Movie, 1952

Musical set around a famous Hollywood couple making the transition from silent to sound pictures. A film which has plenty of charm and laughs, which looks stunning in places and is generally a joy to watch. Some of the leaps into singing and dancing are a little contrived – as is too often the case in musicals – and the production number element takes over at the end in rather relentless fashion. As for the rest, there’s some cruelty towards the struggles of the leading lady to transition to sound pictures, though her dreadful voice is matched by a fairly dreadful and so deservedly derided character.