“You’ll Never Get Rich” is a lesser known Fred Astaire movie, this time pairing him with the lovely Rita Hayworth.
Fred plays Robert Curtis, choreographer and performer in a theater run by Martin Cortland, who is a womanizer to the max. When caught by his wife, Julia, Martin uses Robert as an alibi, and Robert takes the brunt of many a tall tale. When Sheila Winslow (Rita Hayworth) joins the act, Martin goes after her, as is his tradition, and she turns him down flat, but Julia doesn’t buy it. Once again Robert comes to the rescue, pretending that the elaborate bracelet found in Martin‘s pocket was really his gift to Sheila.
Things get more mixed up when the press gets wind of a story – that Robert and Sheila are engaged. Sheila is angry that Robert would do that for publicity, and her friend Tom puts a scare into Robert on her behalf, waving a gun in his face. Robert decides to join the Army, thinking that can’t be any more dangerous than sticking around and waiting to get killed by the jealous other man. (This was filmed before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, so this would be the Army Reserves he joined, not active military.)
Martin comes out to the base to put on a show, bringing another girlfriend with him, and Robert gets dragged into the mix again.
This storyline really didn’t do a lot for me. It was a little silly, a little confusing, and not very interesting, to be honest. But there was some great dancing, and I liked Rita’s character. Sheila was not a simpering, whimpering female; Robert had to actually go after her and woo her. She wasn’t about to be bamboozled by anyone, and in that age in Hollywood, that was a little rare. I also liked watching the two of them dance together. Rita had a lot more substance to her, in my opinion. Sure, she was a little taller than Fred, but that didn’t matter. I did wonder, though, why her costumer didn’t put her in lower shoes.
Was this a great movie? No. But it was pretty good, and with plenty of dance scenes sprinkled throughout, it did keep me watching until the end.
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