It must've been a great movie back in the day, but it's a bit cheesy in modern standards. It has that old style where people spontaneously break into song and huge dance numbers (where a ton of uniformly dressed people come out of nowhere and begin to dance! That must've been 'cool' in the 30's, but now it's just funny to watch. Fred Astaire plays Guy Holden, a famous performer who falls in love with a young girl named Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers). After the first impression, Mimi hates Guy (not realizing he's a famous dancer) and tries stop him from hunting her down like a creep. Guy doesn't get the message, and is actually encouraged by her playing hard-to-get. What Guy doesn't know is that Mimi is married to a very bad man and is trying to get a divorce. Her aunt (Alice Brady) has hired Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton) to help stage a tryst that will convince Mimi's husband to get a divorce. What the women don't know is that Guy and Egbert are actually very good friends and that Guy might actually be Mimi's correspondent! Predictable but funny, we get to see what could possibly come out of this situation. I thought the side roles of Eric Blore as a reappearing quirky waiter and Erik Rhodes as the stereotypical Italian immigrant were very well-done and entertaining. For a black & white movie, The Gay Divorcee shows us that movies made back in the 30's can still be just as good as movies today. Good show!
