Top Hat might have been more popular, but this is actually the finest of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies. Working with a major director in George Stevens, Fred and Ginger achieve such heights that to single out a particular instance might seem invidious. But the climactic Never Gonna Dance seems to provide the perfect example of the effortless style Astaire was able to convey, and the dialogue scene between the pair that precedes the dance is among their most poignant. The plot? Who cares, when the Jerome Kern score includes The Way You Look Tonight, A Fine Romance, Pick Yourself Up and Bojangles of Harlem? (It's about a gambler falling for his dance partner, if you must know.).

Lucky is tricked into missing his own wedding to Margaret and has to make $25,000 so her father will allow him to marry her. He and business partner Pop go to New York where they run into dancing instructor Penny. She and Lucky form a successful dance partnership, but romance is blighted by his old attachment to Margaret and hers for Ricky.