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Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The reasons for the attraction to You'll Never Get Rich are obvious: seeing Fred Astaire
and Rita Hayworth dance together is pleasure enough to sit through anything. The rest of this
Columbia show is recycled Buck Privates stuff and time-worn screwball comedy, neatly done
but nothing to wave flags over. But when the stars start dancing to the Cole Porter tunes, the
film takes wings.
Synopsis:
Dancing star Robert Curtis (Fred Astaire) likes his showgirls but hasn't a special
girlfriend until he warms up to looker Sheila Winthrop, a terrific dancer (Rita Hayworth). Trouble
is, Robert's already ruined his chances by going along with a gag to rescue his philandering boss
Martin Cortland (Robert Benchley) from his suspicious wife Julia (Frieda Inescort). Drafted, Robert
is set up to stage a camp musical, starring, naturally, Sheila, but she's now engaged to a Captain,
and Robert's perpetually in the guardhouse.
This excellent post-RKO show for Fred Astaire is a Columbia musical, of which there aren't many
good ones. It perhaps didn't expand his musical horizons, but its success helped keep him
relatively independent. You can bet that he was one star that never had to sign any long-term
contracts with MGM. The
charm of the show is Astaire's, well, charm. There never was a cornier musical number idea
than
the one in Grand Central Station, as Robert Curtis prepares to board a train to boot camp. Carloads
of showgirls spontaneously arrive to sing and dance their favorite choreographer on his way. The
number sounds horrible in print but it's a pleasure, probably because Astaire has the kind of
screen spirit where we want his life to be like that.
In one of his tap numbers, Astaire twists his legs and spins between taps, affecting a style
that reminds slightly of some of James Cagney's signature moves. Perhaps since Robert Curtis is
supposed to
be a New York boy, choreographer Robert Alton and Astaire worked out the local style.
Rita Hayworth is already in prime WW2 pinup form, hiking her bare shoulders and posing her chin
in closeups that have the flavor of her best cheesecake still work. Her screen presence and line
delivery is not to be improved upon; I always thought her just-slightly-husky voice was the
sexiest in Hollywood. She taps well enough to keep up with Astaire but is one of his most elegant
ballroom partners: no show-stopping fancy stuff, but class and elegance to burn. During those
spins she tosses her hair in a way that tells us she's fully in control of her charms. Yes, it was a
fantasy, but whatever happened to the mid-career Rita after 1946's Gilda is one of Hollywood's
romantic tragedies.
The rest of the movie is split between harmless but less memorable comedy. Robert Benchley opens
things nicely but becomes less interesting when he's required to stay a heel to make the silly plot
function. John Hubbard is a dunce in a Captain's uniform playing the requisite loser, the one who
'almost' weds Rita. Osa Massen
(Rocketship X-M) is conniving foreign
competition for Rita who doesn't fool anybody. Big Guinn Williams and comic Cliff Nazarro are Fred's
Army buddies; Nazarro is a very annoying vaudeville type with an act that consists completely of
talking unintelligible nonsense. He plays a guy named 'Swivel Tongue'.
The big ending is the camp show, done of course with Astaire under house arrest and Rita almost
ready to leave for marriage in Panama. They tap dance atop a giant porcelain tank, and then Astaire
reveals that the fake wedding in the skit was real. Naturally, it turns out to be just what they
both wanted, and the film ends in nonsensical bliss. But You'll Never Get Rich delivers us
real movie stars that seem capable of holding the universe together with their talent and
attractiveness; this show may be no MGM extravaganza, but it's just as entertaining.
Columbia TriStar's DVD is a better than adequate version of the 62-year old film. Most of the scenes
are sharp and bright, with only some scratches in the main titles (laid out like Burma-Shave signs
along
the side of a road) scaring us at the very beginning. I noticed one shot in the middle that must have
come from some inferior source, but the rest is fine. The Cole Porter tunes are okay,
even though purported hits So Near and Yet So Far and Since I Kissed my Baby Goodbye
didn't stick in this viewer's mind.
There are trailers for a couple of other Rita Hayworth films, and that's it.
On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
You'll Never Get Rich rates:
Movie: Good
Video: Very Good
Sound: Good
Supplements: trailers
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: October 12, 2003
Footnote:
Made in 1941, You'll Never Get Rich is playing down the street
from Dumbo in the Steven Spielberg movie 1941. In that movie's original script, teen
zoot-suiter-Chicano Wally also wants to be a great movie dancer, and is introduced tap-dancing behind
the movie screen, matching Fred Astaire's tapping feet. I don't know whether the bit was dropped
for simplification or whether Wally was too difficult to cast, if he had to dance like Fred Astaire
too.
Email note from Richard Kampa, 10/18/03:
Hi, Glenn: YNGR originally ended with a brief reprise of the Wedding Cake March
which immediately followed the final scene in the guardhouse. I've seen
it with this ending both in a repertory cinema about 20 years ago and
also on a 16mm print owned by a collector friend here in San Francisco.
Somewhere along the line, the Wedding Cake March reprise was removed and
the film now ends when the two buck privates who are digging their
tunnel break through into the guardhouse and come face to face with the
officer, who views them rather sternly. I first saw it with the changed
ending at a repertory house about a dozen years ago and when it came out
on video, the print contained the new ending. When TCM has shown it, it
likewise contains the revised ending. Now the DVD has the revised ending as well. It remains
a mystery to me as to why the original ending was removed. Richard Kampa
DVD Savant Text © Copyright 2007 Glenn Erickson
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