Ruby Fever

Catch Ruby Fever!

a montage tribute to the wonderful & talented Ruby Keeler

scenes clipped from 42nd Street, Dames, Gold Diggers of 1933, and Footlight Parade

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• rubykeeler
• tap
• tapdancing
• busbyberkeley
• musical
• 1930s

[temperance]

Thanks everyone for your nice comments. I truly appreciate it.

Please check back on Aug 30 -- I'm currently putting together a Joan Blondell tribute montage to be released on her birthday.

[natmermaid]

Any chance you could put the whole Shanghai Lil routine up? Please?

[temperance]

Natermaid: Unfortunately, if I put up the entire Shanghai Lil routine I'll get a copyright violation warning & they'll yank it off (putting up the whole routine is much less "fair use" than an excerpt). Read the comments, for instance, of hidecolman when she/he tried described posting the entire "My Forgotten Man" clip: /watch?v=7exGhWpb6Zk

(and check out his/her clip from "The Greeks Had a Word for Them" while you're there -- it's fun)

[RMSAquitania]

I just got "The Busby Berkeley Collection" for my birthday this year and have fallen in love with Ruby Keeler. My mother and I have firmly agreed, she was absolutely adorable and I've just made a lovely purchase on eBay with the acquisition of a major fan's scrapbook from the 1930s with loads of these images inside. Thank you for a long overdue tribute to a wonderfully talented, and under-recognised star whose talent shined in her own right, even as Mrs. Al Jolson!

[temperance]

Thank you so much for you nice comments and for taking the time to watch the tribute.

RSMAquitania: I agree that Ruby is underrecognized (& I'm jealous about your eBay acquisition!)

[ScotCanLiz]

She was a good dancer (Irish style tap dancing, versus the usual American style) and had loads of charm. No, she couldn't sing, but her acting is every bit as good as anyone else's from that period. Movies at that time were meant to be entertaining and light-hearted, so very little heavy emotion was involved. She was cute as a button and engaging on-screen... and she could shake a leg!

[Georgewos]

I read a very interesting thing about Ruby Keeler after She had retired from movies circa 1938 She married a real estate man. Her children never knew She was in all those musicals of the 30's. It was only when the movies were revived and She appeared on Broadway in the revival of NoNo Nannette that they learned about Her background in movies.

[298625]

The James Cagney clip was fantastic. Although she's cute, she doesn't measure up to him in the dance department.

[starrbeatlesqueen]

@temperance please take this down. It's no fun watching a video without sound.

[JudgeJulieLit]

@rameychix Great genes!

[Kramnosnits]

Should wasn't much of a singer, but she could dance well. Marginal acting ability...but very cute, anyway.

[JudgeJulieLit]

Yes, she has (the since Italian Renaissance) ideal artist's quality of sprezzatura -- making the difficult seem easy. And she exudes a natural joy in her dance. And balances her oft youthfully strong clodhopping (interestingly, varyingly) with delicately graceful moves.

[JudgeJulieLit]

Seems off camera, she was as modest (sweet and unassuming) as her onscreen characters.

[JudgeJulieLit]

The film was delightfully lighthearted when not Depression tragic: an epitome of 1930s musical films, fusion fantasy escapism and gritty socioeconomic realism. Busby Berkeley extravaganzas were an emblem of humanity cooperating for optimal social happiness.

[JudgeJulieLit]

Well put. But (tho she was Irish American), her "Irish" tap dancing was not the traditional jig, nor today's Riverdance style -- rigid upper body, arms still and vertically at side, militaristic leg and foot patterns. Ruby's style (e.g., in "42nd St." finale) was more Dutch clog (fitting for ex- New Amsterdam), happily clutzy little wooden shoe dance -- carefree, whimsical, mostly rhythmic yet romantically individually expressive, freely flung arms and wayward leg moves.

[JudgeJulieLit]

If she "wasn't a great actress," her artlessness worked as if she was (or better than) a great actress. Like her contemporary great Bway stage actress Laurette Taylor, she was "a natural." And paradoxically, artlessness is the effect all great artists strive for, in imitating reality.

[cutensexigirlie71]

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