This 20th Century Fox musical really isn't very good, but if you like the cast, you can give it a try like I did. I love Vera-Ellen and always try her movies since she didn't make very many. Her talents really aren't utilized in this movie, though. Her dancing is down-played, her famous legs are hidden, she's given a dishwater-colored wig to make her look Costa Rican -What?- and for some unknown reason she's scrubbed clean of all her makeup. Without her eye makeup, she looks like Shirley Temple's homelier sister, instead of the made-up glamourous lady she usually plays.
The plot is funny, though. Vera-Ellen and Cesar Romero's families have arranged their marriage. They've never met, and she wants to be free to fall in love. Cesar already has a girlfriend, Celeste Holm, so he doesn't want to get married either. To thwart the engagement, he sets a plan to make himself repulsive to her so she'll call off the engagement. He wears dark glasses to take care of his watering eyes, stoops over, coughs incessantly due to an infected trachea, shuffles little steps because it's difficult for him to stand for long periods of time without getting tired, and asks for her help in taking his various pills because he's color-blind. It's very funny, but since Vera-Ellen's polite, she doesn't call things off.
At the carnival, though, she meets Dick Haymes and falls in love. She a ridiculous pick-up line and doesn't care about anything except his supposed pretty face. But what about Cesar Romero's pretty face? And what's wrong with these studios putting talented people in musicals and not letting them participate? In State Fair, trained opera singer Dana Andrews wasn't allowed to sing; and in Carnival in Costa Rica, trained ballroom dancer Cesar Romero wasn't allowed to dance. I didn't enjoy this one, but you can try it out and see if you like it.
