feet hit the ground

A 1942 film called Holiday Inn starred Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire.

The real Holiday Inn hotel chain was named after the movie title.
Irving Berlin wrote all of the songs for the film, including "White Christmas."

The movie has an atmosphere of determination, working hard cheerfully, accomplishing something, and a sly sort of black-and-white intimacy that makes the viewer identify with each of the characters -- all of them! -- not just one. It's as if you're right there, in the cozy, classically-textured living room at the inn.

Fred Astaire, dancing: the description I can come up with that does justice to his talent --





. [Hmm. I don't have enough skill to describe his talent.]
Here in the 21st Century we don't go looking for tap dancing on a regular basis, but a person watches Fred Astaire dance, it's like a "Come-to-Jesus" movement for Tap Dancing. (Why isn't everyone doing this?? -- ALL THE TIME - ?!!)

It is as if -- air and gravity and the every-day, work-a-day Rules of Existence don't apply to Fred Astaire -- he just skims, and flies, floats, spins, stomps, and then swirls with a shag-step that's so smooth it's almost invisible. It's like, "Wait-a-minute -- how'd he get over there?!"

And none of it is "special effects" or "blue screen" with a computer -- he did all the stuff, and the cameramen simply filmed him.

The Holiday Inn DVD contains extra things -- videos, histories, commentaries...there's film (from a different movie) of Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby performing together, singing and dancing: they both sing, and both dance, but the attitude, or received wisdom is that Fred is the better dancer, and Bing the stronger singer.

[Both:] In us you see a couple of song and dance men
[Bing:] I'm the song
[Fred:] I'm the dance
[Both:] For laughter, joy and happiness, we're advance men
[Bing:] With a song
[Fred:] And a dance

[Bing:] I sing for my supper
[Fred:] I dance for my lunch
[Bing:] I croon when the landlord comes around
[Both:] For miles around the women and children

{called out, Not sung} - pass! out! cold!

[Bing:] When my voice hits the air
[Fred:] And my feet hit the ground

[Bing:] Last night
[Fred:] Out in the moonlight
[Bing:] I came to serenade
[Fred:] A very pretty maid
[Bing:] I sang her to sleep with "Asleep in the Deep"

[Fred:] (That always makes them collapse!)

[Bing:] I saw her eyes close, then she started to doze
[Fred:] But she arose when I sounded taps
[Both:] Which goes to show what women will do when we're around
[Bing:] And my voice hits the air
[Fred:] And my feet hit the ground
------------------------------
In Holiday Inn, Crosby and Astaire play song-and-dance men working in New York. They have a problem of competing, in their social life, and "stealing girls" from each other. Their female dance partner in the act is Lila -- she's wearing Bing Crosby's ring but is about to run off with the Fred Astaire character.

Fred Astaire asks her, "What?! You didn't tell him yet?"
Lila: (deflated from not doing what she knows she has to do) -- "I couldn't. He gets a look."

"That isn't love. It's something to do with his -- liver...."

--------------------- When Bing Crosby starts falling in love with a new singing / dancing girl, Linda, he sings,

Sweetheart of mine, I've sent you a Valentine
Sweetheart of mine, it's more than a Valentine

Be careful, it's my heart
It's not my watch you're holding, it's my heart

It's not the note I sent you
That you quickly burned
It's not the book I lent you
That you never returned

Remember, it's my heart
The heart with which so willingly I part

It's yours to take, to keep or break
But please, before you start
Be careful, it's my heart

-------------------
...Bing Crosby's brainstorm after he loses Lila in New York is that he's been wanting to leave the city and have a quieter, more relaxed life. So he buys a farm in Connecticut.

"He's already bought the farm!" one of the characters explains. ...

-30-