I was going to write about Follow the Fleet (1936) in detail but after reading the chapter on it in Croce's book I decided to keep my remarks brief and recommend the book to anyone interested in the Astaire/Rogers films, i.e., anyone interested in dance. Though I generally believe in the director as the main author of a film there are many exceptions. Certainly director Mark Sandrich has a considerable role in the film but so do Astaire and his co-choreographer Hermes Pan, composer Irving Berlin, screenwriters Dwight Taylor and Allan Scott, cinematographer David Abel, co-star Ginger Rogers and others.
I was a little nervous that my eight-year-old daughter would not like Follow the Fleet because she remembers Shall We Dance (1937) more for the comic turns of Eric Blore and Edward Everett Horton than for the dancing, but I turned out to be wrong: Horton and Blore are not in Follow the Fleet but there is still some excellent, albeit complicated, humor, including a monkey that carries Astaire's flowers to Rogers after they have a misunderstanding; my daughter thought the dancing exquisite. Harriet Hilliard is also in the film as a singer (she was singing in Ozzie Nelson's band at the time), singing two marvelous Irving Berlin songs that are important in establishing her character: "Get Thee Behind Me, Satan" and "I Am Here But Where Are You." The dancing is varied and wonderful, from ballroom dancing to goofy comedic dancing to the elegant finale, in evening clothes, of two gamblers about to kill themselves and instead sing and dance to "Let's Face the Music and Dance." Croce gives detailed analyses of all the dances as well as their place in all the Astaire/Rogers films. I recommend reading Croce's book (it's available, though it was originally published in 1972) both before and after seeing the movies.
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