The Boy With Two Left
Feet-With Fred Astaire And Ginger Roger’s 1935 Film Roberta In Mind
By Film Critic Emeritus
Sam Lowell
Remember the expression
made famous, or infamous depending on your perspective, about old soldiers
never dying but just fading away. Well it appears that yours truly, Sam Lowell,
now supposedly placed “out to pasture” is still taking every opportunity to
sneak a comment or quasi-film review as he fades into the sunset. Today’s
comment concerns a film review that new film critic Sandy Salmon did a few days
ago on the 1935 film Roberta starring
the prolific dance team of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire with Paris and high
fashion as the backdrop. Whatever the backdrop, whatever, as Sandy pointed out,
the scriptwriter put down for plot the whole exercise was strictly as a vehicle
for Rogers and Astaire bursting into song and/or dancing to the high heavens.
Take that for what it is worth but what interests me is a comment Sandy made
about his own youthful, well, two left feet, which made his social life,
meaning his high school date life rather tenuous. Today I join the club, the
club of two left feet dreamers dreaming that they were sweeping some damsel off
her feet, or at least keeping off her feet, Fred Astaires.
Naturally a story goes
with it. See in high school I was sweet, okay, okay I had a “crush” on this
girl from my sophomore English class, Theresa Wallace, based on the great
conversations we had about literature mostly I think then on the work of Thomas
Hardy and various other English authors that I, and she, were crazy for. I
think she liked me too although I was a little shy and backward about picking
up any feminine hints and furthermore had heard nothing on the high speed
grapevine which would convey that information with such candor that it would be
the envy of any professional intelligence organization like the CIA or NSA
today . The big thing that I was interested in was whether she was taken, “going
steady” in the terms of the day. That question got answered in the negative
fortunately for in our neighborhood, among the corner boys in the know, if a
girl was taken then that signaled “hands-off” as a question of honor although I
later, too late, found out that tradition was honored more in the breech than
the observance. The big thing here was that Theresa was “single.”
We were having a conversation
during lunch break one day, don’t ask me what the gist of the conversation was,
when out of the blue Theresa mentioned that he parents were really strict, were
hard-shell 12th Street Baptists which I guess then was pretty
serious stuff although I had my own problems with my Roman Catholic religion so
I wasn’t in a position to evaluate the seriousness of her family’s religious
bent. What she then said which gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach was that
they would not allow her to go out on dates, not with boys, not on double
dates, nothing except church sponsored socials heavily chaperoned. The next
thing she said though sent me to heaven or something like that, happy anyway.
She, after something like a civil war with her parents when she described the
situation to me, had persuaded them to let her go to the Spring Frolic, the big
sophomore class dance. She had to go alone or with her girlfriends but no boys
were coming to the door and no boys were to take her home. I guess from the
restrictions it was a close thing whether they would let her dance with boys at
the dance.
The important thing was
that she was wondering whether I was going or not. Now usually I avoided school
dances (church ones too) like the plague after what happened in seventh grade
at the Christmas dance which I will describe a little shortly. My idea for Theresa
before she told me about her parents strictures was maybe ask her to the movies
or to go to Doc’s Drugstore to listen to the jukebox but not to a dance, no
way. But Theresa gave me such a smile while she was asking if I was going or
not it put me in a quandary. Then she said although I couldn’t pick her up she
would meet me at the dance and we could have a few dances together if I liked.
If I liked. You know I was going to the dance after that invitation come hell
or high water.
That brings up the why
of my serious avoidance of dances. Back in seventh grade I was something of a
good guy for girls to talk too without being fresh, showing some respect. For
that I caught the eye of Betsy Binstock, the prettiest girl in seventh grade,
who came up to me one day around Thanksgiving and asked me if I would take her
to the Christmas dance. You know what I said so we don’t even have to go into that.
I was thrilled but I also knew that I knew nothing about dancing except some
silly stuff I had seen on American
Bandstand where the kids were really cool in their dance steps. So I, after
my first full-press getting ready for a date (mouthwash, deodorant, hair oil,
etc.) picked up Betsy and we walked the half mile or so to the junior high
school we attended. The dance, as always, was held in the gym festooned to try
to hide the fact that it was a gym and not a dance hall. Unsuccessfully. I was
excited just to be seen with Betsy and I noticed guys, guys I hung around with
too, checking me out on my good luck. Once the dance began there were several
songs played on the cranky record player which because we are talking about the
pristine age of roll and roll which did not require dancing close together I
was able to get through.
Then the other shoe
fell, fell on Betsy. The junior DJ who was working the record player played a
slow one, played Save The Last Dance For
Me (of course I would remember the name of the song that would do me in).
So we started to dance which Betsy was very good at. Needless to say I was not
and accidently tripped over her feet causing her to fall. That fall was the
bitter end. For the rest of the evening-the very long evening- Betsy made a
point of limping every chance she got. Worse, worse in the seventh grade social
universe, she let Lenny Balfour take home. Done for.
With that sad ass backdrop
story in mind I decided that in the few weeks remaining until the Spring Frolic
I would take some dance lessons from a friend of mine’s older sister. I swore
him to secrecy and he held up his end of the bargain. His sister did the best
she could and although I had improved somewhat every step I took was cause for
a nervous breakdown on my part, maybe hers too. So the big night came. I was
dressed to look good (what the hell you do learn some social graces for if not
for being around girls, women) and Theresa came in a little later with a
girlfriend looking I swear like a delicate bud, like some Botticelli Venus. We
both blushed a bit when she spotted me. Once again, pretty much the norm in
rock and roll times at dances, the first few were fast ones where you could
just gyrate on your own and cause no pain. Just before intermission the paid profession
DJ played a slow one to end the first half of the dance. Played Moon River I think. Things did not go
well so I will confess to a little forgetfulness on the song played. But here
is why things did not go well. Theresa stepped all over my feet. At
intermission both of us flustered Theresa said maybe we should go down to the
nearby beach instead of staying at the dance since she said she had something
to explain to me.
As we walked down to the
beach Theresa, half in tears, told me because of her family’s religious views
she had never really learned how to do any close dancing. She had asked her
girlfriend, and had sworn her to secrecy, to teach her some steps, but she just
could not get the hang of it and had been worried that I might find fault with
her since I was such a good dancer. (She didn’t know only because of her being
all over my feet I didn’t get a chance at hers.) She was sorry that she had
two-left feet. I mentioned, no, I confessed to her, my own fragile efforts. We
laughed. Then I suggested maybe we should start a club for people with two-left
feet. She replied “with only two members.” Oh, yes, yes indeed. That remark got
us through high school together-even through the senior prom.
