ELEANOR POWELL & FRED ASTAIRE - BEGUIN THE BEGUINE

BEGIN THE BEGUINE

 ELEANOR POWEL & FRED ASTAIRE

SONGWRITER: COLE PORTER

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

SPECTACLE: BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940 

 PART:  2

GENRE: JAZZ

YEAR: 1935

Johnny Brett (Fred Astaire) and King Shaw (George Murphy) are a dance team so down on their luck that they work in a dance hall for no money. Meanwhile, Clare Bennett (Eleanor Powell) is a big Broadway star. Owing to a case of mistaken identity, Shaw is offered the chance to be Clare's dancing partner in a new Broadway show, when it was really Johnny's dancing that producer Bob Casey (Frank Morgan) saw and wanted. The partnership breaks up, but Johnny still helps out King, who lets his newfound success go to his head. Clare eventually realizes that Johnny, not King, is the better dancer, and she falls in love after having lunch with him. When Shaw gets drunk on opening night, Johnny steps in and saves the show with a brilliant performance, though he lets King think he did it himself. Clare later tells King the truth. Just before the next show, Clare discovers King drunk again, and Johnny becomes the permanent replacement. After the show, they find out that King was pretending to be drunk so that Johnny would get the job.

Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899– June 22, 1987) was an American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer, and television presenter. He is widely considered the most influential dancer in the history of film.

His stage and subsequent film and television careers spanned a total of 76 years. He starred in more than 10 Broadway and West End musicals, made 31 musical films, four television specials, and issued numerous recordings. As a dancer, his most outstanding traits were his uncanny sense of rhythm, his perfectionism, and his innovation. His most memorable dancing partnership was with Ginger Rogers, with whom he co-starred in a series of ten Hollywood musicals. The American Film Institute named Astaire the fifth greatest male star of Classic Hollywood cinema in 100 Years... 100 Stars.

Gene Kelly, another renowned star of filmed dance, said that "the history of dance on film begins with Astaire." Later, he asserted that Astaire was "the only one of today's dancers who will be remembered." Beyond film and television, many dancers and choreographers, including Rudolf Nureyev, Sammy Davis Jr., Michael Jackson, Gregory Hines, Mikhail Baryshnikov, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Madhuri Dixit, and Bob Fosse, who called Astaire his "idol", also acknowledged his influence.

Eleanor Torrey Powell (November 21, 1912 – February 11, 1982) was an American dancer and actress. Best remembered for her tap dance numbers in musical films in the 1930s and 1940s, Powell began studying ballet when she was six and was dancing at nightclubs in Atlantic City before she was a teenager. At the age of sixteen, she began studying tap and started appearing in musical revues on Broadway. She made her Hollywood debut as a featured dancer in the movie George White's Scandals(1935).

She was known as one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's top dancing stars during the Golden Age of Hollywood, appearing in a series of musical vehicles tailored especially for her talents, including Born to Dance(1936), Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937) and Rosalie (1937). In 1965, she was named the World’s Greatest Tap Dancer by the Dance Masters of America. 

When they begin the beguine

It brings back the sound of music so tender

It brings back a night of tropical splendor

It brings back a memory evergreen

I'm with you once more under the stars

And down by the shore an orchestra's playing

And even the palms seem to be swaying

When they begin the beguine

To live it again is past all endeavor

Except when that tune clutches my heart

And there we are swearing to love forever

And promising never, never to part

What moments divine, what rapture serene

Till clouds came along to disperse the joys we had tasted

And now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted

I know but too well what they mean

So don't let them begin the beguine

Let the love that was once a fire remain an ember

Let it sleep like a dead desire I only remember

When they begin the beguine

Oh yes, let them begin the beguine, make them play

Till the stars that were there before remain above you

Till you whisper to me once more, "Darling, I love you"

And we suddenly know what heaven we're in
When they begin the beguine

When they begin the beguine, oh

Oh, the beguine..