Perhaps because it was Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers's penultimate picture together for RKO, or perhaps because it is more romantic comedy than musical, Carefree tends to be a neglected entry in the series. This is unfortunate, because it retains many of the elements that made the duo so popular while also breaking new ground. Fred plays Tony Flagg, a psychoanalyst who is asked by his friend Steve (Ralph Bellamy) to try to figure out why his fiancée, Amanda Cooper (Ginger), keeps breaking off their engagement. During the course of treatment, and in a reversal of the usual pattern, Ginger falls for Fred and begins to pursue him. The emotionally repressed doctor resists, leading to a number of comic encounters, as well as a moment of genuine heartbreak. Other innovations include Fred's dance on a driving range, a slow-motion dream sequence (which was going to be shot in color until budget concerns won out), Fred and Ginger's first screen kiss, and some of Ginger's best turns as a comic actress. More familiar elements include Ginger fronting the band at the start of a large company dance number ("The Yam," which failed to catch on as a dance craze), an expert if skimpy Irving Berlin score including the lovely ballad "Change Partners," and of course fabulous, high-flying dancing. Fred and Ginger fans can't afford to miss Carefree. -David Horiuchi.

The 1944 musical Cover Girl charts the story of a Brooklyn chorus girl (Rita Hayworth) who becomes a big star when she is put on a magazine cover. She is torn between a glittering Broadway career under the aegis of elderly sugar-daddy tycoon (Otto Kruger) and real life with the roughneck he-man choreographer (Gene Kelly) she really loves. Columbia were so intent on showing off their prime asset in this vehicle that Hayworth is sometimes in danger of being swamped by sheer production values and Charles Vidor's ever-so-slightly stuffy direction. However, gorgeous Technicolor and the even more gorgeous Rita make the creaking plot not only bearable but also sparkling. There are oddly unsentimental and unsettling flashbacks with Hayworth playing her character's turn-of-the-century grandmother offering a cut-down of the main story and energetic comedy support performances from Phil Silvers (who proves himself an unexpectedly adept dancer) and the fabulously hated cynic Eve Arden (not to mention the wonderfully-named Jinx Falkenberg). One stand-out performance is the Jerome Kern-Ira Gershwin duet ("Long Ago and Far Away") enlivening an otherwise so-so score (other tunes: "Make Way for Tomorrow", "Put Me to the Test", "Sure Thing", "That's the Best of All", "The Show Must Go On", "Who's Complaining?" and "Poor John"). Of course, the film becomes magical in its dance sequences, with the young Kelly staging and performing several wonderful routines-including the famous "Alter Ego" turn, in which he dances with his own reflection-and finding, in the trim Rita, one of his most perfect partners: although Martha Mears dubbed Rita's singing voice, she impressively delivers all her own dance moves. -Kim Newman.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Anita Loos' old story from the 1920s about a pair of single women in search of husbands, gets a makeover in Howard Hawks' 1953 musical. The remake stars Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe as two friends who go to Paris looking for mates. The film is charged by Hawks's stylish snap, a famous set piece or two (Monroe descending that staircase while singing "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend"), Russell's wit and songs by Leo Robin and Jule Styne. The film may largely be a fluff project best remembered as a showcase for its leading actresses, but then Monroe and Russell rarely got such extended opportunities to prove that they were more than cinematic icons. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

A GI (Gene Kelly) stays in Paris after the war to become an artist, and has to choose between the patronage of a rich American woman (Nina Foch) and a French gamine (Leslie Caron) engaged to an older man. The plot is mostly an excuse for director Vincente Minnelli to pool his own extraordinary talent with those of choreographer-dancer-actor Kelly and the artists behind the screenplay, art direction, cinematography, and score, creating a rapturous musical not quite like anything else in cinema. The final section of the film comprises a 17-minute dance sequence that took a month to film and is breathtaking. Songs include "'S Wonderful," "I Got Rhythm," and "Love Is Here to Stay. " -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.