Second Chorus

Last updated
Second Chorus
Second Chorus poster.jpg
re-release poster
Directed by H. C. Potter
Written byFrank Cavett (orig. story) [1]
Screenplay by Elaine Ryan
Ian McLellan Hunter
Johnny Mercer (contributor)
Ben Hecht (uncredited)
Produced by Boris Morros
Starring Paulette Goddard
Fred Astaire
Cinematography Theodor Sparkuhl
Edited byJack Dennis
Music by Artie Shaw
Hal Borne
Johnny Mercer
Production
company
Release date
  • December 3, 1940 (1940-12-03)(U.S.)
Running time
84 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Paulette Goddard, Fred Astaire and Burgess Meredith Goddard Astaire Meredith in Second Chorus.jpg
Paulette Goddard, Fred Astaire and Burgess Meredith
Astaire and Goddard in "I Ain't Hep To That Step But I'll Dig It" Paulette Goddard and Fred Astaire, Second Chorus.jpg
Astaire and Goddard in "I Ain't Hep To That Step But I'll Dig It"
Artie Shaw in the "Concerto for Clarinet" Artie Shaw Playing.jpg
Artie Shaw in the "Concerto for Clarinet"
Fred Astaire dance-conducting the Artie Shaw Orchestra Astaire in Second Chorus.jpg
Fred Astaire dance-conducting the Artie Shaw Orchestra

Second Chorus is a 1940 Hollywood musical comedy film starring Paulette Goddard and Fred Astaire and featuring Artie Shaw, Burgess Meredith and Charles Butterworth, with music by Artie Shaw, Bernie Hanighen and Hal Borne, and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The film was directed by H. C. Potter and produced independently for Paramount Pictures by Boris Morros, with associate producers Robert Stillman and (uncredited) Fred Astaire. [2] The film's copyright expired in 1968 and it is now in the public domain. [3]

Contents

Plot

Danny O'Neill and Hank Taylor are friends and rival trumpeters with "O'Neill's Perennials", a college band. Both have managed to prolong their college careers by failing seven years in a row. At a performance, Ellen Miller catches both Danny's and Hank's eyes. However, she serves them a summons notice for her boss, a debt collector, but the fast-talking O'Neill and Taylor soon have her working as their manager, where her business savvy increases their gigs. Meanwhile, tired of losing several gigs to the Perennials, Artie Shaw comes to persuade Ellen to be his booking manager.

Ellen tries to get Danny and Hank an audition for Artie Shaw's band, but their jealous hi-jinks get them the boot. Ellen talks Shaw into letting rich wannabee mandolin musician, J. Lester Chisholm, back a concert. It looks like Ellen's plan to get Chisholm as backer fails, when Hank pretends to be Ellen's jealous husband — then her brother. But using the brother ploy, Danny and Hank manage to get Chisholm back on board, then get Shaw to agree to put Danny's song into the show. All they have to do is keep Chisholm and his mandolin — which he wants to play in the concert — away from Shaw until after the show. Hank's solution is to drop sleeping pills into Chisholm's drink, but Chisholm knocks out Hank too, with the same stuff.

To Ellen's relief, Danny finally acts responsibly, arranging his number for the show, which Shaw says "has really grown up into something special". He hands the baton to Danny, who successfully conducts his own composition whilst simultaneously also tap-dancing in front of the band. Danny and Ellen then drive off together into the night.

Cast

Cast notes

Musical numbers

Hermes Pan collaborated with Astaire on the choreography.

The only number involving Astaire and Pan, the choreographic collaboration responsible for many routines featuring Astaire in the 1930s, was "Me And The Ghost Upstairs", which was cut from the final film but has been included in some home video releases. In it, Pan, shrouded in a sheet, creeps up on Astaire and begins to mimic him in a riotous number involving Lindy lifts and jitterbugging.

Production

In a 1968 interview, Astaire described this effort as "the worst film I ever made." Astaire explained that he was attracted to the film by the opportunity to "dance-conduct this real swingin' outfit". In an interview shortly before his death, Shaw admitted this film put him off acting.

Astaire and Shaw shared a striking series of personality traits in common: an obsessive perfectionism and seemingly endless appetite for retakes, profound musicality and love of jazz, personal modesty and charm, and in a late interview Shaw expressed his opinion of Astaire: "Astaire really sweat - he toiled. He was a humorless Teutonic man, the opposite of his debonair image in top hat and tails. I liked him because he was an entertainer and an artist. There's a distinction between them. An artist is concerned only with what is acceptable to himself, where an entertainer strives to please the public. Astaire did both. Louis Armstrong was another one." [5]

See also

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References

Notes

  1. Decker, Todd. Music Makes Me: Fred Astaire and Jazz Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2011. ISBN   0520950062
  2. "AFI|Catalog".
  3. Simosko, Vladimir (2000). Artie Shaw: A Musical Biography and Discography. Scarecrow Press. ISBN   9780810833975.page 89
  4. John Franceschina, Hermes Pan: The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire (Oxford University Press, 2012); ISBN   0199913064
  5. Interviewed in Fantle, Dave and Johnson, Tom. Reel to Real. Badger Books LLC, 2004, p.304. ISBN   1932542043

Bibliography