Cover Girl (1944) – full review!

Rita Hayworth plays two characters and the title role in this musical comedy which won an Academy Award for Best Musical Score; the film also received Oscar nominations for its Color Art Direction-Interior Decoration & Cinematography and Sound; its Jerome Kern-Ira Gershwin original song “Long Ago and Far Away” was also nominated. It was directed by Charles Vidor with a story by Erwin Gelsey and a screenplay by Virginia Van Upp; Marion Parsonnet and Paul Gangelin wrote the adaptation.

Hayworth plays chorus girl singer-dancer Rusty Parker (and her grandmother Maribelle Hicks in flashback) opposite Brooklyn club owner and fellow performer Danny McGuire played by Gene Kelly. Phil Silvers plays Genius the third wheel and comedian in the trio that’s struggling to make it big; they spend every Friday night at Joe’s (Edward Brophy uncredited) bar hoping to find a pearl in an oyster. When Rusty hears fellow chorus girl Maurine Martin (Leslie Brooks) discussing her dream to “get out of this dump and become famous” by auditioning for Vanity magazine’s cover she too decides to give it a try. But Maurine intentionally gives her some bad advice such that Rusty blows her chance with the fashion magazine’s Cornelia ‘Stonewall’ Jackson (Eve Arden). Model Jinx Falkenburg appears briefly as herself. Otto Kruger plays Vanity’s owner John Coudair; Jess Barker plays Coudair opposite Hayworth’s character in the flashback sequences.

Cornelia and Coudair go to McGuire’s club one night to take another look at Maurine and he “discovers” Rusty who bears a remarkable resemblance to his first love singer-dancer Maribelle Hicks (Hayworth again) who’d left him at the altar for a piano player. Coudair puts Rusty on the next cover of his magazine and suddenly McGuire’s Brooklyn club is all the rage. When Cornelia and Coudair take Broadway producer Noel Wheaton (Lee Bowman) to the club he falls head over heals for Rusty and Coudair is only too happy to facilitate their introductions. Wheaton sends her flowers every day (via Billy Benedict’s uncredited delivery boy) and with Coudair’s help manages to sign her for his Broadway show. Naturally this jeopardizes Rusty’s relationship with Danny whose jealously causes him to exacerbate the situation. Kelly performs a remarkable Stanley Donen-choreographed dance routine with (a ghost-like double exposure version of) himself. Danny and Genius enter military service – there’s a war going on – while Rusty stars in Wheaton’s show and drinks to salve her lost love. She walks down the aisle with Wheaton just like her grandmother had with Coudair jilts him just the same and returns to Danny at Joe’s where Genius joins and the three of them happily dance to the end together again.

Purchase this DVD now at