Roberta

At the outset, we would like to make a second announcement of our change in scheduling, just to make sure that everyone know what is coming.  First, we want to thank many of you for responding positively to our plan to post music every other day. As we mentioned, it has been quite an effort to post new music every day since March. In addition, some of you have been overwhelmed by the speed of the releases and have had to catch up one or two days after the initial posting. For both of our sakes, we are going to post new music every other day, starting on Sunday. You will receive a post today (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday). Sunday will literally be a day of rest. The next post will be Monday, July 3d. We will be down on Independence Day, the 4th; then back up on the 5th. Again, thank you for your understanding; and now, back to our regularly scheduled music.

The movie Roberta (1935) was an adaptation of a Jerome Kern Broadway show of the same name.  As with so many adaptations, much of the original score was dropped and new songs were added.  In particular, “The Touch of Your Hand” and “You’re Devastating” were dropped; and “I Won’t Dance” and “Lovely to Look At” were added, but with lyrics by Dorothy Fields, instead of Otto Harbach.  Most of the story remained the same in the movie as in the musical on Broadway: an American exile in Paris (Madame Roberta, played by Helen Westley) runs a successful couturier shop in Paris, has taken in a young dressmaker who is a White Russian of noble birth, named Stephanie (Irene Dunne), receives a surprise visit from her nephew, John Kent (Randolph Scott) but dies during his visit.  At the same time, Kent’s friend and band leader, Huck Haines (Fred Astaire), discovers an old friend of his masquerading as one of Madame Roberta’s more flirtatious customers, Madame Scharwenka (Ginger Rogers).

While the movie has its twists and turns, Fred and Ginger fall in love, as do Stephanie and John.

In the movie, the most dramatic moment revolves around Roberta’s death: she becomes very tired and asks Stephanie to sing her to sleep.  Faye Templeton played the role on Broadway and actually sang “Yesterdays.” Irene Dunne sings the song in the movie. At the end of the song, everyone quietly leaves the room so as not to disturb Roberta. In fact, as they go, we see Roberta’s head and arm fall away and know that Roberta has died.

Irene Dunne was a leading lady in romantic comedies and played opposite Cary Grant (The Awful Truth) and Charles Boyer (Love Affair); however, she was also an accomplished singer with a lovely soprano voice who was chosen to play Magnolia in the 1936 version of Show Boat. In remarks made at the AFI theatre in Washington DC during the unveiling of the restoration of Love Affair, she talked extensively about her vocal training and her relationship with Jerome Kern. She worked with him on both Show Boat and Roberta. As a personal aside, I recall that Miss Dunne was as gracious and dignified a woman as anyone I have ever met.  She was my Dad’s favorite movie star, and many years after she retired, she was still pleased to hear that news. As for me, I felt her role in Love Affair was incredibly good, but it was not her best.  For me, she will always be Mama in I Remember Mama, the woman who would take the role of a scrub woman at night in order to get into the hospital to visit her little girl. I felt then and feel now that Irene Dunne would have done just that if it had been the only way she could see her daughter. Her own special character seeped into the roles she played.

It is a shame that there is no video clip from Roberta featuring Dunne in her Russian evening gown and tiara, singing “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” It is worth the price of the DVD just to see her in costume; however, for this post, we have only an audio version of the song. (A note from me to you: I do not work for TCM, but the two sets of Astaire and Rogers films are so inexpensive that everyone should be able to afford a copy. Even if you can’t afford it, perhaps your children or your friends will be willing to give you a set for your Birthday. Happy Birthday!)

Going back to one of the new songs added to the movie (“I Won’t Dance”), this song gives Fred and Ginger a chance to shift the attention to them and to create some “heat” on the screen. The lyric gives Fred the opportunity to talk about Ginger’s sex appeal and then create a dance routine with just enough sexual energy to be convincing without running afoul of the Hays Code.

We get some closure in the movie when Irene Dunne sings “Lovely to Look At” to Randolph Scott, which then sends Fred and Ginger into a dance that starts out with the “Lovely to Look At” music and then gracefully morphs into an instrumental version of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”