YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 148, 24 April 1942, Page 14

YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH

(Columbia)

SUPPOSE, after all, it was only a matter of time (money being no object in Hollywood), before Fred Astaire was caught in the

draft, cinematically speaking. At any rate, caught he is in You'll Never Get Rich which, if it doesn’t exactly glorify the American draftee, sufficiently glorifies the kind of entertainment provided for him to make the average digger green with envy-and the average American recruit wonder what he has been missing. You'll Never Get Rich (title, I take it, from the libretto of the popular song, "You'll Never Get Rich, You're in the Army Now!") is about as closely related to the problems of wartime America as Hitler is to King Solomon. Private Astaire doesn’t get an Academy Award for corralling a crowd of Germans as Sergeant Gary York did, but he puts on a good show, literally and figuratively, and I am sure his admirers will not be disappointed. From Astaire’s point of view, this latest effort is a great improvement on Second Chorus, the last film of his which I noticed on this page. In Second Chorus, as many of my cash-customers will remember, there was a tendency to crowd Astaire out of the limelight in favour of Artie Shaw and his orchestra, and since most people who go to see a Fred Astaire picture go to see Fred Astaire, this was a. bad blunder. But if he is the principal, he is not the sole attraction. Cast opposite him is Rita Hayworth, a comely young person who has been getting a lot of publicity recently. Though there was no denying Miss Hayworth’s charms, I had doubts about her ability to match up with Astaire when it came to dance routines, but I was pleasantly surprised. She is, in my opinion, better than Paulette Goddard (Astaire’s last partner), almost as good as Ginger Rodgers, and is certainly very interesting to watch, whether -in action or in repose. Supporting these two are Robert Benchley, still funny, but not nearly so much so as he was in The Reluctant Dragon, and John Hubbard, who provides such romantic conflict as there is in a story as thin as the butter on a Reich slice of toast. Not that that is any drawback. Astaire dances, and dances well, and Rita Hayworth does likewise and looks well into the bargain, and it is unlikely that their public will want more. At any rate, I didn’t. On the whole, .the show is nee as lavish as others of its kind have been, for the very good reason that many of the sequences allegedly occur during a camp concert put on for conscripts, or draftees, or selective servicemen, or what have you; but it is lavish enough to make most territorials here sigh enviously. There is a ration of humour, ‘sufficient to keep one smiling quietly, good camera work enhances the

dancing of the chorus whenever it has the stage. Take it for all in all, it’s a good show of its kind and if, before the war is over, I hear American Army buglers sounding "Taps," I know what it will remind me of.