Please don't spend money on this.

Absolutely Fantastic

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Copyright 20 February 1936 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at Radio City Music Hall: 20 February 1936. U.K. release: 24 April 1936. Australian release: 2 June 1936. 110 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Sailor meets up with former dancing partner in a dime-a- dance ballroom. NOTES: Negative cost: $747,000. Initial domestic rental gross: $1,782,000. Initial foreign rental gross: $1,175,000. Net profit after deducting advertising, print and distribution costs: $945,000.According to Maurice Zuberano, the Astaire-Rogers RKO pictures were designed by Charles Ullman and Alan Abbott. Commencing with "Follow the Fleet", Zuberano also worked on the set design. Ginger Rogers designed some of her own costumes, including the ostrich-feathered one she wore in the "Cheek to Cheek" number in "Top Hat". Hermes Pan worked with Astaire on all his RKO films commencing with "Flying Down To Rio". His job was to assist Fred with choreography, stand in for Ginger while the initial steps were worked out, teach Ginger the steps when she finally reported (she was a quick study) and then supervise the camera movement during the dance numbers while they were actually being filmed. Abel was notorious for over-lighting his sets. Zuberano managed to get him to shoot in a lower key for Follow the Fleet's climactic dance. The play opened on Broadway on 8 August 1922 at the Lyceum and ran for 152 performances. Frances Starr played Connie, James Rennie was Bilge Smith. David Belasco produced and directed. Shore Leave was filmed under that title by director John S. Robertson in 1925. Richard Barthelmess starred as Bilge Smith opposite Dorothy Mackaill's Connie Martin. In 1927 the play re-appeared on Broadway as a Vincent Youmans musical "Hit the Deck" starring Charles King, Louise Groody and Brian Donlevy. This musical version first hit the screen in 1930 with Jack Oakie and Polly Walker directed by Luther Reed for RKO. It again surfaced in 1955 as an MGM musical with Tony Martin (who has a small, hard-to-spot role in this version) finally in the lead. RKO's top box office attraction of the 1935-36 season. COMMENT: A feast for Astaire-Rogers fans, both of whom are in especially fine form. The support cast is unusually strong, though Betty Grable fans will not find much cause for joy in their idol's 30-second spot as the center of a singing trio who supply the rhythm for one of Ginger's songs. Although billed last, Lucie Ball has a much larger role, though her glamour is toned down by a costume of hideous garishness. Miss Hilliard makes a rather pallid sub-heroine, but Astrid Allwyn makes the most of her unusually meaty part as the seductive Mrs. Manning. The plot itself is slight but it is dressed up with some amusing wisecracks and serves to showcase some delightful musical numbers. The one I like best of these is the finale against the Monte Carlo set of startling simplicity and attractiveness. The orchestration is superlative and the sound recording terrific.

Follow the Fleet is a lot of fun and very charming. It isn't quite as good as Top Hat and Swing Time, but fans of Fred and Ginger won't be disappointed and will be enthralled instead. Like with almost all of their outings the story is somewhat silly and plays second fiddle to everything else and Harriet Hilliard, apart from her two wonderfully done solos(especially But Where are You?), is a little dull. However, while perhaps not as audacious or sophisticated as Swing Time, it is beautiful to look at with the photography particularly pleasing, the standout being Let's Face the Music and Dance. Irving Berlin's score and songs are not quite as consistent as his ones for Top Hat but are still wholly memorable and put a smile on your smile. Let's Face the Music and Dance is the jewel of the crown, helped also by Fred and Ginger's best ever dance routines, but Let Yourself Go and I'd Rather Lead a Band also stand out among the songs. The choreography is energetic and poised, Let's Face the Music and Dance once again comes to mind but Let Yourself Go positively makes you want to tap your toes. The dialogue is smart, funny and sweet, while charmingly swaggering Fred Astaire and sassy Ginger Rogers, in their graceful and full-of-personality dancing and in their performances, are entirely captivating. Randolph Scott is appropriately virile and doesn't look too out of his depth(considering that he's better known for his westerns), one wishes though that he had a stronger partner in Hilliard, who comes to life in her musical numbers but is lacking elsewhere. In conclusion, great fun and easy to like. 9/10 Bethany Cox

The 1930s were the golden age of the movie franchise – The Marx Brothers, Shirley Temple, Busby Berkely and of course Fred and Ginger. But as the decade wore on and these tried-and-tested formulae began to look a little too tested, and the creative teams behind them were forced to think up increasingly varied angles to come at the material, or else watch the series die a death.The most obvious innovations in Follow the Fleet are the changes in setting and character. Astaire has swapped his dinner suit for a naval uniform, and as oppose to Ginger being an out-of-his-leaguer who falls for his charms, the two are now former dance partners who rekindle the old magic. This is a more significant a difference than it first seems. Every movie these two did together, they became a little closer, a little more in step both as dancers and actors, and when their characters are reunited the rapport between them seems very authentic. There's even a hint of poignancy when we see them dancing together again, as we realise he should never have left her for a career at sea.The other big change is the introduction of an alternative romance between his buddy Randolph Scott and her sister Harriet Hilliard. This subplot isn't up to much, although the idea of giving Astaire a straight foil in Scott brings out some more exuberance from the star, as well as the sort of "bro" dynamics we hadn't seen in the earlier movies. And Hilliard was a singer who gets a few numbers to herself. Appropriate to the fluid, integrated style of modern musicals, she emotes through her singing on "But Where Are You?" but unfortunately it's overacting.It wasn't just the writers who had to come up with new tricks. The Hermes Pan choreography is becoming ever more elaborate. The final act, to Irving Berlin's Let's Face the Music, grows out of a stage performance as in Busby Berkely musicals. But he still makes such things embellishments to the main attraction of Fred and Ginger's dancing skills. Follow the Fleet also gives us the chance to see Ginger on her own, including a complex solo tapdance and a hearty rendition of "Let Yourself Go". This is very much the movie for variation. We even see Fred playing a jaunty little number on the piano.RKO has done a good job of finding new ways to keep the Astaire-Rogers partnership looking fresh, but in adapting it has lost as well as gained. The lack of Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, Erik Rhodes or any comparable replacement is glaring. And even as the dance numbers delight, there is a feeling of ideas being thrown in in the desperate hope that some will work. In itself, Follow the Fleet is not a bad entry in the series, but it represents the beginning of the end for Fred and Ginger. Their best work together had already been done, and it was all downhill from here on.

There are a couple of nice dance numbers in this picture, although nothing I'd call a favorite. And the songs by Irving Berlin are, of course, quite good. But man, what a dumb movie. The main story is dumb but tolerable, with Astaire annoying Rogers with his failed attempts to help her and win back her love. But what really aggravated me was the subplot involving the jerk sailor and the teacher. The teacher first appears in glasses and dowdy clothes and is blown off by the jerk. She gets a quick makeover, comes out and is soon making out with the jerk, who establishes in their brief time together that every thing he told her when she was wearing glasses was a lie. She becomes so attached to him after they kiss that she starts talking of her dream of having a husband to sail her boat (not a euphemism for anything), and he rightly thinks she's thinking of him and creates some distance (and also hooks up with a slutty hottie). She spends tons of money to salvage her boat for this guy she only spent a few hours with, and because she doesn't want it to be a surprise doesn't write to him while he's at sea. When he comes back he goes on a date with the hottie. She is heartbroken, but after some machinations courtesy of Astaire he realizes that he really would like to captain her boat, she totally ignores the fact that he has consistently treated her terribly in the maybe 5 hours of their lives they've spent together and everything is hunky dory.Eve by Hollywood standards this is a pretty flimsy romance. In real life she's delusional and he's just a creep.