In the thick of the war years, Cover Girl stands as a beacon of unadulterated Technicolor lavishness permeating the screen. It proved a fine diversion from the day-to-day, which was wildly popular in its time as a vehicle for beloved screen star and pin-up, Rita Hayworth. Watching Cover Girl now, it’s become a fitting marker in the constellations of Gene Kelly’s career and the movie musical in general. We can easily use it to chart his course, culminating in later endeavors of the 1950s.

Because, while Hayworth is the most substantial star in director Charles Vidor’s movie, going from Brooklyn chorus girl to rising starlet of  Variety‘s Golden Wedding Girl Edition, Kelly was simultaneously given almost complete creative control over choreographing his numbers. He brought on a young man named Stanley Donen to help with the process. Already we have the roots of a partnership that meant so much for the exploration of musicals as a cinematic genre.

We also have music and lyrics provided by the heralded Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin offering up “Long Ago (And Far Away),” one of the most mellifluous love melodies of the 1940s.

Rusty (Rita Hayworth) has a contented little life working at the hole-in-the-wall nightclub run by her boyfriend Danny (Gene Kelly). They work hard with rehearsals always at 10 am sharp, do their thing at night, and the after-hours are theirs to wile away dreaming.

Her endearing pet name is “Chicken.” I’m not sure if we ever find out why. But their best pal, a goofy song and dance man, goes by “Genius” (Phil Silvers) and we know that’s in jest. Nevertheless, he’s their jovial third wheel as they always go to the same late-night hangout, order a heap of oysters, and go pearl diving. It’s a tradition and a habit but it also represents the dreams they haven’t quite reached yet.

“Make Way for Tomorrow” is a joyous romp preceding the palsy-walsy camaraderie of Don, Cathy, and Cosmo in Singin in the Rain (1952). It puts itself in line with all the great studio street corner numbers using extensive sets to create an indoor-outdoor world perfect for peppy outbreaks of dance. In his foresight, Kelly would have some of the set walls punched out so they could go about the number more or less uninhibited and it does wonders.

So we see that Rusty is happy in this life and yet she still has personal aspirations. She tries her luck at a cover girl job. Cornelia “Stonewall” Jackson (Eve Arden with her usual verbal panache) is the executive tasked with culling through all the eligible hopefuls who walk into her office looking to impress. It’s a real cutthroat pack of wolves. On a side note, it’s fascinating to watch actual cover models from the era go from screen to pages of recognizable magazines. Oh, how things have changed in 75 years.

It’s Stonewall’s boss, magazine editor John Coudair (Otto Kruger), who picks Rusty as his newest star because she shares an uncanny resemblance to the girl he once loved in his youth, one Maribel Hicks. So there you have it! Rusty seems to have hit the big time. She puts Danny’s club on the map as their “Put Me to The Test” performance is a shining success and you’d think he’d be cheering for her.

But it’s his male prerogative to feel under attack. Suddenly she doesn’t need him and maybe she will leave him for the suitor and stage promoter (Lee Bowman) who is looking to move in.

Here we have an uncanny Deja Vu scenario as past and present overlap because by some strange coincidence Maribel Hicks was Rusty’s dear departed grandmother. Granted, it’s a weak piece of plotting but regardless, we have a spurned Gene Kelly on our hands. What it gives way to is the original shadow dancing, although reflection dancing is more like it.

It was one of the earliest Kelly innovations allowing him to dance alongside himself, the devil on his shoulder telling him he’ll never get Rusty back. It’s this lovely melding of character progression through the art of dance. Proving it can function elegantly as both.

In the end, Rusty realizes what was good for her grandmother, who lived a satisfying life, is good enough for her and she runs off from her wedding day to get back with a woebegone Danny. It’s a happy ending as the gang’s back together. Consequently, Hayworth would elope with her next husband Orson Welles around this time. But the real-life results ended up being far more tumultuous.

Pal Joey, which Kelly had starred in on the stage, was to be the next pairing of Hayworth and Kelly but alas it was never to be. It finally came to fruition over a decade later with Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, and Rita Hayworth, but it lacks the magic this earlier proposed version might have coalesced. What I was left with is the fact that Hayworth has quite the distinction. She danced alongside the two greatest that film ever had to offer: Astaire and Kelly. She more than holds her own as a scintillating star in her own right. She was one of the generation’s brightest.

3.5/5 Stars