Since I’ve already shared the videos that were made for Annie Lennox’s and David Byrne’s contributions to the Red, Hot + Blue compilation album, it seems appropriate to share the best known cover and video to come out of that project. With Night and Day, U2 not only provide their own spin on Cole Porter’s best-known song but they also introduced the sound that would define them throughout the 90s. This was the first song of U2’s post-Joshua Tree era.
The video was directed by the German director, Wim Wenders. U2 would subsequently provide songs for Wenders’s Until The End Of The World and Far Away So Close. Bono would also produce and provide the story for The Million Dollar Hotel, one of Wenders’s less regarded films.
This cover of Cole Porter’s Don’t Fence Me In appeared on Red Hot + Blue, the same compilation album that featured Annie Lennox’s cover of Ev’Ry Time We Say Goodbye. Along with singing the song in his own unforgettable style, Byrne also directed the music video that was used to promote it. Byrne’s cover and the video both turn Porter’s song into an anthem of tolerance and liberation.
Of course, before Byrne covered the song, Don’t Fence Me In was made famous by one of the original singing cowboys, Roy Rogers. Rogers appears in archival footage throughout this video. The song itself was originally written ten years before Rogers first sang it in the 1944 film, Hollywood Canteen. Porter originally wrote the song from a never-produced western that was going to be called Adios Argentina. Porter based the lyrics on a poem that was written by Montana engineer Robert Fletcher. Fletcher was originally only paid $250 for his contribution to Don’t Fence Me In. A decade later, after Rogers made the song a hit, Fletcher was able to negotiate with Porter’s estate to get a co-writer credit and to also collect royalties on the song.
Tom Waits recorded this version of Cole Porter’s It’s Alright With Me for Red Hot + Blue, a compilation album that was put together to benefit the Red Hot Organization, a non-profit organization that raises money for AIDS relief and education.
Probably the best known of the songs to come off of Red Hot + Blue was U2’s version of Night and Day. However, Waits also brought his own unique style to Porter’s lyrics. This video was directed by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, who has also featured Waits in several of his films.
(Lisa is currently in the process of trying to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing all 40 of the movies that she recorded from the start of March to the end of June. She’s trying to get it all done by the end of July 11th! Will she make it!? Keep visiting the site to find out!)
The 31st film on my DVR was the 1934 musical, The Gay Divorcee, which I recorded on June 7th when it aired on TCM.
The Gay Divorcee is a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical, which means that the plot is less important than the dancing, the singing, and the charm. The charm is especially important. Don’t get me wrong — The Gay Divorcee includes some wonderful music, including Night and Day and The Continental, which went on to be the first song to win an Oscar for Best Original Song. The dancing is incredible, as you would expect from any film featuring Astaire and Rogers.
But it’s the charm that makes The Gay Divorcee especially memorable. Full of sophisticated dialogue delivered by a cast of wonderful 1930s character actors, The Gay Divorcee offered up an escape to a country that was still reeling from the Great Depression. Some audiences went to a Warner Bros. gangster film and some audiences went to an Astaire/Rogers musical but what they all had in common was that the movies provided them a break from the harsh realities and hopelessness of everyday life.
As for the plot — well, it’s about rich people doing silly things. Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers) wants to get a divorce from her husband, a gynecologist named Cyril (William Austin). Apparently, Cyril doesn’t want to give her a divorce so Mimi, her aunt (Alice Brady), and her lawyer (Edward Everett Horton) come up with a plan that could only work in an Astaire/Rogers musical. Mimi will visit England and, while staying at a properly luxurious hotel, she will pretend to have an affair with Rodolfo Tonetti (Erik Rohodes), a professional gigolo.
However, upon arriving at the hotel, Mimi runs into Guy Holden (Fred Astaire). Guy is a friend of Rodolfo’s and he also happens to be in love with Mimi. Mimi, meanwhile, mistakes Guy for the gigolo and they proceed to dance the night away…
Listen, the plot doesn’t matter! What matters is that The Gay Divorcee features Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers at their best! This, after all, is the film that features Fred Astaire singing Cole Porter’s Night and Day…
And, of course, there’s The Continental…
The Gay Divorcee was one of the ten films nominated for best picture of 1934. However, it lost to an equally charming film of the 1930s, It Happened One Night.
The Gay Divorcee was a fun and needed escape for viewers in the 30s and you know what? We still need an escape today.
Through the Shattered Lens 