“Compared to most picture musicals, Roberta is simplicity personified.... It goes in for flash via a fashion show... but uses only six girls, yet done so effectively it serves the purpose of a sound stage full of chorines.” -New York Times, 1935.

MGM's 1952 remake, Lovely to Look At, unfortunately obscured Roberta. Randolph Scott and Irene Dunne (who sings a piercing “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”) share the leads with Fred and Ginger, who dance some of their most beautiful, if too short, duets. In their solos, Ginger feigns a French accent for “I'd Be Hard to Handle,” and Fred offers a dazzlingly unconvincing “I Won't Dance” protestation. At the first revival of the film, Andrew Sarris wrote in the Village Voice: “Roberta is distinguished by the emergence of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers into full stardom after their debut as a team in Flying Down to Rio. Later, when they were full-fledged stars in their own vehicles, they seemed always to be living on borrowed time. Here they are just starting out, wisecracking their way in comic counterpoint to the more solemnly romantic Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott. I like the balance here between the sentimental (Dunne-Scott) and the sarcastic (Astaire-Rogers).”