The Gay Divorcee
The Gay Divorcee is a 1934 American musical film directed by Mark Sandrich and starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It also features Alice Brady, Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, and Erik Rhodes. The screenplay was written by George Marion Jr., Dorothy Yost, and Edward Kaufman. Robert Benchley, H. W. Hanemann, and Stanley Rauh made uncredited contributions to the dialogue. It was based on the Broadway musical "Gay Divorce", written by Dwight Taylor, which had been adapted into a musical by Kenneth S. Webb and Samuel Hoffenstein from an unproduced play by J. Hartley Manners.

The stage version included many songs by Cole Porter, which were left out of the film, except for "Night and Day". Though most of the songs were replaced, the screenplay kept the original plot of the stage version. Three members of the play's original cast repeated their stage roles: Astaire, Rhodes, and Eric Blore.

The Hays Office insisted that RKO change the name from "Gay Divorce" to "The Gay Divorcee", on the grounds that while a divorcée could be gay or lighthearted, it would be unseemly to allow a divorce to appear so. According to Astaire, the change was made proactively by RKO. The director, Mark Sandrich, told him that "The Gay Divorcee" was selected as the new name because the studio "thought it was a more attractive-sounding title, centered around a girl." RKO even offered fifty dollars to any employee who could come up with a better title. In the United Kingdom, the film was released with the title "The Gay Divorce".

This film was the second (after "Flying Down to Rio", 1933) of ten pairings of Astaire and Rogers on film.
Q842256
musical film
Concept
Q382529
Mark Sandrich
PER
Q100937
Fred Astaire
PER
Q95089
Ginger Rogers
PER
Q233856
Alice Brady
PER
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Edward Everett Horton
PER
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Eric Blore
PER
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Erik Rhodes
PER
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screenplay
Concept
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George Marion Jr.
PER
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Dorothy Yost
PER
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Robert Benchley
PER
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Broadway
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Q2743
musical
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Gay Divorce
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Q3041892
Dwight Taylor
PER
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Samuel Hoffenstein
PER
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J. Hartley Manners
PER
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Cole Porter
PER
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Night and Day
MEDIA
Q610292
Hays Office
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Q267282
RKO
ORG
Q1434597
Flying Down to Rio
MEDIA
Q5494490
Astaire and Rogers
ORG
Q947098
The Gay Divorcee
MEDIA
Q947098
The Gay Divorcee
MEDIA
Q947098
The Gay Divorcee
MEDIA
1934-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1934
DATE
1933-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1933
DATE
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