Kevin Cole & Michael Feinstein discuss the Gershwin brother song writing process for "They Can't Take That Away from Me" 📜🙅♀️💪 2/2 pic.twitter.com/Tl0pfYLNZz
💃🕺Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance to Joseph Eastburn Winner 's "Little Brown Jug" 🏺 in "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle" pic.twitter.com/KOsCLumQQo
Wayne Newton performs a medley that starts with "When the Saints Go Marching In" and concludes with Lewis F. Muir and L. Wolfe Gilbert "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" 🛳️ on the Jack Benny Showhttps://t.co/E7rItYhbgKpic.twitter.com/Cs5oaBRpfF
🥂🍾 The Lawrence Welk Shoew 's Jo Ann Castle [probably no relation to Vernon ] ♜ plays Lewis F. Muir and L. Wolfe Gilbert "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" 🛳️https://t.co/h2w1tYoWLspic.twitter.com/h8cBSFhl7l
Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers portray Vernon & Irene Castle who get their first dancing gig with the help of Edna May "Lady Catherine De Bourgh" Oliver & Walter "Have you ever been stung by a dead bee" Brennanhttps://t.co/COYjMjdCsnpic.twitter.com/05nc1kwS6u
Ginger 's character sings Kern 's "A Fine Romance" in the 1936 film "Swing TIme" to Astaire's character - unaware that Fred's character is aloof b/c he has a fiancé back homehttps://t.co/5zmQSIi2jgpic.twitter.com/SAl6Ti9J68
Astaire 's sidekick pal, Victor Moore , then spills the beans about Fred's fiancé to Ginger - which causes Ginger to now become aloof to Fred's advanceshttps://t.co/wV6fQJbI9fpic.twitter.com/NM6iF7DGTw
Georges Metaxa - whose character has unrequited love for Ginger in this love triangle / quadrangle - leads a band that also plays "A Fine Romance" pic.twitter.com/ZWDB73Wxdc
And in case you wanted to know what George Metaxa sounded like when he sang - here he is singing Rivera & Woods "Green Eyes" 1931 https://t.co/VLbZg85v9u
"Dancing in the Dark" is played in the background of this #FortunesOfWar scene where British ex pats are given the news that Germany had captured Paris pic.twitter.com/fdoY05DVxx
wrt to Paris falling to the Germans during WWII - allegedly Oscar Hammerstein II wrote "The Last Time I Saw Paris" as a cathartic release over the depressing news pic.twitter.com/czCgWawiRZ
Narrator: Another stand out of the film ["Till the Clouds Roll By."] is Dinah Shore's haunting rendition of "The Last Time I Saw Paris."
When Paris fell, Oscar [ Hammerstein ] was so devastated, that he sat down and wrote this poem and he then gave that to Jerry [ Jerome Kern ] who set it to a melody. Without any idea....this was not intended for a show or a movie.
Sherman: It's about Paris....and Paris had just fallen. The year was 1940. June, 1940. So Kern read the lyrics and said, "Yeah, let's see what I can do." The next day he called him up and he said, "Oscar, I want you to hear something." And he sang it over the telephone. It's one of the greatest, most moving songs I've ever heard. Of course, it was incredible. They had to put it in a movie and it won the Academy Award.
Gene Kelly: You know, I guess more songs have been written about Paris than any other city. One of the loveliest and most poignant was by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein. Dinah Shore sings it in "Till the Clouds Roll By."
Follow up poll:
#TheLawrenceWelkShow's Bobby Burgess & Cissy King perform Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz 's "Dancing in the Dark"
makes a reference to the George Gershwin song "They Can't Take that away from Me" written for the Astaire Rogers film "Shall We Dance":
There's possibly a bit of deliberate or inadvertent misdirection in this scene:
Harriet Smith: I read this book in high school containing love letters written by different presidents. I was thinking we could print out copies and put them on tables for your guests to read. Caroline Lee: I'm sorry, I thought we were discussing the music? Harriet Smith: Then we have the DJ play songs inspired by the letters. For example, Roosevelt letters to his wife were all about the little things: her smile, the way she slept, her laugh. Emma Woodhouse: Romantic, go on Smith: Then we dedicate a song from Teddy to Alice, and we play the Gershwins' "They Can't Take that away from Me." A classic.
When I thought of Gershwin music and the Roosevelts, I immediately thought of Franklin and Eleanor, since they were in the White House when the song was composed. However, the Democrat Roosevelts had more of a business versus romantic relationship.
Obviously, Theodore Roosevelt possessed a more romantic attachment to his wife than his cousin, Franklin, did to his:
'The light has gone out of my life' – Theodore Roosevelt's diary entry, Feb. 14, 1884, the day his wife & mother died. pic.twitter.com/vGPwLXjtXI
— History In Pictures (@HistoryInPix) May 21, 2017
On the topic of mashing up classics with new adaptations, a youtuber pointed out that the choreography to another Gershwin song from the same film "They All Laughed" could be synched up, if you squinted, to Stromae - <<Tous Les Mêmes>>
Fred Astaire portrayed a trumpet player in the 1940 film Second Chorus. I have an irrational hatred of actors who do a carp job of fake playing an instrument as Astaire and his sidekick, Batman's Penguin, did:
More horrible fake trumpet playing:
Conversely, Artie Shaw and his orchestra probably fake played their instruments to playback on stage, but did a better job pulling off synching their actions to the music since they at least knew real fingering:
The entire film:
To contrast, others find Astaire as one of the few redeeming aspects of this film:
Charley2 says: "The movie has a few redeeming qualities. Namely Astaire and one great song" http://lunch.com/t/6c46 'Second Chorus' Review
— Lunch.com (@LunchFeed) February 24, 2011
However, I'm not the only person who finds bad fake trumpet playing annoying, from the PBS show "Theater Talk" episode discussing new Broadway play about the trumpet player Louis Armstrong "Satchmo at Waldorf":
The playwright, Terry Teachout, states:
"I never wanted an actor to pretend to be playing the trumpet. That never looks right."
The blog title, "noli insipientium iniurias pati" is Latin for "Don't let the turkeys get you down." Benjamin Franklin bookcases the blog header title for two reasons:
1) He allegedly suggested the US adopt the turkey as its official mascot
2) His discovery of electricity helped Al Gore invent the internet
Quantum Physics equation under profile picture explained here
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