A Damsel in Distress

Lady Alyce is under pressure to marry, and the staff of the castle have laid bets on whom she will pick. The young servant Albert has put his money on an unidentified Mr X. When Alyce slips off to London to meet someone, her family confines her to the castle, and Albert brings in the American dancer Jerry to protect his investment. Mistaken identities, castle walls and two hopeless helpers make up a classical musical comedy. It was Fred Astaire's first starring musical without Ginger Rogers, opposite a then-unknown Joan Fontaine, whose lack of dancing became the most criticised thing about it. The songs are by George and Ira Gershwin, and this is the last film score George completed; he died that July. A Foggy Day and Nice Work If You Can Get It come from it. Hermes Pan won an Academy Award for the choreography of the funhouse sequence. The source is P. G. Wodehouse's novel, and Wodehouse worked on the screenplay as well.