If you want to see Gene Kelly come into his own as a major movie star, here’s your chance. Yes, he had made a notable debut with Judy Garland two years earlier in For Me and My Gal, but he was then wasted in two other musicals. No fool Columbia, which borrowed him for this role, teams him with the young, radiant Rita Hayworth (who gets top billing in only her third film) making for a swell pair.

The very slim albeit charming plot finds Danny McGuire (Kelly) about to lose Rusty (Hayworth) to the siren song of Broadway until she sees the error of her ways and returns to Danny’s arms. But here’s what’s worth noting: This is the first time we encounter Kelly experimenting with the possibilities for dance on film. It's the dramatic “Alter-Ego” routine in which it looks as though he’s dancing with himself in ways that actually plumb a bit of psychological depth.

And then there’s the generous score by Jerome Kern (in his Hollywood period), teamed for the first and only time with Ira Gershwin, then still recovering from George’s untimely death but writing in top form, including their sublime “Long Ago and Far Away.”

Not to be overlooked: comic Phil Silvers, already registering his trademark “Howahya!” and shaking the wartime blues away with the exuberant song and dance “Make Way for Tomorrow,” holding his own with Hayworth and Kelly.

After Cover Girl, MGM never let Kelly get away again, and 12 musicals followed for Arthur Freed’s unit, including a masterpiece, An American in Paris. Here's a legendary performer in the making.

As for Columbia's Technicolor… stunning!