Cover Girl is a 1944 American musical film starring Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly. The film, the first Columbia Pictures production shot in Technicolor, tells the story of a chorus girl given a chance at stardom when she's offered an opportunity to be a highly-paid cover girl. The film was directed by Charles Vidor, and was one of the most popular musicals of the war years.
Primarily a showcase for Rita Hayworth, the film has lavish modern and 1890s costumes, eight dance routines for Hayworth, and songs by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin, including the classic "Long Ago and Far Away". The film won the 1944 Academy Award for best musical scoring.
Plot
A chorus girl named Rusty (Hayworth) is given a chance for stardom by a wealthy magazine editor, who years earlier had been in love with her grandmother, Maribelle Hicks. Offered an opportunity to be a highly-paid cover girl, Rusty would faithfully remain with her nightclub act if only the club manager and boyfriend Danny (Kelly) would ask her. He doesn't want to stand in her way, so he picks an argument to send her packing. Rusty becomes a star on broadway and decides to get married to Noel Wheaton. At the last second she leaves the wedding and reunites with Danny. [1]
Cast
The film also features cameo appearances by Jinx Falkenburg and Anita Colby as themselves and (a then unknown) Shelley Winters as one of the young autograph hounds.
Production
Columbia Pictures gave Gene Kelly almost complete control over the making of this film, and many of his ideas contributed to its lasting success. He removed several of the soundstage walls so that he, Hayworth, and Silvers could dance along an entire street in one take. He also used trick photography so that he could dance with his own reflection in one sequence, achieved using superimposition to give his 'double' a ghost-like quality.
Hayworth's singing voice was dubbed by Martha Mears.
The film was reportedly Columbia's first Technicolor production because studio chief Harry Cohn wanted to showcase the lavish production and, in particular, Hayworth's red hair.
Legacy
Kelly would later reprise his role as Danny McGuire in the 1980 film Xanadu.
References
External links
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