Expert: Jim Kason - 2/27/2008

Question
first of all -- thank you very much for the opportunity to ask you a question on this site

glad i checked here, because i'm drawing a blank with internet searching on my own

let me preface my question by saying that a few years ago i got to see fredrico fellini's huge comedy GINGER & FRED(starring his wife of many years and marcello mastroianni -- the 3 of them were all, actually, just about FINISHED, with movies and with their lives, at the time this was done)

it is a curious film (what fellini isn't ?) -- it was at the Grand in Wilmington DE at a small art house they added onto the main theater

towards the end (at the stage blackout, there's a couple during the course of the film, fore"shadowing" the big one near the end, well, this woman starts laughing out loud

the WHOLE THING is a HUGE comedy -- but very often it is only a few minutes after the joke happens (or longer) that we realize there was even humor on the screen at the moments the events flash by

it's one of my TOP favorite movies now, and only very recently is available as a DVD

it's, yes, an ART film, but a joke on art films at the same time

the only "non" joke is that there is an underlying respect for this classic movie pair -- they were, i think fellini feels, gr8 examples of something you just CAN'T avoid when you make a movie (even the set of the TV show at the end looks a little like the set where the real pair does "Let's Face the Music and Dance")

the joke is that ITALIANS at the time the characters were doing a vaudeville "look-alike" version of Astaire/Rogers -- well, the probably had very little understanding of what the dancing movie stars meant to USA audiences and also very little recognition of what "movies" and "movie history" was doing at the time -- the joke-iness isn't directed at what Astaire and Rodgers actually did in their own movies, then, but really, in GINGER & FRED, if you know/remember the REAL Astaire & Rodgers -- that MEMORY is being used FOR AFFECTION and to call up the "good loving" side that moviegoing and good movie making CAN PROVIDE (but rarely, unless you really are a determined movie maker)

all fellini is somewhat autobiographical -- and in the end, we see this is not just a GIGANTIC COMEDY but also many lifelong love affairs (with much in life, much in acting, much in moviemaking, much in current affairs AND affairs of the past)

great, great fun and wonderfully artsy to the max, especially once you understand what's going on in the mind of the maker and on the screen

OKAY, NOW ON TO MY QUESTION

in the film the elderly has-been duo had a private, running joke or gag between them

it is taken from the way they did their stage dancing as Astaire/Rodgers look-alikes

Mastroianni puts the side of his hand to his open mouth and makes the sound of a fog horn or boat whistle and the Italian "stage Ginger character" [played by mrs f fellini in GINGER & FRED] turns, eyes Fred standing there, and exclaims : "Fred ! ! !"

the old former stage vaudevillians are re-creating a number from their act for a holiday television "We Are Proud to Present" special (something like a cross between Ed Sullivan and Sixty Minutes) -- they introduce/introduced the dance number with this "FOG HORN" sequence

but from my research online, it seems like the song they dance to in the fellini movie IS NOT the song that follows the ORIGINAL (i.e. the real version) Fred Astaire & Ginger Rodgers fogh horn or boat's whistle scene

there some really good clips on You Tube of some of the very famous numbers that the pair did in their Hollywood movies -- but i cannot find the BOAT HORN or FOG HORN bit that fellini has his characters doing over and over as a personal [real life, offstage] joke

do you know which film Fred Astaire has a break up with Ginger and it ends with Fred staying ashore -- but the next thing we know HE IS ON THE BOAT ANYHOW (i guess to reclaim ginger rodgers to continue their relationship) and she turns in surprise to see him there

apparently, from watching fellini's GINGER & FRED, there is also the sound of the boat horn or fog horn as the ship is making its way out to sea

THANKS IF YOU HAVE ANY CLUE TO WHAT MOVIE THIS SCENE OCCURS IN

i like the fellini movie so much -- i just HAVE to see the scene fellini and his characters are referring to ! ! !

i hope you get to see GINGER & FRED and come to laugh at it and love it -- it's hard to understand when and how we should, as viewers, get through the arty fellini stuff and laugh -- many emotions, i guess, are mixed into each scene, and it makes as much fun of itself (and of the whole human comedy, i.e., of life itself, too) as anything else shown in GINGER & FRED -- odd, overall

but wonderful, of course, is how i look at it

quite HOOT ! ! !

thx again for your time

best wishes to you and yours

Jerry Snyder
92 Medinah Drive
Reading, Pennsylvania 19607

Answer
Hi Jerry,

I love all the old  Rogers/Astaire musicals!  They made nine of 'em at RKO Studios in the 1930's,  and their last  (only one in technicolor) in 1949 at MGM.

Believe it or not,...and I'm sorry to admit,..I've never seen the film GINGER AND FRED", tho'
I definitely want to now.  I don't think that there ever actually WAS a scene EXACTLY like the one you mention in your eMail.

From what you've said about the film,  I'd say that the scene was a take-off of the TYPE  of scene or situation in which you'd find Fred and Ginger.  They were always at odds with one another, thru misunderstandings: together one minute,...apart , the next.

In a number of their films, they cross the ocean on a luxury liner liner;  and TOP HAT took place on the waters of Venice and the Lido.  Though FOLLOW THE FLEET was about the Navy, most of it was ashore.

BUT, I think the closest we'd come to the kind of scene you describe  would be in TWO
musical numbers in the film SHALL WE DANCE.  In the first,   Fred and Ginger do have a shipboard romance, and after they stroll on deck  (to Gershwin's "WALKING THE DOG"),  they end up at the railing, where Fred sings "I'VE GOT BEGINNER'S LUCK " to Ginger against a clear ocean background.

The second scene ( probably the one you're looking for)  has the two of them seated in a convertible car on a Ferry Boat to Manhattan.  The fog-horn sounds in the background, as they walk over to the railing.  And as the fog swirls in the background (shrouding the Manhattan skyline) Fred sings "THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME',...which of course
is one of the team's signature songs.

Hope this helps clear up your question a little.  Till the next one,..

Sincerely,

Jim Kason