For their last film at RKO, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers co-starred in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. It was the only time the team ever played real people. It was also the only time that no original score was written for them in a film. And of course it was the only screen death for either of them in their team history.
Vernon Castle and the former Irene Foote met and wed before the beginning of World War I in what we call the Ragtime era. As an act they popularized ballroom dancing and influenced many other performers including a man who was doing his own act in vaudeville at the time with his sister. That of course being Fred Astaire with his sister Adele. I'm sure doing this film must have in and of itself been a labor of love for the dancing master.
In addition Irene Castle set style for women's clothes and hair. When she cut her hair and put in a short bob, women everywhere copied her and the style really took off in the Twenties.
With the arrival of World War I, Vernon Castle enlisted and managed to survive the war only to get killed in a training accident after Armistice Day in the USA. Irene kept her career going, appearing in many silent films and she married three more times. She survived her husband by about forty years.
The film gave Ginger Rogers her first really dramatic role. The following year Ginger would get the ultimate accolade from her peers with a Best Actress Oscar for Kitty Foyle. I've a feeling that it was on the strength of this film that she got cast in Kitty Foyle.
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle boasts two strong supporting performances by Walter Brennan and Edna May Oliver. In real life, the part that Brennan has as a family retainer for the Foote family was black. But given how blacks were portrayed back in the day, it's probably just as well a black actor didn't play the part.
This was a good film for Astaire and Rogers to finish their association with RKO studios. They would team up again in The Barkleys of Broadway ten years later for MGM, but that's a whole other story.
Vernon Castle and the former Irene Foote met and wed before the beginning of World War I in what we call the Ragtime era. As an act they popularized ballroom dancing and influenced many other performers including a man who was doing his own act in vaudeville at the time with his sister. That of course being Fred Astaire with his sister Adele. I'm sure doing this film must have in and of itself been a labor of love for the dancing master.
In addition Irene Castle set style for women's clothes and hair. When she cut her hair and put in a short bob, women everywhere copied her and the style really took off in the Twenties.
With the arrival of World War I, Vernon Castle enlisted and managed to survive the war only to get killed in a training accident after Armistice Day in the USA. Irene kept her career going, appearing in many silent films and she married three more times. She survived her husband by about forty years.
The film gave Ginger Rogers her first really dramatic role. The following year Ginger would get the ultimate accolade from her peers with a Best Actress Oscar for Kitty Foyle. I've a feeling that it was on the strength of this film that she got cast in Kitty Foyle.
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle boasts two strong supporting performances by Walter Brennan and Edna May Oliver. In real life, the part that Brennan has as a family retainer for the Foote family was black. But given how blacks were portrayed back in the day, it's probably just as well a black actor didn't play the part.
This was a good film for Astaire and Rogers to finish their association with RKO studios. They would team up again in The Barkleys of Broadway ten years later for MGM, but that's a whole other story.