1968 movie-adaptation of E. Y. Harburg's 1947 Broadway musical hit arrives on the screen both belated and beleaguered. Fred Astaire no longer has the energy or enthusiasm for role as world-traveling Irishman who settles in a small town beset with racial injustices. This was certainly an odd choice for young director Francis Ford Coppola, who, with cinematographer Philip Lathrop, globe-trots to many an exciting location and yet overflows the movie with syrupy uplift and musical trilling (courtesy co-star Petula Clark). Supporting cast (including Tommy Steele and Keenan Wynn) is interesting but weak, and the anachronistic song numbers don't forward the story, they simply pad the proceedings to an uncomfortable length. *1/2 from ****