Flying Down to Rio (1933)

Excellent but underrated film

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Blistering performances.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Although it was made more than eighty years ago, "Flying Down to Rio" remains famous for two things. The first is for being the first screen pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, although they are not its main stars. Top billing goes to Dolores del Río and Gene Raymond, who play two sides of a love triangle. Raymond plays Roger Bond, an American bandleader who takes his orchestra to Rio in pursuit of Brazilian beauty Belinha. The third side of the triangle is Julio, Belinha's long-standing fiancé. I won't reveal which of the men ends up with the girl, but anyone familiar with the conventions of Hollywood romantic comedies of the period will be able to work out the answer from what I have just written. Astaire has a relatively minor role as Bond's assistant Fred Ayres and Rogers an even smaller one as singer Honey Hales, although she was billed above him for the only time in their careers. (In 1933 Astaire was better known as a Broadway star). The film is sometimes described as "pre-Code", which is technically correct as the Production Code did not come into force until the following year. That description, however, might be misleading to those who have come to associate the words "pre-Code" with something racy, as there is little here which would have troubled the Hays Office had the film been made after 1934, except that they might have insisted upon slightly less revealing costumes for the showgirls. It goes without saying, for example, that, although Brazil has a large black population, Belinha and Julio are both white. (Indeed, no black Brazilians feature at all). Code or no Code, no Hollywood studio in the thirties was going to make a rom-com in which a white bandleader falls for a black woman. This is the sort of musical in which the singing and (even more importantly) the dancing take precedence over the story. Apart from the love-triangle, the only significant plot element is a crooked scheme by a shadowy group of gangsters to put Belinha's father, a hotel and nightclub owner, put of business by ensuring that he does not get a public entertainment licence. This element, moreover, is really only a plot device to set up the second thing for which the film is famous, its celebrated closing scene. Roger and Julio are both enthusiastic aviators and they persuade the local flying club to organise a stunt whereby the club's showgirls will dance on the wings of their planes as they fly past the club. As the entertainment will not actually be taking place on club premises no licence will be needed. Although some of the songs in the film, such as "Orchids in Moonlight", became popular hits at the time, none are particularly memorable. As I said, the plot is pretty flimsy and there are no outstanding acting performances. The famous wing-dance sequence, however, is spectacular, particularly by the standards of the early thirties, and is the main reason why the film gets an above-average mark. 6/10]

My reason for posting a review is to counter in a small way the negative and what I consider to be be the hypercritical comments about such a wonderful and entertaining movie as Flying Down To Rio. Unfortunately there are some people who, on obtaining a soap box to air their views, go off on a tangent which has little or nothing to do with the subject on hand.these pseudo, erstwhile and would be experts attempt to show the world their knowledge . I would ask any fair minded person what's not to like about this movie.i first got it as a VHS tape and the other day I got it on DVD and played it twice.it is one of those movies which seems to improve with every viewing. I feel sorry for those people who criticize for the sake of criticizing.

Copyright 29 December 1933 by RKO-Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 21 December 1933. U.K. release: 8 September 1934. 10 reels. 89 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Band leader falls for a Brazilian siren. No the bandsman is not played by Fred Astaire, nor is the vamp Ginger Rogers.NOTES: First teaming of Astaire and Rogers, albeit in supporting roles. "The Carioca" was nominated for an Academy Award for best Song, but lost out to "The Continental" from the next Astaire-Rogers movie, "The Gay Divorcée".Negative cost: $462,000. Initial domestic rentals gross: $923,000. Initial foreign rentals gross: $622,000. Net profit for the studio after deducting all expenses and overheads: $480,000. RKO's top grossing movie of 1933-34. COMMENT: A delight. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it didn't run long enough. No wonder Depression audiences were clamoring for more. Very snappy film editing. I loved all the various wipes and iris effects and the way the travelogue scenes of Rio turn into postcards and slip out of frame is as ingenious as the ghostly alter egos of Raymond and Del Rio in the beach sequence. If anything the editing is a bit too snappy during the dance sequences. The extended Carioca number is the film's highlight as is the climax with all the gorgeous girls atop the plane, but the Raymond-Del Rio flirtation is by no means dull. He is much more animated than usual and she is exquisitely costumed and photographed. Fred Astaire makes an amusing stooge and Ginger hams up the vocalizing of "Music Makes Me" delightfully. (Her part apart from dancing the Carioca with Fred and singing one song and cracking a few wisecracks is disappointingly small. She has no role to play in the story-line unlike Fred who is Raymond's buddy and stand-in). Gould tries to out-Busby Berkeley which he does in the aero number with acres of beautifully costumed dancers at his disposal so that the film often looks like Warner Bros. in its musical hey-day.In fact, this movie thoroughly deserves its cult movie reputation. Even the credits whiz by at an alarming speed. In fact the pace is so fast it's hard to believe the movie unwinds at close to 90 minutes. Full of ingenious optical effects and old-style Hollywood vigor, it all comes to a stunning climax that will entrance both vintage plane buffs and lovers of the form divine. Freeland's direction has been freely criticized of late for not doing justice to Fred Astaire's numbers by "dismembering" them with too many audience reaction shots, but frankly this habit will worry only Fred's most rabid fans. To my eyes, Freeland directs with pace and style.

From little acorns...Best known as the first on-screen pairing of Astaire and Rogers, I forgot that they were only playing supporting characters here, leaving me occasionally scratching my head at their extended absence from the film. Of the two, Fred gets far more screen-time. Their parts of frontline competing lovers in fact are taken by the named leads, the rather anodyne Gene Raymond and Dolores Del Rio. The other points of interest for me were the occasional camera tricks involved, for example when Raymond and Del Rio are tormented by their consciences and the off-screen depiction of the sinister gentlemen-financiers conspiring against the hotel's success, as well as the pre-Hays Code values (or lack of same) on show, quite literally on occasions, indeed our first view of Ginger sees her apparently dancing in a see-through negligee, not to mention the scantily-clad girl wing-walkers improbably assembled on the squadron of planes flown in for the big opening night.The story is typical light-comedy fluff, although I'm not sure I agreed with the conclusion which has Raymond breaking up the engagement of Del Rio and her Brazilian fiancé. The songs aren't exactly of the quality of a Kern, Gershwin or Berlin with one of them boasting, if that's the right word, the memorable phrase "wicky, wacky, wicky" to rhyme with "tricky", naturally. The humour is a bit forced at times but again there are one or two racy ribald moments which catch the ear. There's certainly a degree of ambition in some of the camera shots, particularly the extended Astaire and Rogers number "The Carioca" and the air-show at the end, obvious as the projection work is to modern eyes although some of the stunts are hilarious in their execution, notably the flying save of the girl who falls from the airborne trapeze, trust me this does happen!Otherwise the wooden doe-eyed acting of the leads and their stiff, prissy dialogue at times, plus the light-operatic musical style of some of the numbers makes the movie a little hard-going at times, but Fred and Ginger just about make it watching all the way through. I can't think when I'll ever wish to see another film starring Raymond or Del Rio but as the springboard for the greatest dance partnership in movies, I guess this feature serves its purpose.