As this film was conceived as a star vehicle for the female lead, there are fewer Astaire numbers than one expects from one of his musicals, and only one solo: the celebrated "Piano Dance," in which he jaunts on, in, above and under a grand piano, culminating in a series of effortless suspensions over a succession of high-back chairs.
Fred Astaire was borrowed from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for this film, as Paramount had no star dancers under contract.
One of very few films that either Astaire or Hutton made that failed at the box office, largely attributed to an overplotted script and the uneasy blending of the stars' widely contrasting screen personas. Astaire had experienced the same phenomenon when he co-starred with Eleanor Powell in Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940), as Powell was accustomed to doing solo routines; however, their initial uneasiness was forgotten -- and forgiven -- when they joined forces for the incomparable "Begin the Beguine" duet, which remains one of the most revered dance sequences in Hollywood history. Alas, Let's Dance (1950) afforded no such opportunities for Astaire and Hutton to find common ground between their varied performance styles.
Composer-lyricist Frank Loesser was an old hand at writing specialty material for Betty Hutton, which required songs that could be performed at her signature breakneck speed. For this occasion, Loesser provided the especially manic "Can't Stop Talking About Him," which opens the film. In a send-up of Hutton's clarion belt, the song begins with an air raid siren that merges into a sustained note from Hutton.
Owing to the film's unusually heavy plotting, Let's Dance (1950), at 112 minutes, has one of the longest running times of Betty Hutton's star vehicles (only Incendiary Blonde (1945) runs longer). Similarly, only three of Astaire's musicals run as long or longer: The Band Wagon (1953), Daddy Long Legs (1955) and Silk Stockings (1957).