The other day I went with a friend to see "The Barkleys of Broadway." When we went inside the theater my friend chirped that she "wanted to see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing," and as we left she said "that was just like seeing a good musical, only different."

These two remarks, I think, sum up the film very nicely. Fred Astaire said a couple of years ago that he was through with pictures; his return to the screen with his old sparring partner Ginger Rogers is an unexpected treat. Astaire must have secretly kept in training because in his new film he doesn't look the least bit old or bored or rusty. If anything, the vacation has done him good.

As for the picture itself, it really is a fine job. Riches and ornament are lavished upon it but something sets it apart from the ordinary brassy Technicolor revue: possibly the plot, possibly the staging, possibly the perennial wisecracks of Oscar Levant. But however you look at it, credit will eventually bounce back on Astaire and Rogers. Cast as a bickering husband-wife stage team, these two leap, slide, and tap their way through scene after scene of pleasant comedy and wonderful dancing, and what's more, seem to enjoy it.

One Astaire routine features a shelf-full of dancing shoes: trick photography at its grandest of course, but Astaire's grimaces when he sees a circle of shoes dancing on the floor, are enough to make the show worth seeing. Aside from a couple of Gershwin revivals, the music is no great shakes, but who cares about music when Fred Astaire is capering around the screen!