The Barkleys of Broadway–Harry Warren

Right from the outset, we may be confusing you; if so, we apologize. The heading of this post cites the MGM film The Barkleys of Broadway, a 1949 film that reunited Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers ten years after their last RKO picture, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle in 1939. So, why are we featuring a photo of Fred and Ginger from their 1937 RKO movie, Shall We Dance, with a score by George Gershwin? We can explain, if you can bear with us. But first a word about The Barkleys of Broadway; it was originally titled, You Made Me Love You, with Judy Garland slated to appear opposite Fred Astaire. You Made Me Love You obviously harkens back to Judy’s first song in the Broadway Melody of 1938 and was intended to be a follow-up to the wildly successful pairing of Fred and Judy in Easter Parade. However, Judy was in neither mental nor physical condition to perform.  According to Wikipedia, Fred called Ginger to see if she could sub in for Judy; Ginger agreed.

Further, Ira Gershwin, George’s brother, was now working with Harry Warren, after George’s untimely death in 1937. While we have no evidence to support our speculation, we think Ira suggested that the movie include one song from the song-writing team of George and Ira Gershwin. More on that in a minute.

There is not much on youtube from the movie; however, we have been assisted by the MGM efforts to preserve its musical performances. During the opening credits of the movie, Fred and Ginger are dancing; however, they are blocked out by the headings on the screen. In an MGM restoration, the credits are removed, and we can clearly see the pair dancing to the tune, “Swing Trot,” written by Harry Warren (music) and Ira Gershwin (lyrics).

There are a number of Warren songs from this movie on youtube that are not really important to us; there are far better songs composed by Warren.  And, in the future, we will dedicate some posts to his music. However, he wrote a wonderful tune, reminiscent of Jerome Kern’s “The Shorty George,” which we have featured before (performed by Fred and Rita Hayworth). Here is Warren’s tune, “Bouncin’ the Blues,” with a “bouncin’ ” swing arrangement by Conrad Salinger and a great dance routine by Hermes Pan.  Needless to say, this exuberant tap dance is performed by Fred and Ginger. If it weren’t in color and didn’t have a voice-over from Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, we might mistakenly believe that this dance came from Fred and Ginger’s time at RKO.

This brings us back to Ira Gershwin, and the song he wanted to insert. The song is “You Can’t Take That Away from Me.” In 1937, Fred sang a Robert Russell Bennett arrangement of the song; it was sung on a ferry boat in the movie, Shall We Dance, where obviously there was no room to dance. Thus, Fred and Ginger had never danced to the tune in that 1937 movie. We think that it was important to Ira (and probably to Hermes Pan, too) to fill that void. Thus, the song was interpolated into the Warren score, along with an elegant ballroom dance routine.

We never know what we will find on youtube, and some enterprising person spliced together the original song from 1937 with the dance from 1949. It is a treat to see them together in close proximity.

And so now, finally, you understand why we used the photo from 1937 to go with the movie from 1949.