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The Sky's the Limit may not be top-drawer Fred Astaire, but it's a charming, enjoyable wartime picture from his post-Ginger Rogers period. Astaire plays a decorated American fighter pilot who's taking some incognito R&R, but his laissez-faire guise ends up infuriating the young lady he's attracted to (Joan Leslie, a year removed from playing James Cagney's wife in
Yankee Doodle Dandy). Leslie was perhaps Astaire's most appealing partner after Rogers, and the two first strike sparks with their smile-inducing song-and-dance duet "I've Got a Lot in Common with You." The score was also distinguished by the introduction of two all-time-classic Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer tunes, "My Shining Hour" and "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)," which Astaire croons atop a bar while dancing and smashing glasses. Fifteen years later, Frank Sinatra would slow "One for My Baby" to a world-weary tempo and make it his own, but the song was written for Astaire.
--David Horiuchi
