BORN TO DANCE

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CREDITS

1936, 105 minutes, B&W.
Producer, Jack Cummings; Director, Roy del Ruth; Screenplay, Sid Silvers, Jack McGowan and B.G. DeSylva; Cinematography, Ray June; Music Director, Alfred Newman; Art Direction, Cedric Gibbons; Editor, Blanche Sewell; Dance Direction, Dave Gould.

CAST

Nora Paige, Eleanor Powell; Ted Barker, James Stewart; Lucy James, Virginia Bruce; Jenny Saks, Una Merkel; Gunny Saks, Sid Silvers; Peppy Turner, Frances Langford; Captain Dingby, Raymond Walburn; McKay, Alan Dinehart; Mush Tracy, Buddy Ebsen; Sally Saks, Juanita Quigley; Georges and Jaina, Themselves.

SONGS

Easy to Love; Swingin' the Jinx Away; I've Got You Under My Skin; Rap-Tap On Wood; Love Me, Love My Pekinese; Rolling Home; Hey Babe, Hey; Entrance of Lucy James by Cole Porter.

PLOT SYNOPSIS

"A sailor (James Stewart) on leave in New York, falls madly for a struggling dancer (Eleanor Powell), but their romance is stalled when a publicity stunt involving Stewart and a glamorous Broadway star leaves Powell bitterly jealous. The young lovers eventually reunite and it's up to understudy Powell. . .to save the show when the star walks out on opening night."
- Liner Notes from MGM/Turner Laserdisc

NOTES

"What counted in Born to Dance wasn't its thimbleful of a plot (which also involved sailors on shore leave) but the splendour of Cole Porter's tip-top score and the razz-a-matazz of its staging (by Dave Gould)."
- Clive Hirschhorn, The Hollywood Musical

"Corking entertainment. . .Cast is youthful, sight stuff is lavish, the specialities are meritorious, and as for songs, the picture is positively filthy with them."
- Variety

"The plot of this big, unimaginative MGM musical is a half-hearted reprise of 42nd Street and On With The Show. . .the scriptwriters. . .didn't even try for plausbility: they had a dancer stepping in for a singer."
- Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights At The Movies


ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS:
Best Song - "I've Got You Under My Skin"
Dance Direction - "Swingin' the Jinx Away"

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