Heritage Auctions Sells Flying Down to Rio The Movie That Introduced Astaire And Rogers To The World
by Hector Cantu
It's the movie that launched the world-famous dance team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
A one sheet for RKO's 1933 movie Flying Down to Rio realized nearly $240,000 at Heritage Auctions' November 2008 movie poster auction. It's the auction house's third-highest price realized for a vintage movie poster — behind only a style D one sheet for Universal's 1935 The Bride of Frankenstein (which realized $334,600 in November 2007) and a one sheet for Universal's 1934 The Black Cat ($286,800 in March 2007).
Flying Down to Rio stars Dolores del Rio and Gene Raymond, but is most remembered for the teaming of Astaire and Rogers. "They burst onto the musical screen in this early sound film doing their version of the 'Carioca,' and the rest is history," says Grey Smith, Heritage Auctions' director of vintage movie poster auctions.
A highlight of this Merian C. Cooper produced musical is an incredible sequence — depicted on the movie poster — with dozens of scantily clad showgirls swinging and swaying while strapped onto the wings of biplanes as they fly over the South American city of Rio de Janeiro. "It's one of the most outrageously brilliant numbers in movie musical history," Smith says.
The poster is one of the rarest and most sought-after in the collecting hobby. Just a handful of copies of this U.S. domestic style of the sheet are known to exist.
Flying Down to Rio, RKO, 1933, One Sheet (27 x 41 in.)
Sold: Heritage Auctions, November 2008, $239,000
Heritage Magazine Spring 2009 Copyright ©2009 by Heritage Auctions, Inc.
