Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Cover Girl Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov August 11, 2017

Charles Vidor's "Cover Girl" (1944) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British label Eureka Entertainment. The supplemental features on the disc include an exclusive restored trailer for the film and a short archival interview with director Baz Luhrmann. The release also arrives with an illustrated booklet featuring writing on the film. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

Irresistible beauty

Everything that once made Hollywood productions truly special is on full display in Charles Vidor’s Cover Girl -- brilliant choreography and direction, outstanding sets and designs, great music, and real stars that could take your breath away with a simple look. It is a visual feast that is absolutely impossible to describe with simple words.

A very large chunk of Cover Girl functions as an adult fairytale in which Rita Hayworth plays two different characters. The first is the ambitious but shy dancer Rusty Parker who is like a modern-day Cinderella in Danny McGuire’s (Gene Kelly) Brooklyn nightclub. She works hard to make ends meet and aside from Danny, who is madly in love with her, no one seems to notice the obvious -- which is that she is simply gorgeous. Then the magical moment comes after Rusty enters a Vanity magazine contest and much to everyone’s surprise its aging editor, John Coudair (Otto Kruger), declares that she is the special girl that he has been looking for. Rusty’s success instantly transforms the tiny club into one of the hottest spots in town, but also forces her to choose between a glamorous career and Danny’s love. The second character is Maribelle Hicks, Rusty’s grandmother, who many moons ago stole the editor’s heart.

The main story about Rusty’s transformation is admittedly a bit naïve, but in the grand scheme of things this is largely an irrelevant flaw. Why? Because the real quality is actually on the flipside; the brilliantly choreographed dances, the superb sets and designs, and ultimately the glamour are what make Cover Girl effective. That’s what great musicals are supposed to do.

There are various dance acts that ought to be praised, but Kelly’s work in Put Me to the Test and the Alter Ego dance truly remains in a category of its own. The synchronization between Danny and his reflection, for instance, must have been incredibly difficult to do right because the mechanics of the dance patterns are actually very challenging. A very young Stanley Donen worked with Kelly and together they apparently filmed the dance twice and the footage was then superimposed to create the final version of the notorious sequence.

Amongst the brilliant songs composed by Jerome Kern and Ira Kern the classic ballad “Long Ago and Far Away” has been praised the most during the years, but “Put Me To The Test” and “Make Way For Tomorrow” have been just as vital for the lasting appeal of Cover Girl.

Director Vidor shot Cover Girl in beautiful Technicolor with two cinematographers: Rudolph Mate, with whom a few years later he again teamed up on the noir classic Gilda, and Allen Davey, who assisted him on the excellent biographical film A Song to Remember.

Cover Girl Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.37:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Charles Vidor's Cover Girl arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka Entertainment.

The release is sourced from a recent 4K master that was prepared by Sony Pictures in the United States. Rather predictably, the entire film looks very healthy and has the type of consistent fluidity that high-quality masters ensure when done right. Detail and clarity are also very impressive, making it exceptionally easy to identity small nuances that are lost on the old DVD release of Cover Girl from this box set of Rita Hayworth films. The most obvious improvements are in during the darker and nighttime footage where there is expanded and new dimensionality that helps depth and even the overall color balance (blacks have new ranges). Density is consistent and convincing, though I can see that ideally it should be even a tad better. However, my guess is that the elements that were used to create the 4K master were not in optimal condition, which is why the type of density that exists on the 4K master that Criterion used for The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, for instance, could not be replicated. Color stability and balance are very good. Again, ideally saturation could be even a bit better, but I was extremely pleased with the current color palette and think that when projected the film has a strong and very convincing Technicolor appearance. There are absolutely no traces of problematic degraining or sharpening adjustments. Image stability is excellent -- there are no jumpy frames or distracting shaky transitions. Finally, as noted earlier, the film has been thoroughly cleaned up and it is virtually spotless. My score is 4.75/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Cover Girl Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English LPCM 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

With music having such an important role in this film, optimal audio is indeed crucial. Fortunately, immediately after the opening credits appear it becomes obvious that the audio has been fully remastered. If there were ever any serious age-related imperfections it is now impossible to tell because clarity and stability remain consistently pleasing throughout the entire film. The range of dynamic nuances is of course quite modest, but this is a limitation of the original production and the sound design in particular, not a byproduct of sloppy remixing/remastering lab work. For the record, there are no distracting audio dropouts, pops, or distortions to report.

Cover Girl Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - an exclusive restored trailer for Cover Girl. In English, not subtitled. (2 min).

• Baz Luhrmann on Cover Girl - in this short archival interview, director Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!) discusses the era in which Cover Girl emerged and some of the key qualities that make the film special. In English, not subtitled. (5 min).

• Isolated Score Track - presented as LPCM 2.0.

• Booklet - an illustrated booklet featuring writing on the film.

Cover Girl Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cover Girl works for me because I love old-fashioned Hollywood glamour and beauty and this is essentially all that this musical offers. A special bonus of course is the presence of Rita Hayworth, who is impossibly gorgeous as the club dancer Rusty Parker. If you decide to add it to your collection, I also encourage you to consider Busby Berkeley's The Gang's All Here, which is a somewhat similar but even more lavish production from the same period. Eureka Entertainment's release of Cover Girl is sourced from an excellent recent 4K master that was prepared by Sony Pictures in the United States. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.