Broadway Melody of 1940 Broadway Melody of 1940 Broadway Melody of 1940 is a 1940 MGM film musical starring Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell and George Murphy. It was directed by Norman Taurog and features music by Cole Porter, including "Begin the Beguine". The film was the fourth and final entry in MGM's "Broadway Melody" series of films, and is notable for being the only on-screen pairing of Astaire and Powell, who were considered the finest film musical dancers of their time. Johnny Brett (Fred Astaire) and King Shaw (George Murphy) are a dance team so down on their luck they're working in a dance
Begin the Beguine Begin the Beguine "Begin the Beguine" is a popular song written by Cole Porter. Porter composed the song between Kalabahi, Indonesia, and Fiji during a 1935 Pacific cruise aboard Cunard's ocean liner "Franconia". In October 1935, it was introduced by June Knight in the Broadway musical "Jubilee", produced at the Imperial Theatre in New York City. Musicologist and composer Alec Wilder described it in his book "American Popular Song: The Great Innovators 1900–1950" as "a maverick, an unprecedented experiment and one which, to this day, after hearing it hundreds of times, I cannot sing or whistle or play from start