Let's Dance (1950 film)

Let's Dance
theatrical release poster
Directed by	Norman Z. McLeod
Produced by	Robert Fellows
Screenplay by	Allan Scott Dane Lussier (add. dialogue)
Based on	Little Boy Blue (story, 1948) by Maurice Zolotow
Starring	Betty Hutton Fred Astaire
Music by	Robert Emmett Dolan
Cinematography	George Barnes (cinematographer)
Edited by	Ellsworth Hoagland
Production company	Paramount Pictures
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release dates	November 29, 1950
Running time	111-112 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$2.4 million (US rentals)

Let's Dance is a 1950 musical romantic comedy Technicolor film starring Betty Hutton and Fred Astaire, and released by Paramount Pictures.

Plot

A war widow returns to work with her former dancing partner, but her upper class mother-in-law is aghast that her grandson is being exposed to show business and takes legal steps to gain custody.

Cast

• Betty Hutton as Kitty McNeil
• Fred Astaire as Donald Elwood
• Roland Young as Edmund Pohlwhistle
• Ruth Warrick as Carola Everett
• Lucile Watson as Serena Everett
• Gregory Moffett as Richard Everett
• Barton MacLane as Larry Channock

• Shepperd Strudwick as Timothy Bryant
• Melville Cooper as Charles Wagstaffe
• Harold Huber as Marcel
• George Zucco as Judge Mackenzie
• Peggy Badley as Bubbles Malone
• Virginia Toland as Elsie

Production

Buoyed by the great success of MGM teaming Astaire with their biggest female musical star Judy Garland in the 1948 musical blockbuster Easter Parade, Paramount decided to team Astaire with their biggest female musical star (Hutton) hoping that the same box-office magic would happen. Unfortunately, the film did not repeat the earlier film's success.

While the film did reasonably well financially, overall it proved to be a disappointment. Let's Dance was completely overshadowed by Hutton's other musical film of 1950, Annie Get Your Gun, which became one of the highest-grossing films of the year.

Ironically, Hutton was loaned to MGM to replace Garland (because of illness) as Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun. Also, Astaire's character's first name in Let's Dance (Don) is the same first name as his character in Easter Parade.

Frank Loesser wrote the music.

References

Notes

External links

• Let's Dance at IMDb
• Let's Dance at the TCM Movie Database
• Let's Dance at AllMovie
• Let's Dance at the American Film Institute Catalog