dougdoepke
Dance arranger escapes to the army after his daffy boss can't seem to keep his women properly sorted.Expert mix of comedy, dance, and glamour. The glamour's supplied by Hayworth who's—in a word—simply dazzling (okay, two words). Her appearance in Gilda (1946) may have supplied the smoldering sex appeal, but this one supplies the sheer beauty. Plus she cuts a pretty good rug with the incomparable Astaire who turns in his usual nimble footed magic. Of course, putting the rail-thin danceman in the army is a stretch, but the script doctors manage to turn his weight trick into a chuckle.Then there's the terminally befuddled Robert Benchley (Mr. Cortland) who can't seem to tell a backscratcher from a bracelet or his wife from a chorus girl. Pairing his nonsense with the classy, no-nonsense Inescort (Mrs. Cortland) is a comedic masterstroke. I love his I'm-caught-again stammer as he withers under her glare. Then too, the chorus girls send-off for the soldier boys in the train station is a real eye-catcher and masterpiece of staging. It may not be the dance centerpiece, but it does brim over with genial high spirits.If I didn't know better (release date, Sept. 1941), I would have guessed this was a WWII morale booster. But clearly the big one is on the horizon, and I'll bet this 90-minutes of escape played in a ton of overseas bases. After all, what GI would not fight to keep the Hayworths back home safe and secure. But happily you don't need to be a GI or his girl to enjoy this expert blend of dance and whimsy, courtesy a stellar cast, a clever script, and Columbia studios.
bkoganbing
Though the 42 year old Fred Astaire was certainly not eligible for the peacetime draft still he plays the would be soldier very well in You'll Never Get Rich. Leaving Rita Hayworth is certain to be a problem though.The first peacetime draft in American history forms the background for this film in the same way as Universal's Abbott and Costello classic, Buck Privates. You'll Never Get Rich bares some resemblance to Buck Privates in the comedy portions of the film though it does stay away from the burlesque aspects that Abbott and Costello brought to it.Remember this is a Fred Astaire film and in the plot it has a lot of resemblance to what Astaire had been recently doing over at RKO with Ginger Rogers. The same kind of kittenish romantic complications with humorist Robert Benchley taking the Eric Blore/Victor Moore part as the one who causes all the problems.The dance numbers bear a strong resemblance to the routines Astaire did with Rogers. But here he is being brought over to Columbia to showcase the woman who would be Columbia Picture's mealticket for the next decade and a half. Rita Hayworth was just coming into her own as a box office attraction when this film was done. On the dance floor she complements the elegant Mr. Astaire divinely. This was the first of two films she did with Astaire and while I like You Were Never Lovelier a lot better than this one, You'll Never Get Rich is still entertaining.Cole Porter wrote the score for this film and it's probably one of his lesser efforts for the screen and stage. Still it did have an Oscar nominated song in Since I Kissed My Baby Goodbye. It's not a song that immediately brings Cole Porter to mind for today's audience though.Will both Rita Hayworth and Uncle Sam get the services of Fred Astaire? See You'll Never Get Rich and find out.
ccthemovieman-1
I really enjoyed the first third of this hour-and-a-half movie. However, when Fred Astaire joins the army, the movie switches from dancing to humor, and the humor is not much. His consists mainly of a fellow soldier who is an expert in double talk. He's pretty good but his act wears thin quickly. So, too, does the storyline: lying, lying, and more lying. That's followed by cover-ups, false accusations, people falling in and out of love at the drop of a hat, etc. - you know, typical stupid fare of the day for these kind of films.Since they were not allowed to pollute the films with profanity and pornography, filmmakers still could promote everything wrong by trivializing adultery, lying, smoking, drinking, cheating and other evils. This movie, like a lot of comedies of the day, gives numerous examples of that. Too bad, because it looked like it was going to be a great film, at least in the dancing of Astaire and Hayworth in the beginning. Those two were great to watch. Hayworth, known more for her glamor, was actually a great dancer and reportedly Astaire's favorite partner. No arguments there! Rita looks fantastic and Astaire's stepping is always perfection. Unfortunately, in Fred's films they had to have a story go along with his dancing. I only give it five points to see Rita.
Nazi_Fighter_David
Released shortly before America's entry into the war, Columbia's "You'll Never Get Rich" is one of Fred Astaire's better films during the relatively dry period that extended from his last RKO film with Ginger Rogers to his first films at MGM
Since leaving RKO and Ginger Rogers, Astaire had danced with Eleanor Powell in "Broadway Melody of 1940" and with Paulette Goddard in "Second Chorus." In "You'll Never Get Rich," he had a new partner in Rita Hayworth: a lushly beautiful redheaded actress who was being prepared for stardom in mostly low-budget films
She was a talented dancer who had worked with her family for many years in a vaudeville act called the Dancing Casinos
"You'll Never Get Rich" cast Astaire as Robert Curtis, a Broadway dance director who is drafted into the army
He becomes involved in an on-again, off-again romance with Sheila Winthrop (Hayworth), a beautiful chorus girl whose fiancé is a captain in the army
The not-very-interesting plot is often interrupted for musical interludes
Astaire and Hayworth dance together twiceto the sensuous Latin beat of "So Near and Yet So Far," and in "The Wedding Cake Walk," a military finale which has a chorus of war brides and soldiers, plus the two stars, dancing atop a huge tank
Astaire and Hayworth make an attractive dance team, although Hayworth seems a bit too formidable, too "grand" for Astaire's self-effacing style
. Astaire also has several numbers without Hayworth: most notably, a dance in a guardhouse to the song "Since I Kissed My Baby Goodbye," in which he combines several kinds of dazzling footwork
"You'll Never Get Rich" is lightweight but amiable entertainment, and it kept Astaire dancing
AD
