Dancing in the Dark

This is the sort of movie that makes me think, "Please don't let some new viewer of musicals think that this is what great musicals are like." William Powell and Betsy Drake are horribly miscast, and the wonderful Dietz-Schwartz songs that shine four years later in "The Band Wagon" are staged here in unappealing, off-kilter ways. For example, the final number tries to jazz up the sexy ballad "Dancing in the Dark," renders it in a completely unromantic manner with some very odd dancing, and inserts a ridiculous Dutch couple skit in the middle of it in order to include the song "I Love Louisa" (which was conceived as a German-style song).

IMDb says the film was originally in color, but the print I saw looked for all the world like something that had been colorized! I am not dismissive of all Fox musicals, but thank heaven MGM got hold of the title and the songs and made a much better movie with them.