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Post date: Feb 3, 2019 4:46:21 PM
The "Gay Divorcee" (1934) was the second of ten pairings of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. After the success of "Flying Down to Rio",the studio wanted Astaire to pair up with Rogers again. Astaire was reluctant because he was to be be known on his own not as part of a pair having finally detached himself from working with his sister.
The story was based on a stage play called the "The Gay Divorce" but the title was ordered to be changed by the Hayes Office.
The Hayes Office was infamously known for applying moral code to the movies. Anything deemed immoral need to be changed. The office was in effect from 1930 to 1968. The office thought that divorce was too somber a topic to be labelled happy. A happy person getting a divorce was acceptable. The code was weaken by the 1960 by directors like Otto Preminger who only goal of his movies was to cross the Hayes Office's guidelines. Today with the death of the Hayes Office, Preminger's movie are not very interesting.
Another interesting note is that "The Gay Divorcee" had the longest dance number in a movie before Gene Kelly passed it with "Singing in the Rain".
The story itself is a basic screwball comedy. Only something to hang the dancing around. I am very disdainful of more recent movies that "borrow" the plot elements from the "Gay Divorcee". Fred Astaire did all that and danced too!
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