David Lichine, Eleanor Powell - Tap Routine from 'Sensations of 1945'

This is film of David Lichine and Elanor Powell performing a routine in the movie 'Sensations of 1945’.
As there is so very little of Lichine on film, every bit is worth looking at and considering.
What I find particularly interesting here is how well the Ballets Russes star adopts to the big band tap style - he seems right inside the idiom.
I love the way his character realised by small gestures, such as chewing gum throughout the routine.
I’ve left in the interspersed bits of the movie to put the dance routine in context - even with the gunshot from the audience at the end!

[@carolynellis387]

This is the first time I've heard of David Lichine but Eleanor Powell was fantastic There was just too much talent in those glory days of Hollywood not now though These stars could do everything singing tap classical dance etc Thanks for posting

[@ktkat1949]

I had never heard of David Lichine until I saw this video so I went to research him. OMG! This man is a total professional ballet dancer par excellence. His background in Russia and then after his family fled the Revolution to Paris. He has danced with everyone of importance in the 30s and 40s. He has choreographed and danced for the movies etc. Sadly he died at just 61. What a creative talent.

[@JohnRaymondHall]

yes, a big career in the post Diaghilev Ballets Russes and equally in films - i must post some more footage of his dancing :)

[@bobbrawley2612]

I never heard of him either. Thanks for the little bio

[@davidkelley4111]

This looks like something a man of his talent might do after work, just to loosen up and party.

[@esmeephillips5888]

Lichine and his wife were very helpful to young dancers. During World War Two Massine's 'Monte Carlo' half of the old Ballets Russes of Diaghilev broke up. Among those left out of a job was a young American mom who had been performing under silly Russian-sounding names. Lichine introduced her to the movie choreographer Robert Alton when Louis B Mayer was looking for a star soloist to follow Eleanor Powell, who was retiring. And that was how a Texan from Amarillo named Tula Charisse (nee Finklea) got her start in Hollywood with an MGM contract. Years before, Powell had trained as a child in the New York school of Michel Fokine- Diaghilev's principal choreographer in the great days of Nijinsky, Stravinsky, Bakst and Karsavina. That is the thread that joins 'Firebird' and 'Les Sylphides' to boogie-woogie and 'Girl Hunt.'

[@sallyjdawg]

I studied with him in Los Angeles he and his wife Tania ran a ballet school for many years so sad he died young

[@AprHla]

They are FANTASTIC together! David is so fun with Eleanor ❤

[@JohnRaymondHall]

they are really enjoying it

[@visualize2feel]

I can watch Eleanor Powell dance all day she is the best dancer ever. This is when Hollywood has real talented stars

[@JohnRaymondHall]

yes, her dancing is so effortless seeming - a great dancer!

[@AuntieMamie]

So sad that it’s an era gone by. Indicates we need talent desperately

[@sesquashtwo]

What a fantastic dancer, Elanor was....

[@esmeephillips5888]

Typical of Eleanor's capacity for making and keeping friends is that when she was preparing for her comeback in cabaret 16 years later, Lichine trained her every morning for two hours.

[@jackjules7552]

Eleanor should have married someone like Lichine if not Lichine himself instead of that awful Glenn Ford who had nothing in common with her. Women can be such fools when it comes to men.

[@JohnRaymondHall]

yes, relentless training is essential

[@dudley5533]

As usual, Eleanor at her best dancing to a boogie woogie this time............great.

[@susankay7606]

I love the wildness and sensuality of this number! Could watch it all day.

[@MRDOOWOP1]

Same here brilliant Routine & very different 😎

[@steviejd5803]

Susan Kay when she turns her back to us and that bow on her sweet ass stars moving....gorgeous.

[@esmeephillips5888]

This was probably why the National League of Decency rated the film B for 'suggestiveness'. Wonder if the very Christian Eleanor Powell was mortified.

[@lindaeasley5606]

Those legs belong to the greatest female tap dancer who ever lived

[@rogerpropes7129]

Ann Miller's legs?

[@lindaeasley5606]

@@rogerpropes7129 no way

[@sesquashtwo]

My eyes certainly agree with you...such precise movements...

[@trhansen3244]

@@rogerpropes7129 With all due proper respect to the incredible Ann Miller, Eleanor Powell was the best of them all.

[@arthurgearheard4701]

This movie sucked, however!

[@richardculbertson2618]

Eleanor Powell is incredible. One of, if not the most talented tap dancers ever.

[@JohnRaymondHall]

yes, i think she was!

[@vickilindberg6336]

He is fun & he kept up when he her. I don't remember hearing about of him before.

[@ronaldciccone260]

Eleanor The Absolute Best Tap Dancer ,, Beautiful Legs.

[@richardculbertson2618]

Totally agree.

[@MRDOOWOP1]

Wow! what a smooth & Very cool dance number 😎 Eleanor Powell the Queen ❤ David lichine watching him move is Amazing.. But the whole Routine had a black feel about it, if you put the Era and time into place..The Intro to the Routine is Extra Cool ❤ Brilliant

[@kevinford69]

The band is Woody Herman & His Thundering Herd. For you 40s nuts, big band jazz freaks....that's the "Northwest Passage, Apple Honey, Caldonia, Laura," Woody Herman Big Band...and as usual, they nail it!

[@esmeephillips5888]

They are great throughout, and above all in the smaller formation of 'Spin, Little Pinball', Ellie's last great solo. Funkiness incarnate. This was a rich moment in the interaction of high and pop musical culture, with the Herd driving hard- swing's last flowering before the bebop invasion- and Woody playing a concerto by Stravinsky. Gershwin's progress from Tin Pan Alley to the concert hall symbolized the fusion. Eleanor's evolution from ballet to tap and 'flash' paralleled it in dance.

[@esmeephillips5888]

@Jane Gold Eleanor Powell was always in the vanguard of pop music. She had done a down-and-dirty boogie-woogie with the five black pianists of 'Fascinating Rhythm' three years earlier. Like Astaire's after he left RKO, her choreography evolved more and more towards powerful, complex syncopation. By early '44 Woody was swinging harder than Goodman or the Dorseys. In this movie he had to keep up with Cab Calloway's outfit in the marvelous 'Hepster's Dictionary'. 'Sensations' is a crazy mashup which remains hugely and variously diverting nearly 80 years after it was produced.

[@bbrief]

I am blown away! How are dancers able to remember all the choreography?

[@JohnRaymondHall]

i guess like ballet dancers remember the chore

[@esmeephillips5888]

Watch Ellie in 'Fascinating Rhythm'. Three unbroken minutes of everything from soft shoe shuffle to leaps and lightning spins, without one move repeated, while she is filmed through a maze of revolving sections of the set. This routine was child's play in comparison.

[@grumpysorc3744]

The embodiment of the classic American coolness.

[@JohnRaymondHall]

absolutely!

[@AuntieMamie]

Perfection. Never get enough

[@claudiaglacken3033]

Fabulous

[@sleeper600]

If you watch most of Eleanor Powell's partners, you will see that few of them ever caught her (alone) or threw her over their arm with as much force as the powerful dancer David Luchine. Ellie, cut from ballet roots, must have really enjoyed this partnering! He was not as tall as her but that obviously did not matter at all. These are fantastic professionals. It is funny when you think that Fred Astaire said she was a little big for him.

[@JohnRaymondHall]

yes, Lichine had the training in partnering (lifting and so on) of a ballet dancer. "Fred Astaire said she was a little big for him" - curiously Karsavina said the same of Nijinsky - in the interview with her in old age i've uploaded

[@youyong28]

She was wearing higher heels.

[@hd-xc2lz]

Fred also was widely quoted saying Eleanor danced too much like a man and was heavy footed... but she never said a single negative thing about him. Sadly Fred's fans parroted his comments, and such criticism haunted her late career.

[@esmeephillips5888]

@@hd-xc2lz But he also said that no man could keep up with her.

[@esmeephillips5888]

@@JohnRaymondHall There is a whiff of apache about it too. Possibly they were going for a Balanchine 'Slaughter on Tenth Avenue' feel, four years before Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen in 'Words and Music'.

[@rogerpropes7129]

Could that staircase set be the same one Fred and Ginger danced on and then the Nicholas Brothers?

[@partycentralsales]

“Never Gonna Dance” with Fred and Ginger is from “Swing Time,” a 1936 RKO picture. “Jumpin’ Jive” with the Nicholas Brothers is from “Stormy Weather,” a 1943 20th Century Fox picture. This number is from “Sensations of 1945,” a 1944 United Artists picture.

[@api9714]

She seems kind of modest for being such a great talent.

[@JohnRaymondHall]

she does

[@dovbarleib3256]

The only tap dancer that could keep up with Eleanor Powell was Fred Astaire. And the only tap dancer that could keep up with Astaire was Powell and on a good day, Gene Kelly. But she never danced with the Nicholas Bros.

[@JohnRaymondHall]

perfect pairing!

[@rachelbuchanon8630]

I was just think if she had danced with the Nicholas Bro they.where excellent dancers as well

[@didoudingue1801]

That's the music hall ❤

[@JohnRaymondHall]

and works so well

[@deadandburied7626]

So was Eleanor's character killed in the movie? 😮

[@esmeephillips5888]

SPOILER: It was a publicity stunt.

[@ПавелИванов-э7п]

СУПЕР

[@TheReneex]

Dorothy Dandridge wore the exact same outfit in the film, Atlantic City,

[@JohnRaymondHall]

i didn't know that - thanks

[@frozenlake1215]

0:46 What's the title of the music here? It sounds so fmiliar

[@misled1982]

I think it really sounds like the intro from boogie woogie, and the dance move look from somethig from the 50's or 60s!

[@Farlomous]

it has a very similar feel to one of the tracks from Ghostbusters, so who ever did that could have taken bits of it and paid homage to this classic.

[@lscarver5]

@@misled1982 actually those dance moves are from the 30s and 40s. Boogie Woogie style of music was very popular during that time period. If you're a fan of old movies you can see that dance genre captured by different performers.

[@frozenlake1215]

@@Farlomous That may be what I'm thinking about, Bus Boys "Cleaning Up The Town"! Thank you!

[@glenjones7597]

well that was messed up, I hope they caught that woman

[@JohnRaymondHall]

it's Hollyood so they would have?

[@brianoyler4777]

No, it was part of the sensations. It was a hoax to grab audience attention. See the entire movie please before you start making replies about which you know nothing.

[@esmeephillips5888]

This was the only substantial movie role for Mimi Forsythe. She was a Chicago businessman's daughter with no pro experience when Hollywood picked her up. She suffered from violent mood swings, married three times and killed herself, aged 30, some years after her last husband ran off with Dolores Moran, the libidinous Lolita of 1940s Hollywood.

[@robertmudrow8034]

@@esmeephillips5888 You really should get out more often. Head full of Golden Age Hollywood gossip, trivia and melodramatic analyses.

[@esmeephillips5888]

@@robertmudrow8034 Thanks!

[@eogg25]

Lot of negative comments but I thought it was pretty good dance routine but I am not a better dancer than her, So what do I know more than the negative commenters.?

[@hd-xc2lz]

So... unless one is a film director one cannot critique a movie? And then in such an instance one should be remarking ONLY on the film's direction and not individual acting, or the sets, or the lighting, or musical score?

[@steveliveshere]

Did she just shoot Eleanor Powell?😳

[@esmeephillips5888]

Spoiler alert: Powell's character set up a fake murder attempt as a publicity stunt. (OMG! They killed Ellie!🤑.)

[@tarakwannabe675]

Was that Ann Miller with the gun?

[@robertmudrow8034]

Cutting away to some tedious acting. Where's the respect? Poor Eleanor.

[@rejmons1]

How she made this? She was very, very flexible and physically fit but did not had the thighs or arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not like today's dancers who are as muscular as bodybuilders.

[@soaringvulture]

She made her muscles look good.

[@partycentralsales]

I read that she said for every hour of tap dancing she did an hour of ballet and vice versa, so that she would not overdevelop certain leg muscles. She was one of five Hollywood actresses to be considered as having perfectly proportioned legs per the aesthetics of 1930s beauty. The others were Claudette Colbert, Marlene Dietrich, Ginger Rogers, and Betty Grable.

[@trhansen3244]

@@partycentralsales And don't forget the actress who played Baby in the movie Dirty Dancing, who is called the Queen of Dance.

[@TheFacefinder]

Wow, that girl was good looking.

[@7777lizabeth]

She was married to Glen Ford. He cheated n her with Rita Hayworth!

[@esmeephillips5888]

@@7777lizabeth Fun fact: Rita was the first woman Ford kissed on screen. If only it had ended there. Instead it became the longest on/off secret affair in Hollywood.

[@leonie7342]

@@esmeephillips5888 Rita was so uptight and couldn't relax doing that love scene with Ford the director had to take them both to a nearby bar and get her a drink to loosen up. Thus began the career of the 1940's Love Goddess.

[@esmeephillips5888]

@@leonie7342 Yes, Rita put all her flamboyance into dancing and was nervous and uncertain in private. She was a Catholic girl, sheltered by what would later be called helicopter parents from the moral hazards of showbiz, and when she rebelled it was only to elope with Judson, a father figure and Svengali. Then she was taken up by Orson Welles, who set out to educate her. Harry Cohn remodeled her and Aly Khan tried to make her the queen of a harem. Men could never let her be herself.

[@radioheadtv3131]

Love her outfit

[@boblowney]

hot!

[@guinnberger2681]

Have never seen Sensations of 1945... WHY does the woman in black shoot Ellie, anybody know?

[@JohnRaymondHall]

no clue in the Wiki entry for the movie en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensations_of_1945

[@brianoyler4777]

It was all part of the sensations. It was a hoax to grab audience attention. See the entire movie.

[@hd-xc2lz]

@@brianoyler4777 For those of us who will not see the film, please briefly inform us of the gist of this scene.

[@brianoyler4777]

This was just part of the opening number. The entire film was interspersed with sensationalism and stunts to thrill audiences and boost revenue. This shooting that you saw was for publicity...fake... clever film because it also made screen audiences sonder what was happening.

[@brianoyler4777]

That is "wonder"

[@simaraft7373]

Oh no Elenor gets shot? Well that's what she gets for tapping with her knew so far apart!

[@JohnRaymondHall]

LOL - i had a tough teacher but he fell short of using a gun in class!

[@jackanthony976]

If she was still at MGM she would not have been shot.

[@esmeephillips5888]

@@jackanthony976 Hehe. Andy and Virginia Stone would become synonymous with using authentic locations, props, ballistics etc. The critic Andrew Sarris wrote that if the Stones had made 'On the Beach', none of us would have lived long enough to see it.

[@gpowellish1]

One of her Haters shot her. Wow!

[@zeevkalmar]

Akacos

[@korokekorosuke]

男のダンサーがひどいな。

[@brianwilson9828]

In plain words...horrible dance number.

[@jackanthony976]

If you see all of Eleanor Powell's work this may not seem as horrible. This number shows a looser and jazzier side of Eleanor. Taken out of context of all of her work then yes you might say the number is not so hot.

[@sleeper600]

I think this is a great number! Very athletic and stylized! The syncopation and jazzy rhythm - and what a great dance partner in David Luchine. Certainly different from most of the big MGM numbers, I would not use the word horribly describe this at all! I think it’s great!

[@brianoyler4777]

Sleeper, you are right on. Brian Wilson, you need to view more of Eleanor Powell's films. Then you would see that this dance number is not bad.

[@cynthiacorcoran9389]

Didn't ever care for the sound of shots fired anywhere except the shooting range. Nothing going on here

[@hd-xc2lz]

Well, to be honest, her heyday was the mid to late '30s, and this '45 film bombed with critics and audience. Her performances of the previous decade were much stronger than what little we see here.