ABSTRACT
Fred Astaire—the incomparable, the unique, the prince of elegance, the king of charm, who danced away our unhappiness through the Depression, the war, the austerity—wasn’t much given to commentary on his films. He did, however, discuss Shall We Dance in an interview once, and made a telling observation. The film was not well crafted (how many were? Fred danced them out of trouble most of the time) and they reached a point where they had to go on filming but had no idea how to advance the plot. The compromise was to do an awkward and pointless dance on roller skates, to the tune of “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.” It was only saved by the inability of Astaire and Rogers to do anything wholly bad (even if no one had ever said “potahto.”) Fred was of the opinion that whenever you saw the hero coming in on roller skates, you could be sure the director was completely at a loss. The roller skates were enough of a novel distraction that they kept the audience from realizing that the plot was going nowhere, and probably had nowhere to go.
