Fred Astaire wanted to retire in 1945. And can you blame the guy? MGM gave Gene Kelly something as youthful and energetic as "Anchors Aweigh" (1945) while Astaire was stuck in a plastic make-believe country with a terrible screenplay. I would have quit too, but thankfully the gorgeous "Blue Skies" (1946) was only a year away and would bring Fred back ready to start his 'second golden age'.
In "Yolanda and the Thief" (1945) Astaire plays a con-man who arrives in a fictional South American country because the country does not have an extradition agreement with the United States. There he meets a millionaire-heiress played by Lucille Bremer, whom he starts romancing. In the mid-40's there was clearly a South America boom in the US, which is visible in the successful films of Carmen Miranda, Disney's "Three Cabarellos", as well as Jose Iturbi's out-of-place appearances in "Anchors Aweigh" and other MGM films. "Yolanda" is a film dedicated solely for this craze, and therefore it is a very light narrative.
Which is fine. Fred could carry or even benefit from a light, dumb story-line, if the writing was at least funny, if the chemistry with the dance partner was good, if the dancing was his usual level, and if the songs were decent. Unfortunately, this is not the case with "Yolanda". I found Bremer to be one of Astaire's more-forgettable dance partners. Also the fact that the female lead is a schoolgirl at a monastery in the beginning of the film makes the romance kind of icky. In actuality, Bremer was ONLY 18 years younger than Fred, so he would by the late 1950's have more alarming age differences in his films.
In the dance sequences, there are many techniques visible that Minnelli would master in his later musicals, such as the way camera movements correlate with the changing scenery. The dancing itself was not very memorable, and I couldn't remember the songs even just a day after the viewing.
