Why, oh why, did the powers that be in the fifties (and yes, this is actually from 1949 but it's very much the kind of thing that was popular in the next decade) think it was cute for married couples to bicker endlessly and be evil and nasty to each other and then bill and coo and say how much they love each other?

Sigh. One of the mysteries of life. I will never understand that awful decade and I thank my parents for only subjecting me to 7 1/2 months of it.

Fred and Ginger are actually husband and wife in this one, after nine movies together and a ten year hiatus since their last all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza. They bicker, fight and argue, they seperate while Ginger pursues a serious dramatic role (as Sarah Bernhardt, give me a break!) and of course Fred really loves her (even though he's jealous of her cute director) so he surreptitiously helps her and then after proving herself she comes back to him.

If the musical numbers in this one were as good as the stuff they did in the thirties, it would at least be watchable...but they're not. Fred and Ginger are as good as ever, even at fifty (him) and thirty eight (her), but only a couple of their routines are really good...the best one has the opening credits superimposed on it...and some, like the scottish one, are just painfully stupid. Oscar Levant is in this too, but he's not nearly as funny as he usually is.

Watch it once, you know you have to, but that should be the end of it.