Themes: Fashion World, Workplace Romance, Unrequited Love
Main Cast: Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly, Lee Bowman, Phil Silvers, Jinx Falkenburg, Otto Kruger, Eve Arden
Release Year: 1944
Country: US
Run Time: 107 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
Thanks to its Jerome Kern/Ira Gershwin/Yip Harburg score and the luminescence of stars Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly, Cover Girl has taken on a legendary status in recent years. In truth, the film has a banal and predictable premise: a chorus girl (Hayworth) is given a chance for stardom by a wealthy magazine editor (Otto Kruger), who years earlier had been in love with the girl's mother. Offered an opportunity to be a highly-paid cover girl, our heroine would faithfully remain with her tacky nightclub act if only the club manager (Kelly), whom she pines for, would ask her. He loves her too, but doesn't want to stand in her way, so he fakes an argument to send her packing. You don't need a crystal ball to known that the girl and her guy will be reunited for the finale. Phil Silvers, everybody's best friend, and Eve Arden, Kruger's acid-tongued assistant, provide comic relief. The story sags badly at times, but the fans went home happy thanks to the powerhouse musical numbers, including Long Ago and Far Away and Kelly's famous "alter-ego" dance. The film skyrocketed both Hayworth and Kelly to superstardom, and didn't do Silvers any harm, either. Cover Girl is an extraordinarily lavish Technicolor production from the usually parsimonious Columbia Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Gene Kelly had been a presence in films for a couple of years, but it wasn't until MGM loaned him out to Columbia for Cover Girl that he first made his mark. Rita Hayworth is definitely (and deservedly) the star of the film, but Kelly more than holds his own with her. There's a wonderful chemistry between them, the kind of hesitant give-and-take of two people in love but who haven't yet learned to trust themselves enough to be totally honest. Hayworth looks smashing, costumed to the teeth in an array of fabulous outfits and given lavish productions for her numbers. (The title number in particular is given a stunning production.) She also acts her role very affectingly, believing in the somewhat clichéd situations, and her dancing is stupendous. Kelly, looking very boyish, sounds great and displays his first real choreographic sparks during the famous "Alter Ego" sequence. The score is first rate; the beautiful "Long Ago and Far Away" is justifiably a highlight, but there are great pleasures as well in the more obscure "The Show Must Go On," "Sure Thing" and "Make Way for Tomorrow." Phil Silvers and Eve Arden supply dependable comic relief, and Charles Vidor's direction is sure. Too slight to be a bona fide classic, Cover Girl still holds abundant delights. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Leslie Brooks - Maurine Martin; Jess Barker - John Coudair as a young man; Anita Colby - Anita; Curt Bois - Chef; Edward S. Brophy - Joe; Thurston Hall - Tony Pastor; Dusty Anderson - Cover Girl: Farm Journal; Sam Ash - Assistant Cook; Warren Ashe - Rusty's Interviewer; William Benedict - Florist Boy; Jack Boyle; John Dilson - Rusty's Photographer; George Dobbs; Eddie Dunn - Mac the Cop; Fern Emmett - Women Columnist; Sam Flint - Coudair's Butler; Miriam Franklin; Karen X. Gaylord - Cover Girl: Liberty; Betty Jane Graham - Cover Girl: McCall; Grace Hayle; Robert E. Homans - Pop the Doorman; William Kline - Chauffeur; Miriam Lavelle; George Lessey - Minister; Johnny Mitchell - Pianist--Maribelle's Love; Vin Moore - Waiter; Frances Morris - Coudair's Secretary; Muriel Morris; Jack Norton - Harry the Drunk; Kathleen O'Malley - Cigarette Girl; Barbara Pepper; Ralph Peters - Truckman; Jack Rice - Reporter; Patti Sacks; Ralph Sanford; Susan Shaw - Cover Girl: Vogue; John Tyrrell - Electrician; Virginia Wilson; Shelley Winters - Girl; Rudy Wissler; Jackie Brown - Boy; Frank O'Connor - Cook; Betty Brewer - Autograph Hound; Grace Gillern; Robert E. Hill - Headwaiter; Sally Cairns; Grace Lenard - Chorus Girl; Larry Rio; Victor Travers - Bartender; Ed Allen - Best Man; Eugene Anderson Jr. - Bus Boy; Wesley Brent; Betty Brodel - Dancer; Eddie Cutler; Eloise Hart; Al Norman; Gwen Seager
Credit
Lionel Banks - Art Director, Cary O'Dell - Art Director, Stanley Donen - Choreography, Seymour Felix - Choreography, Gene Kelly - Choreography, Val Raset - Choreography, Travis Banton - Costume Designer, Muriel King - Costume Designer, Gwen Wakeling - Costume Designer, Kenneth Hopkins - Costume Designer, Budd Boetticher - First Assistant Director, Charles Vidor - Director, Viola Lawrence - Editor, Carmen Dragon - Composer (Music Score), Ira Gershwin - Composer (Music Score), Jerome Kern - Composer (Music Score), Morris W. Stoloff - Musical Direction/Supervision, Clay Campbell - Makeup, Allen M. Davey - Cinematographer, Rudolph Maté - Cinematographer, Arthur Schwartz - Producer, C. Fay Babcock - Set Designer, Erwin S. Gelsey - Screen Story, Paul Gangelin - Screenwriter, Marion Parsonnet - Screenwriter, Virginia van Upp - Screenwriter
An attractive woman whose photograph is featured on a magazine cover; also, a woman attractive enough to be so featured. For example, All models hope to be cover girls some day, or She's gorgeous--a real cover girl. [c. 1910]
Cover Girl is a 1944Americanmusical 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.
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]
The film also features cameo appearances by Jinx Falkenburg and Anita Colby as themselves and (a then unknown) Shelley Winters as one of the young autograph hounds.
"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.
