Don’t Blame It On Rio, Rio de Janeiro That Is-Once Again Under The Astaire-Rogers Screen With Divine Dolores del Rio Thrown In-“Flying To Rio” (1933)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Leslie Dumont

Flying Down To Rio, starring Dolores del Rio, Gene Raymond, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and  a million dancers, singers and musicians, especially the Carioca scene, 1933    

Thank God for Sam Lowell’s words of cinematic wisdom after watching this film under review an early Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers song and dance musical from the early 1930s Flying Down To Rio. (I might add that unlike later productions by this song and dance team they were not the leads here which will be discussed below.) Sam’s pearls of wisdom culled after some forty years of reviewing every kind of film is that when you are at loss, actually I was truly befuddled, for a “hook” for your review you can always go to the “slice of life” gambit, especially as here on older films. Actually I had two choices for the “hook” the previously mentioned slice of life which I will use, thanks Sam, and the eternal fallback since Greek times maybe before, maybe going back to the Garden in Genesis-“boy meets girl” that has saved many a film and many a film reviewer. That seems too weird to use here, although the material as will become clear was there, so I will go with the former Godsent.   

Here’s why I was befuddled. Bandleader and playboy, maybe that is not a good term to use these days although that seemingly fits this character, Roger, played by Gene Raymond who along with ultimate love interest, Belinha, played by Mexican femme idol Delores Del Rio, are the leads here has landed his band in hot water for the umpteenth time due to his romantic interests overriding the need for him and his band to make a living. To keep body and soul together and off the mean streets of America. As it turned out Roger is just slumming since he is strictly a Mayfair swell lad who can go back home and idle about whenever things get tough. Not so from hunger Fred Ayres, Astaire’s role and vocalist Honey, Ginger’s role who are living from paycheck to paycheck. The latest firing of the band with the lively name Yankee Clippers came about when Roger went charging after the Brazilian dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty Belinha who was being held on a leash by her chaperone so she wouldn’t stray before her wedding day. Roger and Belinha were smitten with each other but there was no place for them to expand that relationship given Belinha’s status (although I am still scratching my head over Ms. Del Rios poses looking heaven-ward bound which should have given Roger the chills but I will chalk that up to her having had to “over the top” emote like that in those silent films where she got her start since it was probably hard to break the habit).    

Luckily Roger was able to rebound nicely by getting an engagement for the band in Rio, Rio de Janiero and so everybody is off to the races heading to Rio. Oh yeah, playboy Roger along the way was also a pilot and he wound up giving Belinha a ride down to Rio, with a quick romantic pitstop on what was supposed to be a desert island (although it turned out to be Haiti in a ham-fisted view of the “natives” on that then, and now, benighted island). Not only that but the hotel where the boys and Honey are to play belongs to Belinha’s father who has all his dough tied up in the venture.   

Naturally, aside from some so-so dancing by Fred and Ginger in their first film together and a spectacular rendition of the Carioca by an ensemble cast of singers and dancers, there has to be some problem to be resolved before the couple can go off and get some suntans (which as Cole Porter noted in one of his lyrics has “taken all the gold of more than one man”). This is around the question of an entertainment license which a cabal of competitors is holding up so they can buy the unsuccessful hotel on the cheap. Never happened though since Roger and Fred came up with an idea to use airplanes to highlight the dancers who could not perform on the ground and make the grand opening of the hotel as success. Weird, very weird, to watch in 2018 believe me. Naturally as well good sport and good friend Julio who is the guy engaged to Belinha seeing that they are in love joins the pair together, literally, arranging their marriage in an airplane by the captain as heartbroken Julio parachutes out of the plane to whatever fate awaits him. Weird again but you can see what my dilemma was. See some later Astaire-Rogers films if you really want to see what dancing was like when done for keeps.