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Blu-ray Review Cover Girl Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

Richard Gallagher

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Cover Girl is an enjoyable musical which features a star-studded cast headed by Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly and which has a delighful musical score by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin. The plot is slight and predictable, but the film includes some dazzling song and dance sequences which make up for what it lacks in drama. Unfortunately, this Blu-ray disc from Twilight Time is unable to restore the film to its original Technicolor glory - but more about that later.



Cover Girl

Studio: Twilight Time/Sony
Year: 1944
Rated: Not Rated
Program Length: 107 minutes                 
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 1080p
Languages: English 1.0 DTS-HD MA
Subtitles: English SDH

The Program

Cover Girl is an enjoyable musical which features a star-studded cast headed by Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly and which has a delightful musical score by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin. The plot is slight and predictable, but the film includes some dazzling song and dance sequences which make up for what it lacks in drama. Unfortunately, this Blu-ray disc from Twilight Time is unable to restore the film to its original Technicolor glory - but more about that later.

The film opens in a Brooklyn nightclub owned by Danny McGuire (Kelly). Rusty Parker (Hayworth) is Danny's girlfriend and one of his club's performers. Rusty believes that she has the looks and talent to make it big in show business, and she is frustrated by the fact that her venue is too obscure for her to be noticed. She learns that Maurine (Leslie Brooks), one of her co-workers, is planning to enter a competition to be the on the cover of Vanity magazine's 50th anniversary issue. Rusty decides to go to the magazine for an interview, where she finds herself in a room with a dozen other beautiful women who have the same dream. Among them is Maurine, who is not thrilled to have Rusty as a competitor. Maurine is interviewed first, and she is given the once-over by Cornelia Jackson (Eve Arden), the wise-cracking assistant to publisher John Coudair (Otto Kruger). Maurine's meeting goes reasonably well, so she tries to sabotage Rusty's chances by telling her that the magazine is looking for a woman who is assertive and brassy, when in fact they are looking for someone who is demure. Rusty's interview is a disaster, and she concludes that she has no chance of being the cover girl.

Thankfully for Rusty, Mr. Coudair is looking for a woman who resembles a singer he had fallen in love with when he was young. He and Miss Jackson take a trip to Brooklyn to see Maurine in action, but he is stunned when he sees Rusty and realizes that she is a dead ringer for the woman he had loved many years before. In a coincidence which could only happen in Hollywood, it turns out that his former love, Maribelle Hicks, was Rusty's grandmother (Hayworth plays Maribelle in some flashback sequences). Naturally, Coudair selects Rusty to be his cover girl, a development which causes great distress for Danny, who fears losing her. The other person who dreads being left behind by Rusty is Danny's resident comedian, known only as "Genius" (Phil Silvers).

As noted, the story is predictable and creaky, but along the way there is some wonderful singing and dancing, as well as a famous montage of actual cover girls from such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, Mademoiselle, Look, and Vogue. The most famous song is "Long Ago and Far Away" and the most memorable dance sequence is one which has the gifted and athletic Kelly dancing with a vision of himself. Rita Hayworth has never been lovelier, and she is no slouch as a dancer (her singing reportedly was dubbed by Martha Mears). Phil Silvers is amusing as Danny's sidekick and comedian, and Eve Arden steals just about every scene in which she appears. Of course, there also are many beautiful actresses and models in supporting roles.

Special attention must be given to the scene where Kelly dances with himself, a challenging feat both physically and technically. The scene plays out the conflicting feelings which Danny has about Rusty's rise to fame. On the one hand, he wants her to succeed, but on the other hand he is convinced that if she succeeds she will end up leaving him. The two sides of his troubled psyche play off against each other in a stunning dance which required two takes and double exposure photography. Kelly later called the scene "the most difficult thing I've ever done - a technical torture."

Cover Girl is ably directed by Charles Vidor, although much of the creative control was given to Gene Kelly. Those who pay attention to the credits will note that Vidor was aided by assistant director Budd Boetticher (credited as Oscar Boetticher, Jr.) and the orchestrations are by Carmen Dragon. The screenplay by Virginia Van Upp contains no real surprises, but the singing, dancing, and sparkling cast make Cover Girl a film which every lover of musicals should see. This Blu-ray release is limited to 3,000 units and can be ordered here (it may become available through Amazon, but it is not yet listed there).  

The Video

My initial impression was that the 1.33:1 1080p transfer, while reasonably sharp and detailed, is excessively dark and the colors are not quite as vibrant as I expected from a 1944 Technicolor film. Robert Harris, our resident expert, has shared his feelings about the transfer here. I recommend reading the entire thread. The culprit seems to be that the original negatives are in poor shape and excessive contrast gain accounts for the lack of brightness.  

It appears to me that the Blu-ray of Cover Girl has been produced from the same transfer which was used for the DVD which was included in the 2010 Rita Hayworth box set. I have that DVD and base my conclusion upon a direct comparison of the two. There also is a 2003 stand-alone DVD which I have not seen, but which some commentators believe is superior to the 2010 DVD.

When I played the 2010 DVD on my upscaling Toshiba HD-XA-2, I did not observe that the Blu-ray offers a substantial improvement. The Blu-ray's picture is a bit sharper, but the contrast and color appear to be pretty much the same. In fairness, a DVD player which does not upscale quite as well as the Toshiba may not yield the same results.

The Audio

The DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 audio is as good as one could hope for. Fortunately, any temptation which may have existed to re-channel the soundtrack into stereo has been resisted. The dialogue is clear and entirely understandable and the music is presented without distortion or other anomalies.

The Supplements

This is the first Twilight Time release which I have reviewed which contains no extras, not even an isolated soundtrack.

The film has been divided into 12 chapters. There is an informative, colorful 8-page booklet written by the always reliable Julie Kirgo. Viewers also can peruse the complete Twilight Time catalogue. The scheduled Blu-ray releases for August are High Time and Bye Bye Birdie.

The Packaging

The single disc comes in a standard Blu-ray keep case.

The Final Analysis

To buy or not to buy? That is the question, and it is a tough call. Viewers who have a DVD player with outstanding upscaling may find very little difference between the Blu-ray and the 2010 DVD (for about the same price as the Blu-ray you can get Cover Girl and four other Rita Hayworth films). This is the first Sony Blu-ray I have seen in a long time for which I have had any serious reservations about the picture quality. On the other hand, Robert Harris is of the opinion that "This may be as good as it gets" (his reservations about the video quality notwithstanding).

Equipment used for this review:

Panasonic DMP-BD50 Blu-ray player
Panasonic Viera TC-P46G15 Plasma display, calibrated to THX specification by Gregg Loewen
Yamaha HTR-5890 THX Surround Receiver
BIC Acoustech speakers
Interconnects: Monster Cable

Release Date: July 10, 2012
 

 

Robin9

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Richard Gallagher said:
When I played the 2010 DVD on my upscaling Toshiba HD-XA-2, I did not observe that the Blu-ray offers a substantial improvement. The Blu-ray's picture is a bit sharper, but the contrast and color appear to be pretty much the same . . . . . This is the first Twilight Time release which I have reviewed which contains no extras, not even an isolated soundtrack . . . . . . To buy or not to buy? That is the question, and it is a tough call.
 
It's not a tough call for me because I'm not a compulsive upgrader. I upgrade only if it's real and substantial. I'll make do with the DVD.
One major curiosity about Cover Girl is that the credited producer was Arthur Schwartz who was a brilliant songwriter - and I do mean brilliant - not a film producer. How he came to produce Cover Girl I've never discovered.
 

Richard Gallagher

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Originally Posted by Robin9 /t/322212/cover-girl-blu-ray-review#post_3947853
One major curiosity about Cover Girl is that the credited producer was Arthur Schwartz who was a brilliant songwriter - and I do mean brilliant - not a film producer. How he came to produce Cover Girl I've never discovered.

The essay by Julie Kirgo doesn't go into how Schwartz became involved, but he was the one who insisted that Gene Kelly be hired for the part of Danny and he gave Kelly the green light to do the choreography.
 

marcco00

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schwartz was interviewed by john kobal for his book 'rita hayworth, the time, the place,the woman' on the filming of 'cover girl'. starting on page 155:
"When Cover Girl was still only an idea, songwriter Arthur Schwartz was bought in to produce it. He had originally approached Cohn to buy back a story he had written as a vehicle for Jean Arthur which Columbia bought but never made. Out of the blue, Cohn asked him if he would like to produce Rita Hayworth's next film.
'I think there is some sort of typographical error there', said Schwartz. 'You must be thinking of somebody else. I have never produced anything before.' Cohn said, 'I know you haven't, but I talked to a lot of people and they said you are the sort of person I should have for it. ' "
so Schwartz consented and signed on for $1000 a week, according to kobal. Schwartz is quoted over the next six pages or so, reminicing on the making of the film and the people involved.
 

Robin9

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marcco00 said:
schwartz was interviewed by john kobal for his book 'rita hayworth, the time, the place,the woman' on the filming of 'cover girl'. starting on page 155:
"When Cover Girl was still only an idea, songwriter Arthur Schwartz was bought in to produce it. He had originally approached Cohn to buy back a story he had written as a vehicle for Jean Arthur which Columbia bought but never made. Out of the blue, Cohn asked him if he would like to produce Rita Hayworth's next film.
'I think there is some sort of typographical error there', said Schwartz. 'You must be thinking of somebody else. I have never produced anything before.' Cohn said, 'I know you haven't, but I talked to a lot of people and they said you are the sort of person I should have for it. ' "
so Schwartz consented and signed on for $1000 a week, according to kobal. Schwartz is quoted over the next six pages or so, reminicing on the making of the film and the people involved.
Thank you very much. I do have that book but it's been decades since I read it. Obviously it's time I read it again!
 

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