Yolanda And The Thief (1945)

When a naive young girl (Lucille Bremer) raised in a convent comes into age, she inherits an estate worth millions of dollars. A con man (Fred Astaire) overhears her praying to her guardian angel. Determined to relieve her of some of her wealth, he pretends to be her guardian angel come to guide her in the form of a mortal man. The plot line of this Vincente Minnelli directed fantasy is pedestrian, it's indifferently acted and the songs (by Harry Warren and the producer Arthur Freed) anemic. What still makes this worth checking out are twofold. The stunning visual elements, both the art direction of Cedric Gibbons and Jack Martin Smith and the set direction by Edwin Willis, all beautifully photographed in three strip Technicolor by Charles Rosher. Then there are two production numbers choreographed by Eugene Loring that remain high points in the Astaire canon. The surrealistic Dali-esque dream ballet presages the more famous ballet of Minnelli's AN AMERICAN IN PARIS and the rhythmic Coffee Time number in which the dance takes place on a black and white patterned floor (reportedly designed by the costume designer Irene Sharaff) that gives the illusion of three dimensional depth. With Frank Morgan as Astaire's partner in crime, Mildred Natwick as Bremer's scatterbrained aunt, Leon Ames and Mary Nash.