Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth was Columbia's biggest star of the 1940's, so it was inevitable that Harry Cohn would decide that the added cost of Technicolor was justified. No expense was spared for her 3-Strip debut, including Gene Kelly (borrowed from MGM) as co-star, plus ace support from Phil Silvers, Lee Bowman, Eve Arden, Jinx Falkenburg, Otto Kruger and Edward Brophy. Throw in Charles Vidor's direction, songs by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin (including LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY, and choreography by Kelly and Stanley Donen (notably Gene's famed double-exposure duet with himself). Rita plays a dual role: a young model who aspires to be a dancer and, in flashbacks, her grandmother. The assistant director, legendary western filmmaker Budd Boetticher, would go on to earn fame in a different genre.