All ten reviews are positive, and most critics agree that this is the Astaire and Rogers film to start with, several calling it the archetypal one. The praise clusters on the dance numbers, with ‘Cheek to Cheek’ named again and again as the high point, and on Irving Berlin’s songs. The Art Deco sets draw admiring notice from nearly everyone, and a few reviews credit the supporting comic players and Rogers’s clothes as part of the pleasure.
Where the critics part is over the plot, and even there the disagreement is about degree. Roger Ebert calls it an idiot plot and forgives it; The New Yorker finds the patter between numbers padded and tedious; Variety thinks the story too close to the pair’s previous film and is cool on Rogers’s appearance. The New York Times feels a large choral finale undercuts the earlier restraint. The spread is narrow: nobody thinks it less than good, and the only real question is whether the talk between dances matters.