Let's Dance (1950)

An ex-showgirl (Betty Hutton) is in a custody battle with her Bostonian mother in law (Lucile Watson) over her son (Gregory Moffett, a most annoying child actor). She takes her son and runs off to New York City where she renews a friendship with her ex-partner (Fred Astaire), who gets her a job in a nightclub. Based on the short story LITTLE BOY BLUE by Maurice Zolotow and directed by Norman Z. McLeod (THE PALEFACE). I guess teaming Fred Astaire with  Betty Hutton (at the time, Paramount's biggest female star) seemed like a good idea but couldn't they have come up with a better and more original script? The elegant Astaire and the frenzied Hutton are a mismatched pair and there's little chemistry there. On the plus side, the songs by Frank Loesser are a pretty good batch  (a novelty number by Hutton, Can't Stop Talking About Him is delightful) and the dance numbers (choreography by Hermes Pan) are good but we still have to put up with the anemic screenplay in between the musical numbers. The movie did decent box office business, enough to turn a profit. With Roland Young, Ruth Warrick, Shepperd Strudwick, Barton MacLane and Harold Huber.