drednm This is a totally misconceived musical fantasy that never knows what direction it's heading in. Parts of it are sticky-gooey religious drek with heiress Yolanda Aquaviva (Lucille Bremer) graduating from a convent to take her place at the head of the country's richest family. The other story thread concerns grifters (Fred Astaire and Frank Morgan) entering the country (it looks like Bolivia) to escape the American police. With assistance from an archangel (Leon Ames)the stories meet.Mildred Natwick, as the loony aunt, comes off best in a delightfully comic performance. Ames and Morgan have almost nothing to do. Astaire, with his worst toupee in a major film, seems bored. Bremer (of the twitchy eyes) has almost zero acting talent. The color cinematography and set decoration will knock your eyes out, but as the scenes run from obvious artsy sets to real back drops, there seems to be no consistency or authorial vision.Aside from a few comic moments (which belong to Natwick) the only things that saves this film from total failure is the musical number "Coffee Time." The set up is a carnival where Astaire and Bremer get pushed into doing a dance together. The oddly syncopated "Coffee Time" catches the viewer off guard because it's so damned good and quite arresting.The number is introduced by three girls who clap in counter beat to the slightly South American sounds of the main melody. Then swirls of dancers join in, also clapping their four-beat counter tempo. Finally Astaire and Bremer take the spotlight and for a few moments they both come alive as they dance across the amazingly psychedelic floor of black and white wavy streaks. This is a great song/number stuck in a lousy film.After the song, we resume the dreary narrative. I have no idea what director Vincente Minnelli was trying for, but nothing works. It's not a fantasy, it's not funny, and the religious angle is a total dud. Thank heaven for Mildred Natwick, the color cinematography, and "Coffee Time."

Scaramouche2004 My guess is that Fred Astaire was having a bit of a tough time in Hollywood in the early 1940's. The studios just didn't have a clue in what vehicles and what roles he should be cast in.I mention this as it seems that in most of his offerings between 1940 and 1945, he is sadly miscast as rogues, liars, thieves, con-men, and friends who are so two-faced that they will stab you in the back at a moments notice.Some examples of these miscast roles see Fred play a scheming back-stabbing trumpeter(Second Chorus), a man who is out to steal his best friends girl (Holiday Inn), and a flyer gone AWOL, lying through his teeth in order to get his way with a girl (The Sky's the Limit).Even one of the 'sketches' in Zeigfeld Follies, has Fred playing a thief and a Pick-Pocket. I guess Hollywood casting executives must have seen a seedier side to Fred Astaire than his ardent fans ever did.Yolanda and the Thief is no exception as once again Fred is cast as a con-man, trying to swizz Yolanda (Lucille Bremmer), a Latin American heiress out of her cool seventy-two million dollar fortune, by taking advantage of her religious beliefs and pretending to be her guardian Angel.Of course the two fall in love...a little too quickly as to be believable I fear, which is why Fred finds redemption, returns her money and acts a noble hero. Its all so predictable. So predictable in fact that I knew who Leon Ames' character was meant to be from the first.No surprises here and despite Fred's miscasting the story is passable and enjoyable enough to be successfully entertaining.However, I always found that the story lines of these Hollywood musicals tended to be on the duff side anyway, and overall the one and only reason to watch was to see the stars do what they did best; sing and dance.Yet unfortunately 'Yolanda' even fails here, with only 'Coffeetime' set during a street carnival, exciting enough to watch without drooling and snoring, and as it is the last of only three dances in the film there is little else to hold your attention.About forty minutes in we are presented with a dream sequence that lasts forever and a day and just seems to go on and on without anything great happening. I felt that this sequence was so awful and prolonged that it would have felt more at home in a Gene Kelly movie.I just felt that this wasn't Fred's thing. Give him a girl to twist, turn, lift and spin, he was the master, Give him an empty stage a hot beat, a prop or two and a pair of tap shoes, then you needn't invite anyone else to the party. But this????? Two things really stand out in this film however and that is the glorious war-time Technicolour (this was Fred's first colour film) and Mildred Nantwich, who's scenes as Yolanda's aunt, are both funny and refreshing and a real treat to watch.This film understandably bombed at the box-office and is considered by many to be one of Fred Astaire's career low points which may have influenced his decision to retire soon after, However after just two years of retirement he returned in 1948 for Easter Parade and with a new permanent home at MGM, he was at last given the roles he was suited to best; roles that had served him well throughout the 1930's and were destined to be just as kind to him for the remainder of the 40's and 50's In short, this film is purely for avid Astaire completists.

John Esche It's impossible to hate any film with Fred Astaire, Frank Morgan and Mildred Natwick giving their considerable all, but it's awfully hard to like any film with such forgettable songs (out of Harry Warren's bottom drawer), forgettable dances inspired by them from choreographer Eugene Loring (except for the promising percussive *introduction* to an ultimately dreary number called "Coffee Time") and a script that never pays off on a single one of its satiric possibilities.At it's best, the old "studio system" of production by second guessing and committee could produce masterpieces. At its muddled worst, it produced things like YOLANDA AND THE THIEF and blamed them on the cast. Coming at about the middle of Fred Astaire's long film career, and early in Lucille Bremer's four year one, it couldn't ultimately hurt Astaire who would be back on top in three years with EASTER PARADE (interesting that his brief "retirement" in response to this turkey is not remembered in the same way Bette Davis's similarly motivated walkout from another studio is for his being "difficult"), but it did nothing to promote Bremer's career despite what looked like acceptable dancing and at least minimal acting skills and a certain homogenized beauty.Chief blame would appear to lie with Irving Brecher's script from Ludwig Bemelmans & Jacques Thery's nasty little fairy tale of a story. Trading on the worst stereotypes of the evils of a Convent education (not that a too sheltered education isn't a bad thing), Bremer's "Yolanda" is too naive to be believed and a victim looking for a crime. Only those ALMOST as naive in the audience will not recognize Leon Ames's "Mr. Candle" character immediately for what he turns out to be, and the simple (even expected) plot twists which could make his character and Mildred Natwick's "Aunt Amarilla" interesting are never forthcoming. Only Natwick's self centered monologue when Bremer returns to her home from the convent rises above the rest of the script and is very funny - creating hopes for what follows that never pay off. The final scene of the film is so perfunctory you get the impression the studio told Minnelli to wrap up filming regardless of what was left to do - but fans of the British sci-fi sitcom "Red Dwarf" may be amused to note that the central gimmick of the scene (and the film's only moment of misdirection or real irony) was stolen years later as the basis for a Red Dwarf episode in its first season.Among things which ARE of interest in the film: the man who went on to become the great Broadway dancer and choreographer, Matt Mattox, is buried somewhere in the innocuous mess as an unbilled "featured dancer." One wonders if the (uncredited) "Dilettante" played by an actor calling himself "Andre Charlot" is any relation to the great British producer who introduced Gertrude Lawrence and Beatrice Lillie to U.S. shores for the first time in the 1920's?

Greg Couture I'd always been curious about this one, especially considering its rather unhappy reputation as a major disappointment in the Fred Astaire/Vincente Minnelli canon, and it's fairly easy to see why. Turner Classic Movies scheduled it recently and I tuned in to watch something that certainly made me glad Technicolor was invented but which fell somewhat short of its intended mark.The story is absolute piffle, almost redeemed by Mildred Natwick's genuinely funny portrayal of a dotty aunt. (Check out the sequence where she welcomes Yolanda home from her years at a convent school.) M-G-M stalwarts Leon Ames and Frank Morgan (Was he in every single class "A" Metro production from the late Thirties through the early Fifties?) lend reliable support with the little they're given to do. And Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer get (only) two opportunities to display their dancing compatibility. Astaire, of course, managed to complement all of his dancing partners with his patented style and grace (even the miscast Joan Fontaine in "A Damsel in Distress") but, as a matter of personal opinion, I think that Ms. Bremer runs a very close second to the gorgeous Cyd Charisse as one of his most elegant and beautiful co-stars. She's too old for her role in this one, admittedly, but she's nevertheless quite charming and a prime object for the luscious Technicolor cinematography of Charles Rosher.The real star of this misbegotten show, however, is the opulence of the very artificial art direction, set decoration, and costuming. It's Hollywood at its most baroque and Minnelli keeps his cameras gliding through it all as if on angels' wings. If you're not looking for one of the Arthur Freed's unit's bona fide musical classics, this one will provide a phantasmagoria of color and motion that's rarely been equaled.