Cover Girl
Directed by Charles Vidor
Written by Virginia Van Upp, Marion Parsonnet, and Paul Gangelin from a story by Erwin S. Gelsey
1944/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Genius: [From the song “Who’s Complaining?” which dealt with food rationing during World War Two] “Because of Axis trickery, my coffee now is chicory, and I can rarely purloin a sirloin… No complaining, through the campaigning. Who cares if the carrots are few? I’ll feed myself on artichokes, until that Nazi party chokes, so long as they don’t ration, my passion, for you!”[/box]
With this cast, Cover Girl should have been a much better musical.
Rusty Parker (Rita Hayworth) is dancing in the chorus in a show at the nightclub owned by Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly). Rusty and Danny are in love. Editor John Coudair (Otto Krueger) and assistant Cornelia Jackson (Eve Arden) are searching for a “new face” to be the cover girl for a special wedding edition of Vogue magazine. One of the girls who dances on the line with Rusty decides to try out and Rusty tags along. The girl manages to sabotage Rusty’s interview.
But when Coudair goes to the nightclub to see the other girl at work, he spots Rusty and she reminds him so much of his lost love, her grandmother, that he is hooked. Danny is none too happy at the prospect of Rusty’s opportunity but puts a good face on it. Then, when Broadway beckons, we get the inevitable conflict over Rusty’s new found fame and her love for Danny. No fear that love will not win out. With Phil Silvers as a comedian at the club and pal of Danny and Rusty.
I love musicals but not this one. Something seemed so overdone and hokey about all of it. Even the musical numbers didn’t send me. Kelly can dance, obviously, but the choreography did not capture his magic. Eve Arden is wonderful as always. Phil Silvers should stick to his Sgt. Bilko persona and avoid singing. The one special part was Hayworth and Kelly’s duet to the Oscar-nominated song “Long Ago and Far Away”. Even these filmmakers could not mess up a Jerome Kern tune.
Cover Girl won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture. It was nominated in the categories of Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color; Best Sound, Recording; and Best Music, Original Song (“Long Ago and Far Away”, music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Ira Gershwin).
Clip – Kelly, Hayworth and Silvers sing and dance to “Make Way for Tomorrow”
