Shall We Dance

Shall We Dance, 1937. Two dancers are falsely rumored to be married.

Directed by Mark Sandrich. Written by Allan Scott & Ernest Pagano; adapted by P.J. Wolfson from a story by Lee Loeb & Harold Buchman. Starring Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers.

Concept: 1/4 (Bad)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 4/4 (Great)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). It's Astaire and Rogers, doing what they do, so of course it's good. But by 1937 they've already performed the best dance numbers ever put on screen, so the attempts to do something "new" are naturally underwhelming. There's a lot of superficial novelty (ballet, roller skates, Ginger Rogers masks (so damn creepy)), which is silly considering how extremely unoriginal a movie it is. Also, there's no payoff for Astaire's character's hints at a new dance style combining tap and ballet, which is confusing.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.5/4 (Okay)