The Continental (song) as a duet with Graham Preskett on "The Steve Howe Album" in 1979. The Continental (song) "The Continental" is a song written by Con Conrad with lyrics by Herb Magidson, and was introduced by Ginger Rogers in the 1934 film, "The Gay Divorcee". "The Continental" was the first song to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Major record hits at the time of introduction included Jolly Coburn and Leo Reisman. In 1952 Harry James released a recording on the album "Hollywood's Best" (Columbia B-319 and CL-6224) with Rosemary Clooney on vocals. A later version by Maureen McGovern reached
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers for Astaire and Rogers, "Shall We Dance", which co-starred Edward Everett Horton. Although the film was RKO's biggest film of the year with worldwide rentals of $2.2 million, it did not perform as well as expected by the studio. "Shall We Dance" had the first Hollywood score by the brothers George and Ira Gershwin, and included the song "They Can't Take That Away from Me". Although Astaire and Rogers would go on to make two more films together for RKO, the film's comparative disappointment in the box office was the beginning of the end for their partnership. After an unusually