It is hard to give Cary Grant any less than a 6 which he usually gets just for stepping on the lot. He does well here but since the story is so fictional it is hard to buy him in the title role. He does have a good director and solid supporting cast. Then there is the music of Cole Porter. Where Grant is miscast, the music saves the film from the whitewashed and spun dry story. Eve Arden looks young and very appealing in this movie, not the school ma-rm type of role that would dominate her later career. Even with Grant having to bring across a made up Porter with a script that with the production codes being very restricted, it almost comes off. Hey, these feel good musicals appealed very much to an audience that was relieved the war was over and getting ready to enjoy peace. There would be other attempts to create the mood here the next couple of years. Big Studio Hollywood was the all star stuff dreams are made of. This film is a perfect example.

Pleasant but fictional biopic of songwriter Cole Porter, starring Cary Grant and Alexis Smith. The two stars offer very bland performances. This is especially surprising for charismatic Grant. Monty Woolley, Eve Arden, Ginny Simms, and Jane Wyman liven things up in supporting parts. It's a beautiful looking movie, filmed in luscious Technicolor. Great Cole Porter songs are a plus. Cary Grant even sings a couple. Obviously as a biography of Cole Porter, it's hogwash. It does touch upon some of the major events of his life but the details are almost entirely fabricated. As a work of mostly fiction, it's entertaining enough. It goes on a little long, though. Watch it for the musical numbers, if nothing else.

Just a few comments: 1. The image quality of the 2004 Warner Home Video DVD is not up to their usual high standard. Some parts of the film, especially the early portion are very sub-par, scratches, washed out color, and out of registration Technicolor (color fringing, image lacking sharpness). Later portions of the film look as good as modern restorations of 1940's Technicolor do.2. It's doubtful Warners would have had to pay MGM and especially RKO to use Porter songs written for their films, as one reviewer conjectured; Warners owned and still owns the publisher of Porter's music, and Porter probably had enough clout to own rights to his songs rather than the studios some were written for.3. Personally, I find the film inferior in many respects. Except for Mary Martin, the song renditions are a bore. Ginny Simms, the primary vocalist in the picture, had a pleasant trained voice, but her style was bland and she was a zero in the charisma department. The dances and the way they are filmed are mediocre, far below what MGM would have done in this period. Cary Grant often seems uncomfortable in the film, trying to mask this with an insincere smile. Alexis Smith's beautiful face and the believable emotions it's expressing are nearly ruined by the garish, over the top makeup she saddled with. The musical arrangements are merely adequate, very inferior to what the arrangers at MGM and Fox contributed to their musical films, and also very inferior to what Night and Day's music director-arranger Ray Heindorf was capable of later in his career (for example A Star Is Born, and Pete Kelly's Blues).

I remember seeing this silly bio. of the great Cole Porter on our small black and white TV when I was a kid and not liking it much. Now years later a pristine DVD of the film is now available and I still do not like it. Actually I hated it. Of course the no.1 reason for my disliking it is the total fantasy that Warner Bros. came up with as "the life of Cole Porter." The cast tries hard but everything is so wrong about this film that I sat there shaking my head. Maybe in 1946 movie audiences were more accepting of this kind of crap, but come on Cary Grant as Cole Porter?? Of course all the gay stuff hangs over this movie big time. Porter was gay, Grant was gay Monty Wooley was gay, and from what I've heard Alexis Smith was a closet Lesbian. They must have had a hoot making this one. Needless to say the period costumes, decor etc are all wrong and Porter's great music deserved better singers than Ginny Simms or Jane Wyman. The only nice moment for me was Mary Martin (another closet Lesbian) doing My Heart Belongs To Daddy. This movie really needed Ethel Merman (another bi lady) to give this 500pd Easter Egg some life. Unfortunately the more recent movie bio De-Lovely or De Lousy isn't much better. A shame because Porter was one of the great composers of the Broadway Stage.