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[closetofheroes]

basically all I’m saying is that even though jeeves started to micromanage bertie’s life because he finds him “mentally negligible,” it takes him not very long at all to realize that bertie isn’t helpless and stupid, but that he relinquished control so easily because he hasn’t ever known anything besides friends who take advantage of his kindness and relatives who diminish his worth, and then along came this superhuman valet who actually took him somewhat seriously and genuinely put forth effort to help, and bertie was immediately like “this is a friendship.” and anyway like. once they figure one another out and push as many boundaries beyond typical servant/master behavior as they dare, they settle into this very calm rhythm of taking care of each other and being understood and listened to. in short there is a tie that binds and heaven bless it that it may continue to bind indefinitely fate’s happenstance may oft win more than toil as the fellow said

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Fred and Ginger in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) dir. Charles Walters

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‘The pill that was easy, perhaps cowardly according to some, but comfortable?’ I believe Prozac saved the life of my 13 year old who was suicidal due to depression with psychotic symptoms a year ago. He was plagued by nightmares and visions, saw himself as a failure, no self-esteem, too afraid and unsure to have any interests or passions. Now after a year of Prozac the nightmares have stopped, he’s regained his joy of life, and is finding the strength to manage his hallucinations now that the medication has lifted the weight of despair.

Prozac is the pill the suppresses? Depression is what suppressed him. It’s the ‘blue pill’ that’s helped him accept himself and discover his full potential. It’s taken a lot of reinforcement and counselling to help him understand he’s not weak for needing help. I wonder how often he has to hear casual remarks about Prozac being the easy, comfortable solution for cowards?

I get that you’re making a point about the original meaning of the red and blue pills in the matrix and the evils of throwing ‘happy pills’ at an individual to mask their actual needs, and (though I’ve never actually seen Prozac in blue pill form, ever) your discovery about red Premarin and blue Prozac sure fits neatly with this ‘red pill/blue pill’ device. But you’ve simplifed and denigrated a life-saving medication that you apparently know next to nothing about just to make a point about some movie symbolism. It wasn’t worth it.

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He wrote to a magazine and won a dollar prize; she moved on with her career and won an Oscar

Motion Picture, August 1936

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Wow... just look at the way she works those shoes.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Roberta (1935).

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I can never put my finger on what it is about him that looks so youthful. He was 38 here but he looks 28... scratch that, 22.

Fred Astaire in Shall We Dance, 1937

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“I’m a pretty good pool player, but the reason Fred could beat me absolutely consistently was not that he could sink more balls, or that he made better shots; it was because it was just impossible for me to watch the man’s form and grace without being damn intimidated. He would beat my prat off, every single time. I would just look at his form and think: ‘My God, I wish we had a camera on this’. It was like when he danced—it was just so beautiful, and fluid, and artistic, and perfect.”

— Jack Lemmon on Fred Astaire

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“During the final days of shooting Mark wanted a little something extra, dance-wise, at the end of the film. Fred and I were poised at the top of a flight of stairs and Mark said, “As you come down the steps, I want you to break into a little dance.”

This request did not go over very well with either Fred or me. Mark knew we always had to rehearse a dance no matter how brief, before performing it for the camera. But Mark was firm; he wanted a bit more dance, as a “Ta da!” before the fadeout. 

I quietly spoke to Fred. “Anything you want to do is okay. Just whip me around with your hand, and I’ll follow you.” “

- Ginger: My Story

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For a second I thought Freddie was gazing down at his smart phone

Fred Astaire and George Stevens (December 18, 1904 – March 8, 1975) on the set of Swing Time (1936)

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Swing Time (1936) Dir. George Stevens

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Ginger Rogers and choreographer Hermes Pan rehearsing a dance for Swing Time (1936)

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Ginger Rogers rehearsing with Hermes Pan on the set of Swing Time, 1936.

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I love this scene, even without ‘Night and Day’. There are times in this film, especially when he chases her in his car, where I‘m sensibly horrified at how stalkerish his behaviour is... and then he does his little breathless, schoolboyish ‘I’ve been chasing after you! You mustn’t run like that...’ and earlier the hopeful ‘won’t you please tell me where I can get in touch with you?’ If the film was made today none of this would redeem him, but in the context of the era, in which audiences would have been believed implicitly that there is always gentility and rectitude at the core of Astaire’s amours, not to mention Ginger’s peppery self-assuredness, it can be enjoyed for its own sake as the simple frolicking romance set in a world where gentlemen are always gentlemen and ladies are capable of being courted by them without compromising their own force of will.

The Gay Divorcee (1934) dir. Mark Sandrich

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