OVP: You'll Never Get Rich (1941)

Film: You'll Never Get Rich (1941)
Stars: Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Robert Benchley, John Hubbard, Osa Massen
Director: Sidney Lanfield
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Scoring, Original Song-"Since I Kissed My Baby Goodbye")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Rita Hayworth-click here to learn more about Ms. Hayworth (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We are going to start our month-long look at the career of Rita Hayworth with arguably the film that catapulted her from being a notable side character in films like The Strawberry Blonde and Blood and Sand (where she was still getting out-billed by other actresses such as Olivia de Havilland and Linda Darnell) into being not just a proper leading lady, but arguably the most important film star on the Columbia lot throughout the 1940's.  She did this, weirdly enough, by teaming with someone whose career at the time was on the wane, Fred Astaire (someday we'll include Astaire as a "Star of the Month" because few actors this side of Frank Sinatra had so many "career lulls & comebacks" to profile).  Hayworth's early years on the lot, despite not being a trained singer (something that Hayworth resented the studio for not helping her with), were almost entirely based in musical comedies, and that was due to the immense success of You'll Never Get Rich.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is a fluffy romp that puts Robert Curtis (Astaire), a tyrannical manager of a theater, into the firing line of Sheila Winthrop (Hayworth), the most promising dancer in his troupe. The theater's owner Martin Cortland (Benchley, and yes this is the "Robert Benchley" of Algonquin Round Table fame), is enamored with Sheila, and is trying to woo her, but there's a problem-he's married and his wife is in control of all of his money, so he can't get a divorce without ending up in the poorhouse.  Through a series of misunderstandings (You'll Never Get Rich is a movie where you have to suspend a lot of belief), Robert initially is thrown into a faux courtship with Sheila, and then to escape it he joins the army.  While in the army he reveals that he's madly in love with her, and tries to win her back even though she's being pursued by Captain Barton (Hubbard).  All the while, Martin keeps getting Robert in trouble with his philandering ways as he pursues a different showgirl Sonya (Massen).  The film ends with Martin finally confessing his role in keeping Sheila & Robert apart due to his own selfishness, and the two end up in each other's arms.

You'll Never Get Rich is a mess, but the best kind of mess.  The plot rarely makes sense (there's a series of random sight gags involving Astaire and two bumbling sidekicks of his played by veteran character actors Cliff Nazarro and Guinn Williams, but it's not entirely clear what binds the three other than convenience), and the romance at the center is a bit of a stretch (why, exactly, does Sheila love Robert?), but you won't care.  This is a fun movie, one filled with great dancing, and though the songs are less memorable (that Scoring nomination doesn't feel as earned as some of the other nominees that year), it's a joy to see Astaire & Hayworth together.  Astaire would later confess that his favorite onscreen dancing partner was not Ginger Rogers or Cyd Charisse, but instead Hayworth, with whom he'd make this film and one other, You Were Never Lovelier, which we won't get to this month, but it was nominated for several Oscars so it'll show up eventually.

The movie received a second Oscar nomination, for its original song "Since I Kissed My Baby Goodbye," which is unusual, though it doesn't involve our featured actress at all.  It is sung halfway through the film, with an all-black singing quartet called the Four Tones doing vocals while Astaire dances and sings a little bit nearby.  The scene is notable because it couldn't have possibly happened in real life-at the time, the army was segregated, and would remain so until the end of the 1940's.  It's hard to know what Columbia and director Sidney Lanfield were trying to do by sending a message of inclusivity in the film, insinuating that a white man like Astaire would be serving in the same unit as black soldiers, but I thought it was worth noting for having such a political message (for its era) in a movie that otherwise is pretty fluffy.