Easy To Love | Born to Dance | Warner Archive

Born to Dance (1936) #WarnerArchive #WarnerBros #BorntoDance
A never-completed stage musical was the source for the MGM superproduction Born to Dance. The plot is another three-sailors-on-leave affair, with Ted (James Stewart), Mush (Buddy Ebsen) and Gunny (Sid Silvers, who also co-wrote the script) romancing the eminently romanceable Nora (Eleanor Powell), Peppy (Frances Langford) and Jenny (Una Merkel). Nora aspires to become a dancing star, but her career nearly ends before it begins when she inadvertently comes between Broadway luminary Lucy James (Virginia Bruce).
Directed By Roy Del Ruth
Starring Eleanor Powell, James Stewart, Virginia Bruce
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Warner Archive Collection is a branch of Warner Bros home entertainment that releases classic films and TV that were previously unreleased. Thousands of Films, TV movies and series on Blu-ray and DVD direct from the studio. WAC started as a MOD (manufactured on demand) eCommerce business in 2009 and have released over 2,500 titles spanning from the 1920s to present with distribution outlets that now include wholesale, licensee, and retail partners. Available at amzn.to/3gQeRvx.
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[@meyay5757]

He is young, goofy and handsome. I'm enchanted.

[@miina7776]

Jimmy had a beautiful voice! Love this song. It's both romantic & hilarious!

[@p.z.arnott2329]

According to Stewart on the 1974 documentary, That's Entertainment," They were originally going to dub him.

[@soundseffecter9972]

I'm so glad they didn't :-)

[@dianewheeler9849]

I love James Stewart he is super hot in the navy uniform and his voice is so beautiful it makes me cry

[@artsmith5542]

This song always makes me HUMONGOUSLY happy!!!!

[@carmenlu8674]

My granny Teresa taught me to love the golden age of Hollywood, this movie is really pure gold.

[@honey_bee65]

I'm nuts about ❤ *JIMMY STEWART!!!* ❤ 😍😍😍

[@kevinhallisey5201]

Well, he ain't no Justin Beiber.

[@staceyvodkills1958]

Me too 😍😍😍❤️❤️❤️

[@th6924]

Although I m an 18 years old high school students in Korea, I love these classics❤

[@jtcarrey]

Eleanor Powell and Una Merkel are my favorites! Jimmy Stewart is a sight for sore eyes too 👀

[@darushmike9083]

They even hadn't thought that the world would watching them through KZbin

[@Ajuhdnis]

This song cheers me up anytime I listen to it.

[@lenhummel5614]

Buddy Ebsen was pretty amazing in this great old film clip.

[@taylordowning2533]

This whole film was a lot of fun. A true classic.

[@artsmith5542]

Taylor Downing ❤️❤️❤️❤️BTD!!

[@Randylewus1958]

I enjoyed this film a great deal ,Eleanor Powell and Jimmy Steward had great chemistry together

[@oylesineboylesine2366]

@@Randylewus1958 Where can i watch?

[@Shimbodiddly]

Buddy Ebsen is a delight to watch. I love his relaxed style and the joy he brings to the dance in all his performances of the era.

[@sscot720]

That's Jimmy Stewart

[@alison8402]

@@sscot720buddy ebsen is also in the video, he comes in at 2:20

[@user-qi6rc5jb8t]

What a natural, easy and powerful art! How I envy the talents who can dance like that, compose such music, perform it so well! I'm impressed!

[@litastar2455]

would have liked to see him with Eleanor in more films they had great flow and awesome chemistry, she is always smiling

[@barbarjinks8170]

Jimmy Stewart looking FINE

[@vicsaul5459]

wow, eleanor powell search , got me here, another eleanor gem, im just nuts about eleanor, , wow. what a cast , i love these archives, thanku e p #1

[@Concetta20]

I’ve never heard him sing! Fantastic!

[@manuelfarinelli3839]

I love it !, but the song is not 'Easy To Love' but 'Hey, Babe, Hey - I'm Nuts About You'.....

[@darushmike9083]

We are very lucky to watch this video Thanks to KZbin

[@errolfan]

Although musicals were not Jimmy Stewart's forte, he was obviously enjoying himself here and was quite accomplished at singing and dancing. Una Merkel was the real surprise. When she was spun overhead, I couldn't help thinking that this is one serious actress!

[@esmeephillips5888]

Kudos to Sid Silvers, who's shorter than her. I doubt Fred Astaire could have handled that move. Sid had begun in vaudeville and became regarded as Broadway's best stooge. He was the kid brother of Louis Silvers, Al Jolson's musical associate, for whom Louis scored 'The Jazz Singer' after writing the tune of one of Jolie's standards, 'April Showers'. Sid, who was shorter than Judy Garland, often wrote for her original screen partner Mickey Rooney and did the screenplay of 'For Me and My Gal' with Judy and Gene Kelly, after contributing dialog to 'Wizard of Oz'.

[@cynthiaennis3107]

She was taught to dance by Eleanor Powell as a nice payback for Una Merkel’s great acting tips to EP earlier which contributed to her success!

[@errolfan]

@@cynthiaennis3107 The dancer who spun her deserves credit for nerve. She looks two feet taller. OK, maybe six inches without heels. Brilliant upstaging.

[@esmeephillips5888]

@@cynthiaennis3107 All the more generous bc Una had ceded her position as the leading female of the ensemble. Ellie had originally been cast as Robert Taylor's secretary, but Una wound up playing it. Hard to imagine Ellie as a Joan Blondell/Patsy Kelly 'caustic confidante' type.

[@miina7776]

A Pre-War spectacular showcase full of dance, fun & glee in true musical style. Lovely cast, Powell & Stewart were greatly paired. An altogether wonderful movie 💖 Strongly recommend in these unprecedented times :)

[@esmeephillips5888]

And a fine example of Roy del Ruth's skill in unobtrusive camera movement- to track individual moments of the three couples within a big, crowded set which includes Lonely Hearts guests, waitresses and the Foursome. Blocked to create an overall picture of the variations in romantic relationships by alternating the PoV: cameo then ensemble, swirling and swooping then pulling out to recapture the 3x2s as a sextette. It is done not to show off the director's visual ingenuity for its own sake, nor merely to record a bunch of hoofing moves. In this del Ruth falls between Berkeley and Sandrich, anticipating the style of MGM's great era. This made the camera 'dance' (take part in the action) a little more than Astaire wanted, but without hogging it and hurling the spectator into the thick of the action like Buzz. Del Ruth shunned personal publicity and has never gotten attention, but 'Broadway Melody of 1936' and 'Born to Dance' are groundbreakers in musical aesthetics... quite apart from launching the peerless Powell.

[@michaelchapman4955]

I saw this Movie in a undergraduate Cinema class at Cal State LA as it was called back in the day... & relished this Film & 'this Class was by far the most enjoyable academic class I've ever taken.... The professor use to work as an Extra at MGM during it's Heyday & he had So many interesting stories per many of the films , actors, directors & choreographer's we watched & reviewed

[@frankrobinson6841]

Even.watching.him.as.a.child You.knew.he.was.a.good.guy A.pleasure.to.watch.a.prince Amongst.men

[@brian-vz5hz]

A young James Stewart. He was 29 here.

[@davetv7533]

He would’ve been 28

[@gordonkemp1620]

Absolutely bloody marvellous.

[@soundseffecter9972]

One of my all-time favorite movies, I make sure to re-watch it at least once a year!!!!!!!

[@user-qi6rc5jb8t]

Absolutly Great!!!

[@radioheadtv3131]

I Love Eleanor’s Dress

[@errolfan]

If you look carefully, 2;14-2;17 goes to a totally different camera shot seamlessly. Well-crafted.

[@esmeephillips5888]

That is the handiwork of Eleanor Powell's friend Blanche Sewell, who would cut almost all her pix. Sewell was adept at injecting pace and tension into sequences; Powell would choose takes of her dances and advise which frame to change shots, a remarkable privilege at Metro where even directors would usually be excluded from the edit. Sewell was Walt Disney's sister in law and helped out on 'Snow White'. Her greatest moment was editing 'The Wizard of Oz'. She died ten years later, too soon- but hard at work until the end.

[@errolfan]

@@esmeephillips5888 Thanks for the additional info. It's hard to believe that Powell rose to the top in a male Hollyworld. I just viewed Blanche's bio on Wiki and it is amazing how many classic films she either tweaked or took a wrench to. You put two women with talent together and anything is possible. Anything.

[@yasminagutierrez3236]

Que lindo 😍 está Jimmy Stewars

[@vanessaland5090]

Gorgeous

[@esmeephillips5888]

Two of the best human beings ever to become movie stars. But it is bizarre that MGM would let Jimmy sing but dubbed Ellie.

[@esmeephillips5888]

Billy Grady, who had worked with MGM's Louis B Mayer since nickelodeon days, was his scout for stage talent in New York. Grady had previously acted as Eleanor Powell's agent when she was a kid of 16, securing her a Broadway break as a tapper in 'Follow Thru'. Two years later Grady went to an amateur show by Princeton students. The only one who struck him as having potential was a gangly fellow on the end of the line called James Stewart. So when 'Born to Dance' was cast, Stewart was available as Ellie's leading man... and off-screen beau. She refused his proposal and he went on a course of philandering until after his service in the USAAF, when he at last found the right girl- a divorcee with two kids. The best man at his wedding was Billy Grady.

[@vicsaul5459]

ur comments are fantastic, better than wikigooglenets

[@lizaelliott6862]

Jimmy is so tall and skinny that I have to laugh when I see him. The true Thin Man!

[@erik2805]

It's funny that you should say that. Stewart played a killer in a "thin man" movie.😊👍

[@trinityj1]

You see why tall dancers are rare. It just doesn't look right lol.

[@carolinecharrel6046]

J'adore ❤️

[@artsmith5542]

Caroline Charrel Moi aussi!!!

[@flisers]

I love this movie makes me want to learn how to tap dance

[@veroniquethomas47]

Même la serveuse est accorte et tt a fait charmante

[@ReCa83]

Wrong title, it's not "Easy to love" but "Hey, babe, hey"

[@foxice111111]

COOL

[@RyswagPlays]

2:36 the 3rd and 6th cup continue to lose water after Buddy Ebsen stopped drinking them. Something's sketchy about this

[@esmeephillips5888]

Jimmy Stewart did bits of warbling and cavorting in postwar films, though always as a joke. He sang in 'The Cheyenne Social Club' as late as 1970, though IIRC did not hoof- even though Gene Kelly directed it. Ellie has incorporated a bit of her teaching him into the start of the number. Flash: I caught him singing a bit and pretending to play a harmonica in the jailhouse scene of 'Pot o' Gold', which he did shortly before enlisting in the air force. Later he would call it his worst movie.

[@justmepercy720]

He also sang in "Pot O' Gold". He could certainly carry a tune!

[@trinityj1]

He's not wrong that it's bad, but it's fun.

[@esmeephillips5888]

'Hey, Babe, Hey' epitomizes the huge gamble Mayer and Thalberg took on 'Born to Dance'. Its star was a 23 y.o. girl with one serious movie effort behind her, attempting to consolidate her status as a unique attraction: a solo dancer who could carry a picture. Her own part in this number was not demanding- she had to dance down comically to Stewart and Silvers- but she was to choreograph a complicated scene advancing a tale about the romances of three couples. Only Ebsen among her colleagues was a seasoned dancer, so she had to train the other four as well as marshal a large chorus. And Eleanor had never danced with a partner, either on stage or screen. The scene required fluid camera movements between its component cameos; the dancers had to act with their faces as well as hoof. Cole Porter's song was one of the first he had written for a film (at $7,000 apiece) and was in a novel, demotic idiom for this Broadway sophisticate. So much could have gone wrong, yet the result is a cheerful, sweet, funny number which wears its technique lightly and makes the performers' limitations endearing. Years before a self-advertizer such as Gene Kelly was booming his 'integration' of song and dance with plot, MGM and Radio (Fred and Ginger) were doing it. This is atypical of Powell's appearances in that she is one of a gang; never again would she submerge herself. Yet she nailed it. Had she had stayed in the business she might have become a great choreographer or director of others.

[@AndrewKendall71]

:37 ... that laugh

[@bluefire9147]

This is so funny

[@veermaqsoodi8149]

❤

[@waldolydecker8118]

NOT "Easy To Love," but "I'm Nuts About You"

[@esmeephillips5888]

'Hey, Babe, Hey'.

[@nachoramonmichel7290]

2021

[@williamframe2317]

Blu-ray please 👍

[@artsmith5542]

William Frame I most humbly BEG ON MY KNEES!!!🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@artsmith5542]

BTW, that line reminds me of another Cole Porter song “Please Don’t Monkey with Broadway” from Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940); please release that and Rosalie (1937) on Blu-Ray 2!!!!!

[@errolfan]

Early 2 camera shot.

[@dayrich]

has anyone found this movie on dvd? i’ve checked amazon & ebay. i cant find anything.

[@partycentralsales]

You can get the digital version on Google Play.

[@dayrich]

@@partycentralsales ohh, i didn’t know that. would i just google it??

[@partycentralsales]

@@dayrich The site is play.google.com. Search movies and TV, and you will find most of Eleanor Powell’s films for rent or purchase.

[@dayrich]

@@partycentralsales thank you! merry christmas.

[@user-eo9ie7zn9p]

Bolger Van dancer... line ... Ebsen...Disney... Jack Gilroy, Army OSS MIA WW2. Stewart😮 Mrs. Glenn Ford, WW2.

[@AradHatamian]

and maybe i will make you my babe:)

[@esmeephillips5888]

Anyone who thinks Eleanor Powell could not act should watch her reactions throughout this splendidly integrated example of comic narrative via music and dance: three amorous pairings in one sequence. In her first starring vehicle, already she radiates the spirit of mischief which runs through her brief career in Hollywood. Basically she was a theater performer who refused to take Tinseltown seriously, and shared her quizzical amusement at its resplendent daftness with the audience. Often smiling straight into the camera in big close-ups, Ellie was arguably the first star to break the fourth wall, before Crosby and Hope did it more ostentatiously in 'Road to Singapore' (1940). It must have been tough for such a quality hoofer to rein herself in against four non-dancers and one clown. Fred only had to do it with Ginger, and less and less as she learned the craft from him and Pan.

[@trhansen3244]

I was too mesmerized by her amazing dancing to notice her acting.

[@yingpiccola]

In this film the blonde girl had better figure and appearance than ELeanor, and danced better than Eleanor, But Eleanor became huge famous and she seemed to become a nobody... Sigh...

[@esmeephillips5888]

Una Merkel was not a nobody. She was one of the leading character comediennes of the Thirties and Forties, but Eleanor Powell had to teach her to hoof. Merkel had been penciled in as the foil for Jack Benny in 'Broadway Melody of 1936', but Powell's rushes persuaded the studio to bump her up to second billing. Merkel was given the job of Eleanor's pal as a consolation prize.

[@partycentralsales]

Nobodies in entertainment don’t usually win a Tony Award, get nominated for an Oscar, or have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

[@esmeephillips5888]

In the Fifties the 'nobody' returned to Broadway after 25 years in pictures. In 1959 she headlined with Walter Pidgeon and Jackie Gleason at the Shubert in 'Take Me Along', a David Merrick musical which notched up almost 450 performances.

[@nachoramonmichel7290]

2021