Let's Dance

Norman McLeod is mainly remembered for his Marx Brothers movies, Monkey Business (1931) and Horse Feathers (1932). This so-so musical, light on songs and long on familiar story elements, which manifests McLeod's fondness for slapstick is not about to change anyone’s memory.

Let's Dance is one of the many late career pairings of Astaire with popular stars of the day, this time Betty Hutton, fresh from Annie Get Your Gun which was released to great success earlier the same year. There’s a Western comedy song "Them Thar Dudes" reminiscent of Astaire’s “A Couple Of Swells” duet with Judy Garland in Easter Parade (1948) and Hutton mugs it up solo during a comedy number that ends with her jumping in a lake but Astaire’s brilliantly calisthenic routine involving two pianos early in the film  is as good as it ever gets. The film, understandably, did nothing for Hutton's career whose star gradually faded within the next few years, her refreshingly tomboyish persona being largely co-opted by Doris Day.

 

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