BLUE SKIES (1946)

Paramount does a Fox-style musical with distinct echoes of the earlier HOLIDAY INN: same basic plot (two friends split up over a woman), same leading men (Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire), with music by the same songwriter (Irving Berlin). Astaire is a dancer in love with Joan Caulfield, but she falls for Crosby, once a singing partner of Astaire's but now a nightclub owner. Crosby and Caulfield get married, but he's restless and won't settle down; instead he opens clubs, makes them successful, sells them, resettles, and opens a new one. Even a daughter doesn't make Crosby any more domestic, so Caulfield leaves him and rejoins Astaire professionally. Romantically, however, things don't work out and a drunken Astaire falls during a dance number on stage one night and sustains an injury that ends his career. The framing device for the film has Astaire (now a radio personality) telling the whole story on the air in hopes that he can get Crosby and Caulfield back together. The plot is more serious than that of HOLIDAY INN, more reminiscent of a Fox musical love triangle (with, for example, Don Ameche, Tyrone Power, and Alice Faye), and it doesn't suit the talents of the leading men, but the elaborate musical numbers are diverting, including "Blue Skies," "Running Around in Circles," and the famous "Puttin' on the Ritz" number with Astaire dancing in front of chorus line made up of multiple versions of himself. Aside from the appeal of the Berlin songs, Astaire and Crosby are the only real draws. Olga San Juan as a singer named Nita Nova is good (I wonder why she didn't have a stronger career) but Billy DeWolfe is a second-rate comic sidekick--he's a notch above the horrific Phil Silvers but he's no Donald O'Connor or even Walter Abel. Even though it's not Christmas, stick with HOLIDAY INN. [DVD]