Flying Down to Rio

Marvellous musical and a movie landmark, with the first joint appearance of Fred Astaire and Gingers Rogers as members of a band touring Latin America. [28 Sep 2003, p.9]

Although the lead trio does well enough, the presence of cinema's greatest musical comedy team fairly blasts the screen lovers into orbit whenever either or both of them are onscreen.

Fred meets Ginger in this goofy South American romance; they were secondary leads who stole the show. [03 Nov 2006, p.C5]

In their first big-screen pairing, fourth-billed Ginger and fifth-billed Fred play second banana to a bandleader and his Latina love in Flying Down to Rio, a nutty entry that springs alive for ”The Carioca,” possibly the duo’s sexiest dance.

It is a hearty and lively show, the story of which is just about equal to that of other musical offerings.

The first screen pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Pretty jerky, and not enough of Fred and Ginger; still, it has the “Carioca.”

This picture makes its bid via numbers staged by Dave Gould to Vincent Youman melodies. But Rio’s story [from a play by Anne Caldwell, based on an original story by Louis Brock] lets it down. It’s slow and lacks laughs to the point where average business seems its groove.