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
Beguines and Beghards and living in the world as laypeople while claiming the privileges and protections of the professed religious. On the other hand, admirers such as the secular cleric Robert de Sorbon (d. 1274) noted that beguines exhibited far more devotion to God than even the cloistered, since they voluntarily pursued a religious life without vows and walls, surrounded by the world’s temptations. The power of the beguine label is evident in the “watershed” moments of beguine history, from its first appearance in the sermons of James of Vitry (the beguine movement’s earliest and perhaps most famous promoter), to its reference in