Cover Girl (1944 film)

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See CoverGirl (brand) for cosmetics

Cover Girl
Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by	Charles Vidor
Produced by	Arthur Schwartz
Written by	Erwin S. Gelsey (story)
Starring	Rita Hayworth Gene Kelly
Music by	Saul Chaplin
Cinematography	Allen M. Davey Rudolph Maté
Editing by	Viola Lawrence
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	March 30, 1944
Running time	107 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

Cover Girl is a 1944 musical film starring Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly. The film, shot in Technicolor, tells the story of a chorus girl given a chance at stardom when she's 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.

Primarily a showcase for Rita Hayworth, the film has lavish modern and 1890s costumes, eight dance routines for Hayworth, and songs by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin, including the classic Long Ago and Far Away. The film won the 1944 Academy Award for best musical scoring. Gene Kelly dances with his own reflection in one sequence, achieved using superimposition to give his 'double' a ghost-like quality.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Trivia
4 External link

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A chorus girl named Rusty is given a chance for stardom by a wealthy magazine editor, who years earlier had been in love with her grandmother. Offered an opportunity to be a highly-paid cover girl, Rusty would faithfully remain with her nightclub act if only the club manager and boyfriend (Kelly) would ask her. He doesn't want to stand in her way, so he fakes an argument to send her packing.[1]

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cast

Rita Hayworth as Rusty Parker & Maribelle Hicks (in flashback sequences)
Gene Kelly as Danny McGuire
Phil Silvers as Genius
Otto Kruger as John Coudair
Eve Arden as Cornelia 'Stonewall' Jackson
Lee Bowman as Noel Wheaton
Leslie Brooks as Maurine Martin
Jess Barker as young John Coudair (in flashback sequences)
Edward Brophy as Joe, Oister Cook

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.

[edit] Trivia

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, Rita Hayworth, and Phil Silvers could dance along an entire street in one take. He also used trick photography so that he could dance with himself in one sequence.

Rita Hayworth's singing voice was dubbed by Martha Mears.

As she stated in her autobiography, Lauren Bacall had been wanted by Columbia to appear in this film as Harper's Bazaar cover girl (as she had appeared on Harper's Bazaar cover in March 1943), but instead filmed To Have and Have Not (1944) at Warner Bros. and became a star.