Brakathor
First of all, clearly this is one of those movies for people who love this kind of music, love the kind of song and dance fare that Fred Astaire is famous for, and don't care two blinks about the package it's delivered in. As such, it's a film which like most musicals, you can't really judge in terms of conventional plot structure. That being said, the film as a total package is nothing short of a trainwreck on so many levels, by conventional standards. Fred Astaire was clearly a wizard at his craft, of that there's no question. Watching the dance routines where he's on tables and bartops is like watching a magician perform a magic trick. All musical numbers aside however, the roles are horribly miscast, the romantic relationship is extremely contrived and forced, and the plot devices are just so over the top that it all comes together as a film so unconventional that it's actually amazing in its own way.With that, I think it's high time to address the title of this review. It's fairly evident from the dialogue and the various plot elements that the two main Characters played by Fred Astaire and Joan Leslie are both intended to be young adults in their twenties. Leslie's character is an established and well respected photographer who works in the editorial department of a publishing company. However, Joan Leslie was only 17 when this was filmed, and the incongruity there is definitely glaring. 43 at the time, Fred Astaire's character is a pilot with a carefree nature to the point of coming cross as a total loafer, who flees his military tour leave, opting to find his own adventure in the coming week or so. While having no apparent work related skillset aside from piloting aircraft, it just so happens that he can sing and dance up a storm. Apparently this is something that all average Joes can do, as it hasn't been worked into the character's history AT ALL or cross-examined in the slightest. All this, in addition to when he says "I'll have to ask my parents if they approve," after Joan proposes marriage to him, suggests that the character is intended to be much younger. At any rate, the Character of "Fred" is very poorly developed.In the end, it looks incredibly less conspicuous on paper to have a 20 something year old man aggressively pursuing a 20 something year old woman than it comes across on screen to have a 43 year old man so aggressively pursuing a 17 year old girl/woman. Let me put every emphasis on AGGRESSIVELY here. It's not just the fact of an older man having a love interest in a younger woman. He literally stalks her for the first half of the movie. I really feel like I need to detail the plot progression based around this premise, if for nothing else than for my own amusement. He meets her at her bar where he creepily tries to appear in all of her photos that she's taking for the event being held there. She finds him quirky, but essentially tells him to buzz off. She leaves for a quieter venue to grab a bite to eat, and he follows her here. He pays her way, yet she sort of leaves him in the lurch and bails almost instantly, seemingly eager to get away, albeit politely. She then leaves the bar and he follows her home sneaking up behind her. After she threatens to call the police, they both suddenly begin singing lyrical suggestions to each other, which comes across so contrived given that she's told him to go away and leave her alone numerous times already, that it seems like more of a misdirection by Leslie's character to distract him long enough so that he doesn't haul her into a side alley and rape her, rather than actual developing chemistry between the two characters, a speculation soon confirmed when she finally reaches her place of residence, and says goodbye, seemingly hoping to never see him again. Not soon to be so easily discarded, he notices a vacancy sign in the window and swiftly makes her place his new home (landlords were less discriminating in the old days, I guess). When she wakes up, she's shocked and appalled to see him living there, then leaves for work to take some photographs at the docks. He follows her here. She's even more furious than before. She then goes to her office and he follows her here as well, creating a huge scene in front of everyone working there.Just think about this for a second. Imagine you're living in a group home, and you follow one of your housemates around for their entire hour working day, who you know and are friends with. That would be a little bit creepy and crazy wouldn't it? Now imagine doing it to a total stranger. Despite being angry/annoyed by him, rather than call the police on him like any normal rational young woman might do, she inexplicably offers him a job interview instead, even though he expresses no desire to work whatsoever. Later that night she attends a private event, and he's invited to tag along. Get it boys? The lesson here is to stalk random women who you don't even know, but find sexy, and the minute you come across as a complete stalker/rapist is when they will swoon over you and let you into their lives. You've really got to love the culture contrast between 2018 and 1943. Playing this movie to a group of modern day feminists sure would be fun.Ultimately, the film of course is a comedy, but if you were to replace the film score with a horror/thriller soundtrack, it would actually come across as quite scary/ominous up to this point, and I doubt you'd be able to tell the difference. Honestly, if Leslie's character continued to rebuke Astaire's character after this point, I feel like his character is so unstable that he would have escalated to the point of throwing her into a car trunk. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. This one really is begging to be lampooned in a Youtube edit. Anyway, at the private event, Astaire's character comes across as overly obtrusive, and muscles his way into a musical act that she performs in front of the crowd, one which we're intended to believe is completely ad-libbed by the two characters, my favorite line in which was "you better start stripping," by Astaire. Apparently that won her over, because now at 40 minutes in, she appears to have firmly decided that she likes him, despite her many grumpy faces up until this point.I see so many other reviews commenting on the "great chemistry" between Joan Leslie and Fred Astaire in this film, but honestly I just don't see it. Her character is supposed to go from angry to jovial to angry to jovial so many times in the first half of the film. I really don't know how one should act out such a schizophrenic role, but in the end when she proposes marriage to him, a total of 20 minutes and one day later, it would be a massive understatement to say that it comes across as a nonsensical plot contrivance for an enterprising career oriented young woman to suddenly out of nowhere, be inspired to propose marriage to a jobless middle-aged deadbeat who she knows next to nothing about, who's clearly mentally unstable, and who's been stalking her for the past few days. Fred Astaire was not even a particularly good-looking guy either.I do understand that in the old days, for the mostpart you really couldn't have sexual flings without completely destroying your reputation, especially for the woman, and as with so many early films, this sudden and unexpected marriage proposal couldn't come across as anything other than. "I really really badly want to go pokies with you, but I want to remain within social acceptability while I do it, so I'm perfectly willing to blunder myself into an absolute trainwreck of a marriage as long as it means we get to screw within the next 24 hours." While early films are notoriously bad at conveying romance on screen, this one is definitely at the head of the pack. The romantic angle just makes no sense, and there's nothing the actors could have done to sell it, in my opinion. What can I say though, in the end I did enjoy this movie a fair bit, not in SPITE of it being conventionally horrible but BECAUSE of it. It's perverted beyond belief without trying to be, while being thoroughly oblivious to that fact. What's not to love? Astaire's dancing is of course always entertaining by its own merit as well.
Doghouse-6
Very much in the Fred Astaire canon of the 30's-40's (Fred meets girl, Fred exasperates girl, Fred wins girl over on the dance floor), THE SKY'S THE LIMIT - although uneven - contains some of Astaire's best and most unusual moments on film. It's worth getting past a few jarring notes to access them.In almost every one of his musicals, Fred plays some extension of the same character: the lovestruck, earnest but insouciant sophisticate, and for some reason the standard formula required Fred to annoy the object of his affection upon their initial meeting - and often for some time after. This picture frequently carries the gimmick to inexplicable extremes.The recipient of Fred's love at first sight is magazine photographer Joan Leslie, who although not quite a triple-threat (her singing voice is courtesy of Sally Sweetland, but she could dance and handle both comedy and drama; call her a two-and-a-half threat) is generally up to the task, and projects a maturity far beyond her 18 (yup: 18) years. Supplying able assistance is Robert Benchley as Joan's editor and would-be suitor, who has moments hinting at more depth as an actor than he was usually given an opportunity to display.With Fred portraying a Flying Tiger ace who skips out on a PR tour to enjoy a few days of fun before returning to duty, there are elements of wartime morale-boosting, but only around the edges, and in what sometimes is an almost subversive vein. After enduring a discourse on "how to win this war" from the man who has given him a lift to town, Astaire's only response is, "What's your classification?" "4-F," the man answers, to which Astaire replies, "That's what I thought."In an odd bit of casting, Robert Ryan appears as one of Fred's Air Forces buddies, but takes the script's intended mischief a bit too seriously. In scenes that call for him to merely tease, he practically drips with menace. That quality would serve him well in subsequent films, but here it's one of the aforementioned jarring notes.There's still plenty of fun along the way, and the script is sprinkled with in-jokes, such as references to some of Astaire and Leslie's costars in earlier films, or Benchley's series of celebrated two-reel shorts for MGM in the 30's (Joan tells of a wedding proposal from him that digressed to a lecture about "the sex life of a polyp"). Indeed, Benchley delivers one of his trademark disorganized addresses at a fete honoring an industrialist, and while it brings the story to a halt for a few minutes, you won't really mind if you're a fan. The crown jewel of THE SKY'S THE LIMIT is one of Astaire's best vocalizations of one of the best songs ever written for him, "One For My Baby (and One More For the Road"), along with one of his most adventurous dance solos, in which a night of bar-hopping after a falling-out with Leslie culminates in an explosive choreographic release of frustration and fury, at the posh nightspot where they first met.This may not become one of your favorite Astaire pictures, but there are rewards if you can overlook a few rough spots.
angelsunchained
Yep. It's raining. It's past midnight. I'm watching the Sky's The Limit. Being that it was made in 1943, it's clearly out-dated. However, I must say, it's an enjoyable trip back in history. Made during the height of World War II, it's clearly a movie made to appeal to a war-time fan base. There are a few nice musical numbers, some outstanding dance routines, and even a few laughs. I must admit, the love story was pure fluff, but it did have a nice and upbeat innocence to it. Joan Leslie was as beautiful and talented as could be. Fred Astaire was outstanding, and Robert Benchley generated a number of laughs. There's even a young Robert Ryan in a few scenes. So, if it's a rainy, windy, late night, be sure to catch, The Sky's The Limit.
