The Roller Skate Debate or A Brief Overview of Skate Dances in Classic Film.
Warning, this post is going to be silly. There seems to be some confusion on the topic of roller-skating in film. While this is by no means a scholarly look, I thought it might be fun to do a brief overview of roller skate dances in classic film. The common misconception is that the first filmed tap-dance on roller skates came in 1955 with Gene Kelly's film, "It's Always Fair Weather." This is not the case. Based on a quick stint of film-research on the topic, I think that the first scene in a film that could possibly constitute someone "dancing on roller skates" came in 1916 with Charlie Chaplin's film, " The Rink ." The skating stuff comes right around 10:45. I have not watched enough copies of this film to know which has the best restoration, but this one seems passable, if without a score. What he does here is an absolutely incredible combination of skating, dance, physical comedy, and fight choreography. There