Flying down to Rio

Cyril Hume, H. W. Hanemann, Erwin Gelsey, Anne Caldwell, Thornton Freeland

This film, containing the first of many Fred Astaire - Ginger Rogers partnerships, concerns a troupe of entertainers stranded in Rio. Songs include "The Carioca," "Orchids in the Moonlight," and the title song. Notable for a brilliantly photographed finale with chorus girls on the wings of flying airplanes, the movie was the musical that broke with the rather contrived Busby Berkeley production and moved toward a closer integration of musical and narrative elements. Astaire's dance numbers come not as interruptions but as extensions of the plot.