On the day Gene Kelly was scheduled to film his now iconic splash-filled Singin’ in the Rain scene, the actor had a temperature of 103°F (39°C). But the story goes that Kelly refused to go home, saying that halting production would waste the massive preparations that had been made (which included mixing water and milk to make the raindrops show up better on film). Kelly convinced the director to allow at least one take — and that was all it took. While some say that’s a movie myth, one thing that remains a fact is this scene’s place in cinema history.
Lets take a look at cinema’s most memorable dance scenes.2. The Ballet Scene in The Red Shoes
No dance film can ever top The Red Shoes, the lush 1948 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger film about a young ballerina torn between love of her art, an ambitious composer and the impresario who runs the ballet
company. It is essentially a double telling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Red Shoes, a tale about a young woman who puts on the titular pieces of footwear and finds herself forced to dance until she dies. The film stops dead halfway through to present a 17-minute long ballet sequence that mixes virtuoso dancing (by star Moira Shearer, a ballerina before she was an actress but great at both) with fantastical camera work, as in the segment in which she dances with a man who turns into a corporeal newspaper.3. The Twist in Pulp Fiction
We already knew John Travolta could dance. He discoed and hand-jived his way to stardom in Saturday Night Fever and Grease. But in the 1980s Travolta’s career fizzled and we sort of forgot about him because — let’s be honest, here — we have pretty short attention spans. But in 1994, Travolta made his comeback in Quentin Tarantino’s stylized crime film Pulp Fiction. His smooth, understated twists to Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell” were so cool, we hardly noticed his weight gain and thinning hair. If we were coked up Uma Thurman, we’d let our Mob-boss boyfriend set us up with John Travolta any day.
4. Fred and Ginger in Top HatNo self-respecting dance-movie list would be complete without the inimitable Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. While you could choose many spectacular numbers, just look at 1935′s Top Hat, which includes the duo’s routine to Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek.” Here Ginger is initially reluctant to dance with Fred because she thinks, mistakenly, that he is her friend’s husband. Eventually, of course, she lets herself go. The two float across the floor (grandeur sets in at around 3:25 in the clip above), defining elegance with every step, turn and dramatic dip. Yet even in the midst of this formal affair, they tap. They’re playful. Fred and Ginger were about romance, but romance that went hand in hand with fun, as another memorable number from Top Hat, “Isn’t This a Lovely Day,” also shows. This time there’s no ballroom, no formal wear — they’re in a gazebo during a thunderstorm. Katharine Hepburn said of the pair, “He gives her class. She gives him sex.” They both give us some unforgettable scenes.
5. On the Floor in Saturday Night FeverTo get in shape for his groundbreaking role as disco-dancing Brooklyn teen Tony Manero, John Travolta reportedly ran two miles (3 km) and danced three hours every day (he lost 20 lb. [9 kg] in the process). It showed each time he made his way to the dance floor to do the hustle and other dance moves that had largely been underground in the 1970s until the movie gave them national prominence. Travolta got so involved in the scenes that he threatened to quit when the studio wanted to shoot the “You Should Be Dancing” portion in close-up shots rather than full-body ones. Later, as disco waned in American culture, the original New York City club where the film was shot was renamed and closed, and the dance floor was sold in 2005 for $188,000. (Fun fact: Movie critic Gene Siskel bought the white polyester suit worn by Travolta at auction. Siskel often said it was his favorite movie.)
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