The Gay Divorcee

as Guy Holden and Ginger Rogers as Mimi Glossop Guy Holden, a famous American dancer, is at a Paris nightclub with his friend, scatterbrained English lawyer Egbert Fitzgerald, when they both realize that they have forgotten their wallets. After Guy dances for the audience to avoid washing dishes to work off the bill, Egbert discovers his wallet in a different pocket. Traveling to England by ship, Guy encounters Mimi Glossop, whose dress has been caught when closing a trunk, asking Guy to call a porter to open the trunk to free her. Taking advantage of the situation, Guy teases her and attempts to free her dress, but ends up tearing the skirt at thigh level, angering Mimi. Chastised, Guy apologizes and gives Mimi his coat to cover up, and asks for her address to retrieve his coat, but Mimi insists that she will mail it back at the address he provides. Mimi returns the coat, paying the courier not to disclose her contact information. After searching for Mimi in London for two weeks, Guy ends up serendipitously rear-ending her car in traffic. As Mimi drives away and races to evade him, he chases her into the country. Taking a shortcut, Guy sets up a fake roadblock, trapping her, offering her an impromptu picnic and casually proposing marriage. Convinced that he is insane, she rebuffs his attempts to charm her and attempts to tear up notes with his phone number (but keeps one), but he learns that her name is Mimi. Coincidentally, Mimi seeks a divorce from her geologist husband, Cyril Glossop, who she has not seen for some time. Under the guidance of her domineering and much-married Aunt Hortense, she consults bumbling lawyer Egbert Fitzgerald, once a fiancé of her aunt. He arranges for Mimi to spend a night at a seaside hotel in Brightbourne and to be caught flagrante delicto in a staged "adulterous relationship", a purpose for which he hires a professional co-respondent, Rodolfo Tonetti. In an unrelated previous conversation with Guy, Egbert had been impressed when Guy philosophically used the phrase, "Chance is the fool's name for fate". Without Guy's knowledge and without intending any connection, Egbert gives Mimi the expression as a code phrase to identify her co-respondent. Accompanying his friend Egbert to the hotel, the besotted and unaware Guy encounters Mimi, who has warmed up to him, and admits that she attempted to contact the phone number that he gave her. He sings Cole Porter's "Night and Day" to her, and they fall under a spell while dancing together. Wanting to impress Mimi, Guy waxes philosophical, inadvertently using the code phrase that Egbert has given Mimi to identify the co-respondent. Appalled, Mimi mistakes him for the co-respondent who she has been expecting, considering him not much more than a gigolo. When Mimi gives Guy her room number and makes it clear that she expects him "at midnight", Guy is astonished by her seemingly brazen attitude. Guy keeps the "appointment" in Mimi's bedroom, and Tonetti arrives, revealing the truth and clearing up the misunderstandings. Not trusting Tonetti alone with Mimi, Guy insists on staying, potentially thwarting the point of a co-respondent for Mimi's divorce case. Tonetti insists that Mimi and Guy not foil the plan by being seen together outside of the bedroom. While Tonetti is busy playing solitaire in another room, Guy and Mimi contrive to escape and dance the night away. An elaborate 16-minute dance sequence, "The Continental", follows, with Mimi singing the introduction, another singer and ensembles of dancers doing routines, and Guy and Mimi joining in. In the morning, after several mistakes with the waiter, Guy hides in the next room when Cyril arrives at the door, while Mimi and Tonetti pretend that they are lovers. When Cyril does not believe that Mimi would fall for Tonetti, Guy comes out and embraces Mimi in an attempt to convince Cyril that he is her lover, but to no avail. Cyril does not want a divorce from a wealthy wife. The unwitting waiter ultimately reveals that Cyril is an adulterer, having come to another hotel on previous occasions with another woman, thus clearing the way for Mimi to obtain a divorce and marry Guy. ==Cast==

New songs introduced in the film • "The Continental" (lyrics: Herb Magidson; music: Con Conrad) won the first Academy Award for Best Original Song for its elaboration in the more-than-16-minute song-and-dance sequence toward the end of the film, as sung by Rogers, Erik Rhodes and Lillian Miles, and danced by Rogers, Astaire and ensemble performers. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra recorded the music in their first RCA Victor recording session, in Boston's Symphony Hall, July 1, 1935. One of the ensemble dancers is Neville Goddard, a Barbadian who later became a noted writer, speaker and New Thought mystic. • "Don't Let It Bother You" (lyrics: Mack Gordon; music: Harry Revel), the film's opening number, sung by chorus, danced by Astaire. • "Let's K-nock K-nees" (lyrics: Mack Gordon; music: Harry Revel) at the beach resort, sung by Betty Grable, with talking verses vocalized by Edward Everett Horton, danced by Grable, Horton and chorus. • "A Needle in a Haystack" (lyrics: Herb Magidson; music: Con Conrad), sung and danced by Astaire. Night and Day • "Night and Day" (Cole Porter) is sung by Astaire and danced by Rogers and Astaire in a hotel suite overlooking an English Channel beach at night. It was their first romantic dance duet in film. Dance critic Alastair Macaulay wrote that this movie, and this dance number in particular, created one of the archetypes of romance, and that cinema "has never had another couple who enshrined romantic love so definitively in terms of dance." ==Production==

Development After the success of Astaire and Rogers's first feature, Flying Down to Rio (1933), RKO's head of production, Pandro S. Berman, purchased the screen rights to Dwight Taylor's Broadway musical Gay Divorce, with another Astaire and Rogers matchup in mind. According to Astaire's autobiography, director Mark Sandrich claimed that RKO altered the title to insinuate that the film concerned the amorous adventures of a recently divorced woman (divorcée). In addition to the credited screenwriters, Robert Benchley, H. W. Hanemann, and Stanley Rauh made uncredited contributions to the dialogue. Dance routines from the film, specifically "Night and Day" and the scene in which Astaire dances on the table, were taken from Astaire's performances in the original play, Gay Divorce. Filming Exteriors set in what was supposed to be the English countryside were shot in Clear Lake, California. Additional exteriors were filmed in Santa Monica and Santa Barbara, California. Censorship concerns James Wingate, Director of Studio Relations for RKO, warned: "Considering the delicate nature of the subject upon which this script is based... great care should be taken in the scenes dealing with Mimi's lingerie, and... no intimate article should be used." Wingate also insisted that no actor or actress appear in only pajamas. According to Astaire, however, the change was made proactively by RKO. Sandrich told him that The Gay Divorcee was selected as the new name because the studio "thought it was a more attractive-sounding title, centered around a girl". RKO even offered $50 to any employee who could come up with a better title. ==Reception==

Box office According to RKO records, the film earned $1,077,000 in the United States and Canada, and $697,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $584,000. Accolades The film was nominated for the following Academy Awards, winning in the category Music (Song): • Best Picture (Nominated) • Art Direction (Van Nest Polglase, Carroll Clark) (Nominated) • Music (Scoring) (Max Steiner) (Nominated) • Music (Song) – "The Continental" (Won) – the first winner of this award; it won against "Carioca", from the previous Astaire–Rogers film, Flying Down to Rio • Sound Recording (Carl Dreher) (Nominated) ==References==