Treasures from the Film Archives 2009 / Cover Girl / USA 1944
This digitally restored, celebrated musical, which won an Oscar for Best Music, tells the story of the lovely chorus girl Rusty (Rita Hayworth) and her spiralling career, from appearances in a Brooklyn night club owned by Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly), and photo spreads for the title page of Vanity magazine, to Broadway stardom.
Fortune smiles on red-headed chorus girl Rusty Parker (Rita Hayworth) when she wins a competition to become a cover girl for Vanity magazine. Thanks to the all-powerful media and mesmerized showbiz tycoons, Rusty becomes a star on Broadway overnight. Beyond Brooklyn Bridge, however, she leaves behind a broken heart, nursed by the owner of her home venue, Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly). The original Technicolor three-strip negative was used as a base for the restoration of this celebrated musical, which won an Oscar for Best Music. Part of the reason Sony Columbia opted for the digital restoration of Vidor’s film was its ability to register each of the colour records more accurately than is possible through traditional photo-chemical processes. After a complete digital cleanup and re-grading, including the removal of torn frames and scratches, a new 35mm colour negative was produced, which gave rise to this new film print.
107 min / Color, 35 mm
Director Charles Vidor
/ Screenplay Virginia Van Upp
/ Dir. of Photography Rudolph Maté, Allen M. Davey
/ Music Jerome Kern
/ Editor Viola Lawrence
/ Producer Arthur Schwartz
/ Production Columbia Pictures
/ Cast Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly, Phil Silvers, Eve Arden, Otto Kruger
/ Contact Sony Pictures Entertainment
Charles Vidor (1900–1959) was born in Budapest as Károly Vidor. During the First World War he served in the Hungarian army, emigrating to the USA in 1922. He initially worked as an assistant director and, in 1932, he filmed his debut Sensation Hunters. For the remainder of the 1930s he chiefly made commercial films, a noteworthy example being the mystery thriller The Great Gambini (1936) with Akim Tamiroff in the lead role. In the following decade he tried his hand at all sorts of genres – western (The Desperadoes, 1942), musical (Cover Girl, 1944), biopic (A Song to Remember, 1944) and film noir (the famous Gilda, 1945). He cast his favourite actors Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford for the last time in 1948 in the Mérimée adaptation The Loves of Carmen. Before his premature death he was also celebrated for works such as the drama Love Me or Leave Me (1954) or the adaptation of the Hemingway novel A Farewell to Arms (1957).
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