Cover Girl (film)

Cover Girl
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Charles Vidor
Produced by	Arthur Schwartz
Written by	Erwin S. Gelsey (story)
Starring	Rita Hayworth Gene Kelly
Music by	Saul Chaplin Morris Stoloff
Cinematography	Allen M. Davey Rudolph Maté
Editing by	Viola Lawrence
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	March 20, 1944 (1944-03-20)
Running time	107 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Cover Girl is a 1944 American musical film starring Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly. The film tells the story of a chorus girl given a chance at stardom when she is 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)".

Plot

A chorus girl named Rusty (Hayworth) working at a nightclub run by her boyfriend Danny McGuire (Kelly) is given a chance for stardom by the wealthy magazine editor John Coudair, 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 Danny 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 after appearing in a musical produced by Coudair's wealthy friend, Noel Wheaton, and decides to get married to Wheaton. At the last second she leaves the wedding and reunites with Danny.^[1]

Cast

• Rita Hayworth as Rusty Parker and Maribelle Hicks
• Gene Kelly as Danny McGuire
• Phil Silvers as Genius
• Otto Kruger as John Coudair
• Eve Arden as Cornelia "Stonewall" Jackson
• Lee Bowman as Noel Wheaton
• Jess Barker as young John Coudair
• Edward Brophy as Joe, Oyster Cook

The film also features cameo appearances by Jinx Falkenburg and Anita Colby as themselves and a little-known starlet named Shelley Winters as one of the young autograph hounds.

In one of Hollywood's most unique reprise roles, Kelly played Danny McGuire again -- 36 years later -- in 1980's Xanadu.

Musical numbers

• The Show Must Go On (Jerome Kern, Ira Gershwin)
• "Who's Complaining?" (Kern, Gershwin)
• Sure Thing (Kern, Gershwin)
• Make Way For Tomorrow (Kern, Gershwin, E.Y. Harburg)
• "Put Me to the Test" (Kern, Gershwin)
• Long Ago (and Far Away) (Kern, Gershwin)
• "Poor John" (Henry E. Pether, Fred W. Leigh)
• "Alter-Ego Dance" (Kern)
• "Cover Girl (That Girl on the Cover)" (Kern, Gershwin)

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 the sequence "Alter-Ego Dance", achieved using superimposition to give his "double" a ghost-like quality.

Hayworth's singing voice was dubbed by Martha Mears.

Awards

The film won the 1944 Academy Award for best musical scoring.^[2] It was also nominated for four other awards; Best Art Direction (Lionel Banks, Cary Odell, Fay Babcock), Best Cinematography, Best Original Song for "Long Ago (and Far Away)" and Best Sound, Recording (John Livadary).^[3]

References

1. ^ New York Times review summary
2. ^ "NY Times: Cover Girl". NY Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/11307/Cover-Girl/awards. Retrieved 2008-12-19. 
3. ^ "The 17th Academy Awards (1945) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/ceremony/17th-winners.html. Retrieved 2011-08-15. 

External links

• Cover Girl at the Internet Movie Database
• Cover Girl at AllRovi
• Cover Girl at the TCM Movie Database
• Cover Girl at Rotten Tomatoes