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| The Cinema News and Property Gazette August 18, 1943 |
Miss Ginger Rogers recorded the song "Suddenly It's Spring" for the movie
Lady in the Dark. When the movie was released in 1944, the song had been left on the cutting room floor BUT the recording was put on a record AND that recording can now be found on archive.org:
http://archive.org/details/OutakesFromClassicHollywoodMusicals
Look for the entry "GINGER ROGERS SUDDENLY IT'S SPRING" in the middle of the block of recordings listed there or go directly to:
http://ia601501.us.archive.org/12/items/OutakesFromClassicHollywoodMusicals/GingerRogersSuddenlyItsSpring.mp3
There are a lot of other items available that were left out of movies, or cut short, and this page is only volume 4 in which you may explore. "Suddenly It's Spring" is the only song from the series that is attributed to Ginger Rogers, however. The recording includes the orchestration which was left in the movie and can be heard during the dream sequence of the dance in the gazebo. Ginger wrote about that dance in her autobiography,
Ginger: My Story, page 254 and 255:
We devised a little routine that we had to execute through a fog, created by dry ice. For over two and a half hours I worked on the dream dance. To keep the dry ice from melting too rapidly, all the outside doors were shut. Inside, I was groping through the fog and inhaling the overwhelming dry ice. It was like swimming underwater on one breath. I went outside and took big gulps of the fresh air.
It was no wonder she felt like she was holding her breath because dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide. As it sublimates, it creates a fog of itself as a gas which blocks oxygen from getting into the lungs. It makes for a nice effect but breathing enough carbon dioxide instead of air will cause you to suffocate. Imagine dancing in that! (For more fun facts on dry ice, check out Wikipedia or head to your friendly, neighborhood library. Your library may also have a copy of
Ginger: My Story that you can borrow.)
Meanwhile, back on archive.org...
On this same page of cut songs is the full version of "Swing Trot" from
Barkleys of Broadway. Look for "MGM STUDIO ORCH SWING TROT" on the list or go to:
http://ia601501.us.archive.org/12/items/OutakesFromClassicHollywoodMusicals/MgmStudioOrchSwingTrotcomplete.mp3
For some pretty pictures of the dress Ginger wore in the movie
Lady in the Dark see this blog (note: the images on this blog page aren't in the public domain.)
http://katandbaby.blogspot.com/2013/02/hollywood-costumes-exhibition.html
For more information on songs Ginger Rogers recorded that are available on archive.org, go to the "Ginger Sings" page of The Ginger Rogers Resource (this one is an actual link):
http://thegingerrogersresouce.blogspot.com/2012/09/ginger-sings.html
The Cinema News and Property Gazette image seen above is available here:
http://archive.org/stream/cinproper00cine#page/n269/mode/2up
Made available by the Media History Digital Library. I thank them very much for all of their hard work.
