Let's Dance

Let's Dance is a 1950 American Technicolor musical romantic comedy-drama film directed by Norman Z. McLeod starring Betty Hutton, Fred Astaire and Roland Young. It was produced and released by Paramount Pictures. Plot During World War II, Kitty McNeil (Betty Hutton) and her dance partner Donald Elwood (Fred Astaire) are performing for troops in London. Don announces his engagement to Kitty on stage, but Kitty later tells him she's recently married pilot Richard Everett, a member of a wealthy Boston family. Everett is killed soon after the marriage after being shot down. Five years later, Kitty is locked in a struggle with her late husband's grandmother Serena (Lucille Watson) for the custody of Kitty and Richard's son, Richard "Richie" Everett VII (Gregory Moffett). Serena dislikes Kitty, and thinks she knows best about Richie's education. Kitty decides to flee to New York City with Richie. Desperate for money, Don has taken a job at Larry Channock's (Barton MacLane) nightclub. Don runs into an out-of-work Kitty at a café, and manages to get her a job as a cigarette girl. However, Serena has sent her two lawyers Pohlwhistle (Roland Young) and Wagstaffe (Melville Cooper) to the club, where they subpoena Kitty in an attempt for Serena to gain custody of Richie. Don persuades Larry to give Kitty a steady job as his dance partner at the club, but various potentially embarrassing details about Richie not going to school and spending most of his time at the club emerge at court. However, all are easily answered by the kind nightclub staff. The judge gives Kitty sixty days to give Richie a stable home life, to which end Don agrees to marry Kitty. However, Don and Kitty get into an argument at the marriage license bureau, thus ending their short-lived engagement.