After MGM’s pairing of Fred Astaire and Judy Garland in Easter Parade turned out to be a 1948 smash, producer Arthur Freed was anxious to put them together again immediately. But it was not to be! Garland was going through another one of her bad periods and had to be replaced.

But by whom? Brilliant stroke: Ginger Rogers in a reunion with Fred nine years after their last musical for RKO. Barkleys would make it an even 10.

It was a smart move that resulted in a clever film with songs by Harry Warren and Ira Gershwin (their only collaboration) and a screenplay by “the kids,” as Freed dubbed them, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, then proving themselves equally adept on both Broadway (On the Town) and in Hollywood (Good News).

Comden & Green’s script (which borrowed a bit from Easter Parade) tackled this question: What happens when a famous husband-and-wife dance team, enjoying one triumph after another, just can’t stop bickering — and in Barkleys the female half yearns to star in straight dramas (which was true of Rogers in real life)?

All ends well to the strains of the “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” introduced by Astaire and Rogers in Shall We Dance (and written by both Gershwin brothers, of course). But for me, the highlight is one of Astaire’s most imaginative novelty solos, “Shoes with Wings On.” You remember: He’s a repair man in a shoe shop, and a pair of shoes magically begin dancing on their own.

Oscar Levant is on hand playing one of his typically jaundiced characters, and we even get Billie Burke not playing Glinda in Oz.