4 Ladies on Tap

Last weekend, I blogged a review of Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds in the new, original holiday musical streaming on Apple+ TV. It's called SPIRITED and it's a hip twist on Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL. I blogged that the entertaining SPIRITED is packed with musical numbers. There's plenty of tap dancing in it. Even Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds tap dance in it. In those well-choreographed and brightly performed numbers, the male and female tappers are in rather unisex attire and the tap dancing is of the STOMP style -- if you're familiar with that popular Broadway show and group.

I hope I do not come off as sexist, but I miss seeing an obvious feminine flair in tap dancers. A flair with a style and talent that can match their male partners. I will now give you classic film examples of what I mean.

Before she became an international Hollywood legend as GILDA, Rita Hayworth starred in two original movie musicals with Fred Astaire. Here's a clip from 1941's YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH -- music and lyrics by Cole Porter.

Astaire's most famous partner was Ginger Rogers. Of the several musicals they danced in for RKO in the 1930s, the original 1936 SWING TIME was an Oscar winner -- and one of their best. Here they are after they introduced the new song, "Pick Yourself Up."

Eleanor Powell was one of the best female dancers on the MGM lot. She teamed up Fred Astaire for BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940 with music by Cole Porter.

Another dazzling dancer on the MGM lot, one who followed Eleanor Powell, was Ann Miller. Rita Hayworth's singing was always dubbed. Ginger and Eleanor has pleasantly limited voices. But Ann Miller -- she could dance, act and belt out a tune. Here she is in the 1953 MGM musical, SMALL TOWN GIRL.