Cover Girl (1944)

When a chorus girl (Rita Hayworth) in a nightclub becomes a magazine cover girl, the opportunity to leave the chorus and become a Broadway star is offered her by a producer (Lee Bowman). But she's in love with the club's owner (Gene Kelly) and is torn between love, loyalty and ambition. Directed by Charles Vidor (GILDA), this lightweight musical has the thinnest of  story lines and offers no surprises. But it still has a lot to offer like Hayworth at her most Technicolor luscious. When she dances, she really comes alive and you can practically feel the joy she has as a dancer. There's the Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin song score including the lovely Long Ago And Far Away and Gene Kelly impressive in his innovative alter ego dance number. The flashbacks to the turn of the century are a nuisance and features the worst number in the movie, Poor John. It will never be considered one of the great movie musicals especially if you consider what the Freed unit was up to at MGM but as the only pairing of Hayworth and Kelly, it has its place in movie musical history. With Eve Arden at her best, Phil Silvers, Otto Kruger, Jinx Falkenberg, Leslie Brooks, Anita Colby and Jess Barker.