M-G-M. Director Charles Walters; Producer Arthur Freed; Screenplay Robert O'Brien, Irving Elinson; Camera Robert Planck; Editor Albert Akst; Music Harry Warren; Art Director Cedric Gibbons, Jack Martin Smith
Fred Astaire
Vera-Ellen
Marjorie Main
Keenan Wynn
Alice Pearce
Clinton Sundberg
A film musical usually can get by with the lightest plot if the dance numbers and tunes are sock, but Belle has an even lighter plot than usual, and the numbers are just ordinary. It's all done pleasantly but not of a quality that rates more than passing interest.
Score contains nine songs, most of which are given some eye appeal in production staging, although not elaborately. Most pleasing is Vera-Ellen's 'Naughty But Nice', which she sings and dances to fit a story situation.
Script has Astaire as an early-New York playboy who falls for a Bowery mission worker (Vera-Ellen) and changes his ways, even getting employment to prove he is worthy of her pure, honest affection. Tunes and production numbers are hung on that framework.
(Color) Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1952. Running time: 82 MIN.
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