封面女郎

Classic Hollywood musical remains a touch-and-go genre for your reviewer, Vincente Minnelli’s Oscar crown AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) is a bête noire whereas Stanley Donen’s timeless SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952) can sweep me off my feet at a heartbeat, so what is the criterion here, a nimble-footed Gene Kelly is delightfully charming in both pictures? To my lights, it all boils down to whether or not, the filmmakers can inject a relatable sense of reality into the pure escapism of tuneage, tap-dancing, stunning costumes and jaw-dropping soundstage production,

In the case of Charles Vidor’s COVER GIRL, which catapults our “Love Goddess” Ms. Hayworth to the stratosphere of stardom, the outcome is much inclined to the plus side, one can legitimately see the movie as a dry run of SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, with Kelly and Donen overseeing and devising the choreography together for the first time in a studio production, not least the threesome dancing routines between Rusty (Hayworth), Danny (Kelly) and Genius (Silvers) jubilantly foreshadows the Kelly-Reynolds-O’Connor trio in the latter movie.

Here, as a congenial third wheel,“The King of Chutzpah“ Phil Silvers, bestirs himself gallantly to keep up with the virtuosos on feet and otherwise, without forgetting his duty to lighten up the mood or facilitate the plot development; and a fresh-faced Kelly, beaming with his usualboyish handsomeness, ingeniously treats himself with a pas de deux with none other than himself, thanks to the magical trick of superimposition in the post-production, it remains one of the highlights of this superlatively bewitching fluff.

So, judging by its title only, COVER GIRL is, first and foremost, a showcase for Ms. Hayworth, in its Cinderella-light script, chorus girl Rusty is fortuitously chosen to be the cover girl of Vanity magazine by the editor John Coudair (Kruger), exclusively thanks to a past romance between him and her late grandmother Maribelle (also played by Hayworth in the flashback) plus the benefit of uncanny resemblance, in the wake of her newly gained fame, even Broadway is calling, which creates some discord between her and her boyfriend Danny, the owner of the nightclub she works, it is the time-honored dilemma, whether a man could be altruistic and confident enough to let his woman fly high in her career without feeling emasculated or being afflicted by jealousy. The situation is corny, but never loses its relevance, thankfully COVER GIRL tactfully avoids going overboard with emotional ebullition, and eventually let the girl call the shots, instead of making a meal of a man’s wounded ego, that makes a complete difference to today’s audience’s reception.

It goes without saying that Hayworth’s glamor and allure are accentuated maximally by the Technicolor treatment and her dancing credentials are certainly of the first water, but in the acting department, her affectation starts to tell easily, yet, cocooned in such a niche of opulence (bespoke satin gowns and millineries galore, ebullience and mellifluousness, one must be stone-cold cynical not to yield to its upmarket frothiness, and mea culpa, I haven’t even mentioned Eve Arden’s sharp-tongued, utterly effervescent embellishment, what a lollapaloosa!

referential entries: Vidor’s HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (1952, 6.8/10); Vincente Minnelli’s AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951, 6.2/10); Stanley Donen’s SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952, 8.1/10).