. . . and a war broke out? And I'm not talking about those STEP UP or BATTLE AMER!CA-type "dance-war" flicks. THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE is a dance movie which closes with a REAL WAR (specifically, the WWII under card, as it's taught today). One minute you have noted hoofer Fred Astaire doing a stern-faced tango. The next, he's firing the twin machine guns of a WWI fighter biplane with a lunatic grin on his face. This is definitely a film with a serious attention deficit disorder. Vernon and Irene are shown to be deeply in debt as total, hopeless failures stranded in a foreign country. After their chance swing around a dance floor earns them their first supper in days, a wordless 20-minute montage immediately commences by the end of which they are the 1913 version of William & Kate, Brad & Angelina, and Barack & Michelle all rolled into one. As soon as dialog resumes, dance gives way to war, and a few cheesy aerial scenes later, it's "goodbye, farewell, Au Revoir." But the band plays on. For a bit.
Review of The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
