This is NOT the best Irving Berlin movie. Nor the best of Astaire. Nor of Garland. It has some good melodies and great dancing, but some very tiring, or trite, or banal material as well. Highlight of the movie? Astaire and Garland doing a formal dance with Garland in pink plumes, but the plumes molt on stage (recall in Strictly Ballroom how Australian kids find similarly molted feathers). Low point? The hat shop, where that tired "Happy Easter" tune plays over and over and over (recall the opening of State Fair for something similar).
This is another of those interesting films set c.1912--watch for the wide-hipped, hoble-skirted fashions (cf Titanic and My Fair Lady, among so many others), which are the hallmark of the period's "Botticelli" look.
This is another of those interesting films set c.1912--watch for the wide-hipped, hoble-skirted fashions (cf Titanic and My Fair Lady, among so many others), which are the hallmark of the period's "Botticelli" look.