Tunnel of Love or Mistake of Russian Translators Almost all musical films with the participation of Fred Astaire have a Russian translation. But, nevertheless, the Russian translators still made a mistake - otherwise they would not be Russian translators. We are talking about the 1950 musical comedy "Let's Dance" with Astaire and Betty Hutton starring.
Kitty and Donald are a dance duo who performed together during the war. But after they once quarreled, Kitty left the duo and got married. Then the story is moved to five years later. She is now widowed and has a small child.
However, the snobbish mother of the deceased husband believes that it would be better if she took the child into her own hands, which does not suit Kitty, so she quickly packs up at night and leaves with her son to New York, where she meets Donald again - now a lawyer who promises to help her resolve the problems. But the mother-in-law is not going to give up so easily. . .
It is not difficult to admit why the Russian translators did not translate this film - the thing is that from the Russian language the title of the film is translated as "Let's Dance".
But in 1937, a film with that name was released. And although it was written differently in English - 'Shall We Dance', the Russian translation left the same 'Let's Dance', which, I must say, made it much more difficult for me to search for a 1950 film. However, if I found it - and I certainly am not a master in the search for film rarities, then for them it definitely should not be difficult - although translators probably know better.
The plot of the film is old as the world and clearly does not pretend to be very original, but the main problem of the plot - the fight for the child - is too superficial and its resolution in the final is not shown too convincingly.
The cast of the film is interesting with only a few names. Fred Astaire in the film perfectly dances, but still feel that he is pushed to the background. Betty Hutton knows how to sing, dances no worse than Astaire, but still often overplays.
In the studio Paramount Astaire turned out to be a simple studio exchange. When Judy Garland was removed from the filming of the studio MGM Annie Gets Your Gun" (1950), Hutton was invited to play her role with "Paramount". Instead, MGM lent Fred Astaire a film for Paramount.
At the last studio, having received such a chance, they decided to use it in a big way. As you know, the musical MGM "Easter Parade" (1948) became the highest grossing in Astaire's career, since his partner there was the leading star of the studio's musicals - Judy Garland
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And so Paramount decided to pair Freda with the leading star of the musicals of his studio, which was at that time. But it was not possible to repeat the success that accompanied the tandem of Astaire Garland in 1948. The film had a good box office - but it was not a hit. Perhaps because Betty Hutton is still not Judy Garland, and with the script the film has obvious problems.
The soundtrack of the film was not very memorable - I personally only liked the songs 'Tunnel of Love' and 'Oh Them Dudes'. The dances in the film are well staged, but ingenuity is clearly lacking here.
The film is worth seeing and deserves to be translated. Of course, this is not the best film in the career of both Astaire and Hutton - but despite its obvious shortcomings, it is still worth watching this creation. Thank you very much.
6 out of 10