Sunday evening I watched my DVD of the movie, “You Were Never Lovelier,” starring Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth.

Now I’m not normally a huge musical fan. I find Fred Astaire’s movies entertaining, but I wouldn’t actually spend money to acquire one.

But Astaire and Hayworth? That’s a whole different matter.

It’s not the greatest musical. Only one song became a standard (“I’m Old-Fashioned”). A silly plot, worthy of a P.G. Wodehouse novel (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It has the added eccentricity of featuring band leader Xavier Cugat in his pre-Abby Lane, way-pre-Charro days. Although it’s set in Argentina, everybody speaks in American accents. Except for Cugat. Quick! Don’t think about it!

Astaire and Hayworth only did two films together (I’ve still got to acquire “You’ll Never Get Rich”). Though they were miraculous as a team, and Astaire said he’d never worked with a better partner, he refused to do another with her because, he said, he didn’t want to be permanently paired with anyone again, as he had been previously, first with his sister, and then with Ginger Rogers.

I’m sure it had nothing at all to do with the fact that when Rita’s dancing, it’s impossible to see anybody else.

I know it’s mostly illusion. I know her real name was Margarita Cansino, and that her hair wasn’t really red, and that the studio gave her electrolysis to raise her hairline. I know that she once said, “Men marry Rita Hayworth, but wake up with me.” I know about her alcohol problems, and the string of awful marriages. And the final tragic descent into Alzheimer’s.

But movies are illusion. Rita was born to be a movie star, and nobody was ever lovelier on screen.