Roberta

This isn’t very effective as a genre musical: in most cases, songs are inserted at random, rather than driving and being of a piece with the rest of the narrative. But for my purposes it worked surprisingly well, considering I had prejudged it to be a device only to get the song & dance talent from the RKO stable in one place (Dunne’s operatic soprano, Astaire & Rogers’ tap and ballroom). Some bits definitely work better than others, and I have a feeling the original novel, stage adaptations, and other film versions have been more effective. But Fred & Ginger are magnificent on the dance floor; Irene breaks my heart with “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”: I really am a sucker for this sort of thing.