The Gay Divorcee
| The Gay Divorcee | |
|---|---|
theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Mark Sandrich |
| Produced by | Pandro S. Berman |
| Screenplay by |
George Marion Jr. Dorothy Yost Edward Kaufman |
| Based on |
Gay Divorce 1932 musical by Dwight Taylor |
| Starring |
Fred Astaire Ginger Rogers |
| Music by |
Score: Max Steiner Songs: (see below) |
| Cinematography | David Abel |
| Edited by | William Hamilton |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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107 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $520,000 |
| Box office | $1.8 million |
The Gay Divorcee is a 1934 American musical film directed by Mark Sandrich and starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It also features Alice Brady, Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore and Erik Rhodes, and was based on the Broadway musical Gay Divorce written by Dwight Taylor from an unproduced play by J. Hartley Manners, which was adapted into a musical by Kenneth S. Webb and Samuel Hoffenstein. The film's screenplay was written by George Marion Jr., Dorothy Yost and Edward Kaufman. Robert Benchley, H. W. Hanemann and Stanley Rauh made uncredited contributions to the dialogue.
The stage version included many songs by Cole Porter, most of which were left out of the film, "Night and Day" being the only exception. Although the film's screenplay changed most of the songs, it kept the original plot of the stage version. The film features three members of the play's original cast repeating their stage roles - Astaire, Rhodes, and Eric Blore. The Hays Office insisted on the name change, from "Gay Divorce" to "The Gay Divorcee", believing that while a divorcee could be gay or lighthearted, it would be unseemly to allow a divorce to appear so. Although according to Astaire's autobiography, Steps in Time: An Autobiography, the change was made by a proactive effort from RKO. He claims that director, Mark Sandrich, told him that the “The Gay Divorcee” was selected as the new name because the studio "thought it was a more attractive-sounding title, centered around a girl." RKO even offered fifty dollars to any employee who could come up with a better title. In the United Kingdom, the film was released with the original name of the play, Gay Divorce.
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