A Damsel In Distress

I feel a little unresolved but I think overall it's a good movie. So many things happen and it gets more and more ridiculous. Watch it.

This film did not do very well after Astaire/Ginger Rogers films, it was thought that Joan Fontaine was not equal to Rogers. However loved Astaire in this movie. Burns and Allen added a lot of humor to this movie, George Burns was Astaire's publicity assistant and Gracie Allen added a lot of humor to the movie. Astaire meets Fontaine by accident and unknowingly becomes part of a plot by the servants to have a lottery on who may eventually marry Fontaine. The film score was by George Gershwin and there are a lot of classic songs, Astaire introduced many songs in his films. I have purchased a cd with Astaire singing with Oscar Peterson and this is highly recommended. There is a funny sequence at a Fun House, Stiff Upper Lip with Astaire, Burns and Allen and the tap dancing by all 3 is superb. Also there is a classic sequence with Astaire and Fontaine dancing to classic Gershwin. Great dancing and tap with the 3 dancing in their rental house. Love the sequence with Astaire dancing to A Foggy Day in London Town. Another song which was introduced is Nice Work if you Can Get it. Astaire plays and dances with drums in one sequence. P.G. Woodhouse wrote the book and screen play and I have his Jeeves and Wooster series and it is very funny. Reginald Gardiner plays the scheming butler and Montagu Love is the father of Fontaine who is overwhelmed by his domineering wife. Hermes Pan is the choreographer who was present in many of Astaire's movies. Love the film.

Amazing special effects for this time period. I enjoyed see George Burns and Gracie Allen dance. I didn't know they danced. Funny movie.

Fontaine cant dance which limits what Astaire can show you. Plot is ho hum musical comedy - layers of misunderstanding until all is resulved.BUT:— the first few scenes are dominated by Gracie Allen’s lines. You may need to hit pause more than once to recover! I was disappointed that there wasn't more of this in the remainder of the movie but ti be fair it would have fatally upstaged everyone else.— the amusement park routine is astounding both Burns and Allen are able to keep up with Astaire and make it look easy.— the final scene include Astaire’s astounding tap and drum performance.——- the movie is worth watching just for these three moments alone.

This Warner Brothers 'Archive Collection' DVD is about as bare bones as it gets; cover art is present (as pictured), no insert, and the disc gives every sign of being 'manufactured-on-demand' (as advertised).The menu screen has only one selection- 'play'; no scene selection, bonus material or subtitles.The film itself looks great, if a little uneven- some scenes are very sharp and rich, and a few scenes are grainy and scratched. This may be due to the source material, but in any case, it still looks far better than any previous edition I've seen.The soundtrack is crystal clear; Ray Noble's band and Fred's (and Gracie's!) singing sounds incredible.There are a few scenes where the audio seems a hair out of sync with the picture; but again, that may be due to the source material.This is a charming film, and well worth the price to see Burns and Allen dance (twice!) with Fred Astaire, the debut of some Gershwin songs, and Fred's incredible drum/tap solo in the finale. The picture looks better than I've ever seen it, and the audio is beautifully clear. Thank you, Warner Brothers, for making this film available again!

We'd been waiting for this classic movie-musical-comedy to come out on DVD, and we weren't disappointed when it finally did. Everything looks so much better in the spring cleaning of this Astaire, Burns and Allen, and Gershwin flick in which Hollywood goes to P.G. Wodehouse's house in jolly old England where not much makes much sense, but it hardly matters, since the whole thing is more like a piece of music rather than a closely plotted novel. It's all pure entertainment that purely entertains. Wodehouse said his books were like old-fashoned musical comedy rather than modern tragedy, and his novel this movie is based on is certainly typical of the former, and the Gershwin brothers' great songs help to seal the deal. Astaire makes graceful dance look easy and inevitable through "Foggy London Town," while Burns and Allen do some of their better routines and more. See the funhouse segment with Gracie in the middle like a bobbing bobbin. It's all so simple that it somehow works.

My comment above was made by George Burns in his typical dry style; this film actually lost money for RKO as the audience was probably expecting Ginger. As a old film fan I am starting to collect the old musicals made during the "studio system" and found this one to be thoroughly enjoyable. Burns and Allen are excellent hoofers; many equate them simply with comedy but in vaudville Gracie and George were mostly booked as dancers. Their number with Astaire at a "British" amusement park was worth the price of this DVD, replayed the segment three times before moving on. As with most musicals the story line was so corny that it rose to a satire of old musical story lines, kind of campy. It goes without saying that Mr. Astaire turned in a great performance that is the rule with him very classy. Highly recommended. The excellent service and quality of this new "Prime" DVD proves why Amazon is my favorite source for DVD's.

I say... Just put together the best quality of British humor and the stunning way only P.G. Wodehouse can write books (and screenplays) with the inimitably charming music composed by Gershwin with some of the best actors of the Golden Hollywood era, the best and no more words are needed. Watching this Warner Bros Classic from 1937 will make you feel you just booked the best seat for the seasons's greatest Broadway show. (Or on West End...)

RKO's 1937 musical comedy 'A Damsel in Distress' is somewhat of an oddity in Fred Astaire's association with that studio, in that he is not paired with Ginger Rogers, and the romantic overtones usually associated with Astaire's dancing roles are subservient to the comedy element assayed by George Burns and Gracie Allen and other supporting players; in fact, Burns and Allen also fulfil the role of Astaire's dancing partners for most of the proceedings. Accordingly the Gershwin songs are somewhat impersonal in their tone - Stiff Upper Lip, Things Are Looking Up, A Foggy Day (in London Town), and Nice Work if You Can Get It, being the classic standards the Gershwin brothers supplied.The female lead is played by Joan Fontaine, who was apparently not quite 20 years old at the time the picture was produced. Fontaine's style of acting at this stage of her career has a coolly reserved and cerebral style that lends a curiously modern quality to it; indeed, there are moments in the movie when Fontaine seems like a screen actress from the early 21st Century who's somehow fallen through a timeloop and ended up in a thirties knockabout screwball romp.These and many other elements (including a great performance by Reginald Gardiner filling in for Eric Blore, and a curious prolonged cameo by band leader Ray Noble, all playing to a crackling script by PG Wodehouse, SK Lauren, and Ernest Pagano) make the movie very entertaining enjoyable, and it is a huge pity that the producers of this DVD issue - Odeon Entertainment - did not deem it worthwhile to master from a decent quality PAL transfer (the one I purchased looks suspiciously like an transfer from an NTSC (US standard) master, resulting a slight degradation in picture quality), let alone invest in some digital restoration - especially at a list price of £6.99. It is only as a result of this that I have deducted one star from my rating - it's no reflection of the innate quality of the content.

Having seen a number of Fred Astaire's films, this is my favourite to date; I was entranced. The storyline evokes an impression of "Downton Abbey" meets the Marx Brothers, with Fred being the kingpin who links the action together, whether romantic or comedic. George Burns and Gracie Allen provide some genuine belly-laughs with their repartee, with Allen getting most of the best lines - "My, my, how old-fashioned! Horse-whipping a man in this day and age when they could run over him with an automobile!" - and the scenes where they dance with Fred are scintillating - all three of them just look to be having so much fun, it's impossible not to want to join in.Joan Fontaine is at her demure best but shows some uncharacteristic feistiness - which sits well on her - in the scene where she gets annoyed at Fred, when he doesn't understand that she's in love with him.There are some fine comedic interludes from the supporting cast but naturally it's the great man himself who takes command of the film, even when he's not on screen. It doesn't matter whether Fred's leading lady can dance or not because when he takes to the floor, all eyes are on him anyway. The guy had that rare gift of being able to combine romantic lead with comedy, and in the scene on the hall stairs, where Lady Alyce rejects him, he displays that trusting vulnerability (reminiscent of Stan Laurel), which makes him so endearing and has us rooting for him from start to finish.The dance routines, especially Fred's "drum solo" toward the end of the film, perfectly display the athleticism, innovation, musicality and style of the man - and Fred was never less than perfect. Doubtless there are Fred Astaire films in which the dances are more sophisticated and romantic - but perhaps none with the feel-good factor of this one. By the end, everyone's differences have been settled and they're all just one big happy family. So grab your suitcase, pack your chuckle muscles and get yourself down to Tottleigh Castle. This is one country house party you'll want to revisit again and again.

This has to be one of my 'desert island' movies. A light-hearted musical guaranteed to cheer you up. A frothy and delightfully inconsequential plot by P G Wodehouse based on his 'Blandings Castle' novels and Fred Astaire in top form singing and dancing to Gershwin tunes. Can it get any better? Yes it can - because this is one of the very few films made with the greatest of radio comedy teams: George Burns and Gracie Allen. You only get a flavour of what their wisecracking cross-talk act was like - but even the taste is enough to upstage Astaire, and that's not easy! They were radio stars when radio was big, so not really best known as a song and dance act - but here they show that can do it with the best of them. They just don't make them like this any more!

Astaire in an RKO film without Rogers. Joan Fontaine joins him in a charming routine designed not to tax her but the delight is in two dances with comedians Burns and Allen, apparently hoofers in their early days. Fred has two solos, the second of which he plays drums with both hands and feet. This is stunning, especially as it was shot in one long take. The plot, by PG Wodehouse, is one of daffy misunderstanding and is played with a light touch by an excellent cast. The icing on the cake is a specially written score by George Gershwin to Ira's lyrics. The print is good.

Of all Fred Astaire dance movies this the only one that stands on its own as a story. Written by P.G. Wodehouse and directed by George Stevens, it's a genuinely fine motion picture. Even the jokes by Gracie Allen and George Burns, though already old 80 years ago, still make you chuckle by their impeccable timing.The music, Gershwin all the way, couldn't be better. We get a rare glimpse of Ray Noble, and of course there's the finale: Fred Astaire singing, playing and dancing Nice Work If You Can Get It.