You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

starring Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth

directed by Wlliam A. Seiter

97 minutes

Unemployed dancer Robert Davis (Fred Astaire) is trying to get a job at the Acuña Hotel but can't get a meeting with the hotel's owner, Eduardo Acuña. Maria Acuña (Rita Hayworth), Eduardo's daughter, is under pressure from Eduardo, her mother, and her younger sisters to get married. Eduardo won't let Maria's younger sisters, both of whom have prospects lined up, get married until Maria gets married.

Maria has no interest in getting married until she starts receiving orchids from a secret admirer. What she doesn't know that it is her father who has been sending her the flowers in the hopes that it will change her mind about getting married.

Maria gets the impression that Robert is the secret admirer when she sees him delivering the flowers one day. Eduardo hires Robert to pretend to be the secret admirer after learning fron him about his daughter's misunderstanding. Robert and Maria fall in love but her father is not on board with Robert becoming his son-in-law and does his best to push them apart.

Thoughts

Fred Astaire is about 20 years older than Rita Hayworth. He doesn't look 20 years older than her but I wouldn't guess that they were less than 10 years apart.

This movie has a few dance numbers and a few musical numbers but I'm not sure that I would classify it as a musical.

This movie is a remake of an Argentine film which came out in 1941.

This was an enjoyable watch. It was good but not great. There's a fair amount of light humor. Fred Astaire's dancing is amazing, as always. Rita Hayworth holds her own on the dance floor without quite rising to Astaire's level of ability.