Carefree (1938)

Strong and Moving!

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

"Carefree" has to be one of the least musical of Astaire/Rogers movie musicals.The duo get to hoof it together only once, and Astaire has a brief little jig on a golf course, and a song warbled toward the film's end ("Change Partners") received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song, but that's about it in the musical department. The rest is a cute, diverting movie in which Astaire plays a psychologist tasked with probing Rogers' mind and convincing her she wants to marry sort of fiancé Ralph Bellamy. Why she doesn't really want to marry him is because -- of course!! -- she'd rather have Astaire. Duh. Rogers is pretty funny in some scenes where she wanders around hypnotized to let all her inhibitions go. This isn't an especially memorable movie but it's fun enough for a rainy day.In addition to Irving Berlin's nomination for Best Song, the film received Oscar noms for Best Art Direction and Best Scoring.Grade: B

. . . created the Mom and Pop scheme for American Franchise Chains so that he could become a Billionaire (along the lines of current White House Resident Rump), giving him the freedom to "sample the goods" (or, in Rump's terminology, "Grab their pies," though the actual Presidential lingo uses a different P-word besides "pies" that common average normal people are not allowed to use in public) in order to swipe a more suitable "Trophy Wife" from one of his franchisee Pops while dumping the original spouse who Brung him to the Dance of Big Money (again inspiring Rump), CAREFREE does for Psychiatry what Kroc and Rump have done for billionaires. When you're a shrink, you can use your Tools of the Trade (hypnotism, the Power of Subliminal Suggestion, etc.) to have the patient of your choice Shrunkwrapped to go (bow and all)--even if she's your best friend's girl. Fred Astaire's treatment of Ginger Rogers in CAREFREE is enough to make Bill Cosby look like a courtly gentleman in comparison. Fred and Ginger fans will need a dialog-free alternate audio track to really enjoy CAREFREE.

This might be THE Ginger & Fred movie for people who are not huge great fans of the memorable team. The reason being is that there is a little more story than the earlier ones, and also because it is really quite Funny, Thanks in NO small amount to Ginger's performance. Often somewhat rudely underestimated in the partnership( And after all, she did everything Fred did ,but backwards and in heels, AND had to be Damn Pretty while she was doing it(even the kindest amongst us would find it difficult to make a great argument for Fred as being a "looker"). Fred is often given solo numbers in their films but here Ginger gets a good one "The Yam' which she performs with great style and wit. In fact Ginger dominates the film , and it is quite reasonable to point out that after the partnership ended it was Ginger who had the most initial success winning a Best Actress Oscar for "Kitty Foyle". But it is ginger's fun and very amusing performance that makes the film particularly watchable.

If you attempt to look at the plot carefully (never a good idea in a musical) this is a rather repellent movie. The practice of Psychotherapy wasn't as well known or as well respected as it is today, and the film was clearly written by someone who seemed to think of it as some fad medical cure indulged in mainly by rich and foolish women. As such we get to see Fred Astaire, the therapist, subjecting Ginger Rogers, the patient, to all manner of barbaric (to modern eyes) treatments in order to find out why she won't marry his best friend. Eventually Astaire uses hypnosis to force her to marry him, and then force him not to. Clearly, movie doctors were not subjected to as severe a code of ethics as are real ones.Its a pretty typical outing for Astaire and Rogers. Astaire's dancing is extraordinary (the dance scene on the golf course is great, as is the one where he dances with a hypnotized Rogers). Rogers' comic timing is, as always, wonderful. The secondary characters are all two-dimension cut-outs, but they're entertaining ones. If the characters didn't have quite the same sparkle to their interplay, remember, this was Astaire and Rogers' eighth film together and artistic differences were beginning to create a strain.My biggest issue with this movie was the scene in which they sing the song "I Used To Be Colorblind". This was dream sequence, and it lasted about five minutes. "Carefree" is a black and white movie and the intent originally was to film the dream sequence in color a'la "Wizard of Oz". Apparently, somewhere in the production process, people balked at the cost and it was produced in black and white along with the rest of the film. Being filmed in black and white makes the song, and the entire sequence makes not one lick of sense, because the song is about how crisp and clear the world seems in color. Not only that, but since it was designed to be viewed on color film, not in black and white, the sets weren't designed with that same high degree of contrasts they would have if they had been designed to be viewed in black and white. As such, things in the dream sequence are LESS clear than in the rest of the movie, not more. I'm just appalled that the studio could spring for a few minutes of color footage for a film with such proved money-makes as Astaire and Rogers.