one of the most successful movie teams, as well as the demise of one of the most dramatic.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made box office magic during the Depression-era 1930s in nine Art Deco musical comedy delights from RKO including 1934’s “The Gay Divorcee” and 1936’s “Swing Time.” Their chemistry was unmatched, and they literally made beautiful musical together introducing countless standards including the Oscar-winning “The Continental” and “The Way You Look Tonight.” And their dancing was robust, romantic and heavenly-just check out the “Never Gonna Dance” routine from “Swing Time.”

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It was 90 years ago this week, their first pairing “Flying Down to Rio” opened at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City. One of the big surprises is that the duo aren’t the stars of the lightweight pre-Code musicals: Dolores Del Rio, Gene Raymond and Raul Roulien are the headliners with Astaire and Rogers relegated to fourth and fifth billing.

According to TCM.com, it was studio head David O. Selznick who signed Astaire. The legendary dancers/singer had been a big star on Broadway with his sister Adele in a series of musicals. But Adele quit the act in 1931 when she married a British nobleman. While he was waiting for “Flying Down to Rio” to start production, a very uncomfortable Astaire played himself in the Joan Crawford and Clark Gable musical drama “Dancing Lady.”

Just as with Astaire, Rogers was also a Broadway baby appearing in the 1930 George and Ira Gershwin musical “Girl Crazy” and was a veteran of over 20 movies by the time she made “Flying Down to Rio.”

The plot is pretty forgettable — Raymond plays a womanizing band leader who falls for a Brazilian beauty (Del Rio) The big problem Is that she’s engaged to his friend and boss (Roulien). Astaire is Raymond’s BBF and band mate; Rogers is the orchestra’s singer. The duo only has one number as part of the lengthy “The Carioca” where they sing and dance on seven white pianos.

The film also introduced Astaire with dancer/choreographer Hermes Pan who was the assistant to the choreographer in “Flying Down to Rio.” It was his idea that Astaire and Rogers dance “The Carioca” with their foreheads together. Other memorable musical numbers include “Orchids in the Moonlight” and the title tune featuring showgirls harnessed on the wings of airplanes wearing costumes that leave a little to the imagination.

“The Carioca” became a craze; the film was such a big hit that it helped the coffers of the struggling RKO. Fan reaction was so strong for Astaire and Rogers, they reunited just six months later to begin filming on their own vehicle “The Gay Divorcee.” And 10 years after their last RKO collaboration, they joined forces at MGM for the Technicolor “The Barkleys of Broadway.”

While “Flying Down to Rio” was bringing happiness and cheer to audiences at Radio City, “Queen Christina” was making them shed more than tear or two. The sumptuous historical romance-okay, it does play fast and loose with the facts-marked the first Greta Garbo film in 18 months. Though she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, Garbo gives one of her most haunting performances as the 17th century Queen of Sweden who ultimately gives up her crown for the man she loves. That was the reel-life Christina; in real life, according to TCM.com, she was “a troll-life, hygienically challenged figure given to dirty jokes…The real Christina was a lesbian who gave up the throne to pursue artistic studies in Italy where she lived as a man under the name of Count Dohma.  In the movie, she does wear men’s clothing when she’s out hunting as well as meeting with male advisors

Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, “Queen Christina” originally starred a young Laurence Olivier as her Spanish lover Don Antonio. But there was no chemistry between them. So, Garbo ended up telling MGM head Louis B. Mayer hire John Gilbert. During silent era, Garbo and Gilbert starred in three oh-so-romantic films 1926 “Flesh and the Devil,” 1927’s “Love” and 1928’s “Woman of Affairs.”

When they did “Flesh and the Devil” Gilbert was a major star at MGM; Garbo had only made two films for the studio. But according to a 2015 Slate piece by Karina Longworth “the performers had a kind of chemistry together that comes along once in a lifetime, which is captured in the movie. The two could turn scenes in which virtually nothing is happening, shots in which they look at each other or look away from each other or meaningfully walk past each other or almost touch each other into something resembling an erotic dream. Many people believe that Gilbert, in a sense, taught Garbo how to be Garbo on the set of this film, by giving her direction in their scenes together that superseded the actual director’s direction.”

Even all these decades later word is still out if she and Gilbert were lovers who were even engaged. Longworth states: “A close friend of Garbo’s reported shortly after her death that Garbo had once drunkenly admitted that Gilbert was her great love, but when it came to marriage, she couldn’t face the thought of giving herself up to another person. ‘I froze,’ she is reported to have said. I was afraid he would tell me what to do and boss me. I always wanted to be the boss.’”

Gilbert, who was an alcoholic, saw his career hit the skids during the talkies. And there was no love lost between MGM’s chief and Gilbert. But Mayer agreed to hire Gilbert. It was a great decision because the magic they had on screen in the silent era burned as bright in “Queen Christina.” There is an incredibly sexy scene which takes place after they spend two nights together in her room at an inn. Moviemaker Magazine describes the sequence: “Slowly, wordlessly, Christina moves around the room to their dresser, a candlestick holder, a spinning wheel… Lying on their bed, she caresses their pillow with her cheek, breathing it in. Antonio asks what she’s doing Christina replies: ‘I have been memorizing the room. In my memory I shall live a great deal in this room.”

And “Queen Christina” also has one of the great final scenes in cinema. Christina, accompanying Don Pedro’s body, stands still and silent at the bow of the ship; her face is immobile as the camera moves in for a close-up. Mamoulian had told her to not think of anything in that moment so her face would be a “blank piece of paper” allowing audiences to give their own meaning to what she was thinking. Not only does the film end tragically; “Queen Christina” was not a commercial hit and ended up being Gilbert’s penultimate film. He died less than three years later at the age of 38.

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