Torna con me

With a little editing and a better finale, Let's Dance could've been a great musical. It starts out with a bang, and rides along on a fun and energetic high for the first 2/3 of the film. Then, the storyline of Hutton trying to retain custody of her child starts to drag on too long. As if to make up for the slow last third of the movie, the director then tacks on a short and overly simplistic ending, as if he wasn't sure how to get out of the film. Even with these problems, though, I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun this was. Hutton had tremendous energy as a comedienne and singer, and she sparkles through most of the film. Astaire also seems to be having a great time and shows a zany side that's quite delightful. There are several good musical numbers and two "must-see" dance pieces. In the first, Fred dances around, under, on top of and inside a piano, and he also gets to show off his lesser-known but fairly impressive skills as a pianist. This number has to rank among his all-time most enjoyable. The second great number has Fred and Hutton dressed as cowboys in a saloon, and it's a hilarious and wonderful routine. I cringed a bit when I read that Astaire was doing a cowboy number, but he's just as great in boots and blue jeans and he was in top hat, white tie and tails. There's some very good comedy writing in the film, and the secondary actors all do a fine job. Despite its slow and repetitive last section, Let's Dance is definitely worth watching. And some of the dance numbers deserve repeated viewing. An unexpectedly fun and funny film.

This movie begins well with Betty Hutton singing a fast brassy comedic song that is very much in her style. Unfortunately that's the only really notable song in the movie. Also unfortunately Hutton and Astaire don't have a lot of chemistry; her energetic brassiness just doesn't mesh well with his casual stylishness.

The high point of the movie is a very funny Astaire dance number on a piano. I promptly found it on Youtube and posted it on Facebook for all my dancer friends.

The story is rather uncomfortable, covering too long a period of time, feeling a little convoluted and requiring sudden, inexplicable changes of heart to keep it going. It's still kind of fun, but the lack of good musical numbers and the weak story keep it from being as much fun as it should be.

I don't know what movie others are watching BUT! Just watch the opening number and you can see the chemistry between Astaire and Hutton! Them dudes will blow you away at how original it is and I do not see anyone doing this number today. Sure it's not hard drama but Astaire movies usually are not meant to be so. Astaire is and will be one of the greatest dancers ever! Not my opinion but fact. Perhaps those who trash this movie just like it because Hutton has top billing, coming off her success in Annie get your gun. Your either a Hutton fan or not and for me this is one of those hidden jems! Watch it and judge for yourself and at a very reasonable price on a certain jungle site it is worth the money! TRUST ME!

Let's Dance finds Fred Astaire teamed with Betty Hutton professionally in an act. And the plot of the story revolves around Astaire trying to make it a romantic partnership as well.

In fact he announces to the audience at a USO show during World War II that he'd like to marry his partner. Small problem though Hutton tells Astaire in the dressing room. She's already slightly married some months earlier in a whirlwind romance. The act gets broken up as well.

Flash forward to five years later. Hutton is a war widow raising her young son Gregory Moffett in some affluent Boston surroundings presided over by her husband's mother Lucile Watson. Watson is a wealthy WASP dowager who's just about gotten used to the fact that her son married an entertainer, but she insists that her grand kid be raised as a proper Bostonian. Not for Betty who's bored stiff with polite society. She takes off with Moffett.

In New York she hooks up again with Fred, but it's romantic rocky road with a couple of detours for Fred it's Ruth Warrick and for Betty, Sheppard Strudwick.

I don't think that there was any surprise that there was no demand for the return of the team of Astaire and Hutton. They perform their numbers well although I agree with other reviewers that the film is tilted for Betty from the gitgo. The fact that this was her home studio of Paramount no doubt helped there. I do agree that composer Frank Loesser having dealt with Betty before wrote for her. He had already given her I Wish I Didn't Love You So from The Perils of Pauline. Loesser himself was getting his songwriting career into high gear. He had just had a big Broadway smash in Where's Charley and would the following year have his biggest hit of all with Guys and Dolls.

Nothing here was nominated for an Academy Award. Can't Stop Talking About Him is Betty's best number, definitely in her style. Fred looks a little silly trying to keep up with her. He's shown to best advantage in the piano dance, dancing on a Steinway and in a hoedown western style dance number with Betty in Them Dudes Were Doing Our Dance.

Some interesting casting here. Two guys who usually were villains in films play good guys with Barton MacLane as the gruff, but kindly club owner where Astaire and Hutton are playing and George Zucco as the judge before whom the custody battle is fought. Lucile Watson is her usual imperious self and has a crack legal team at her disposal with Roland Young and Melville Cooper.

Let's Dance was a good film for Betty Hutton. It didn't do too much for Fred Astaire however.

I grew up on this movie, so I may be a little biased, but... The characters are genuine and their needs believable. The heroine is driven from the home of her son's overbearing grandmother and into the nightclub scene - which is wholesome and romantic because it's the fifties. There, she earns her keep and finds the most loyal friends a girl could ever want. In her flirty roles of cigarette girl and singer, she has a run-in with the love of her life and the perfect, singer-dancer dad for her little boy. By the end, if you are not too cynical, you will be rooting for the lovers to hop onto the 'Love Boat' and ride downstream together.