One of the most expensive projects of its time - between the 5 million RM of "Münchhausen" and 8,5 million RM of "Kolberg" - this film is worth its reputation. I do understand that it can be watched without subtitles, but having translated this film recently I urge you to find a subtitled version, or you'll miss most of its fun. The dialog is very snappy and sometimes even funny. But it's the musical numbers that really are the piece de resistance here, building an enormous Agfacolor alternative reality to the world that was devastated by the War. It's reported that the orderly Germans occasionally stampeded the fellow citizens trying to get a ticket - such was the enthusiasm as the film opened in the late summer of 1944. Rökk is not only a brilliant, acrobatic dancer and a passable comedienne, but also a good singer, starting the film in low cabaret-like voice and showing off her soubrette soprano towards the end. She always was on the stout side (she probably needed strong muscles to perform her acrobatics), but in this film she really looks good and elegant. Highly enjoyable piece of Nazi film-making without a trace of propaganda.
After the war this film (along with many other German musicals) was screened as a "trophy picture" in Moscow and the whole Soviet Union. Ironically, the words of Herr Göbbels became true: German film would march with the German army anywhere in the World. The army didn't make it, the film did. Even more: the grand finale, really a beautiful piece of film-making, made it to the syllabus of the course in the Soviet Film Institute, where it remained for a long time. In the greatest of all the Russian cult TV serials - The 17 Moments of Spring - there's a lengthy scene where the protagonist, the Soviet spy in the Nazi Germany, sits his way through this film for the 13th time. The voice over explains that he hated the film but was waiting for the appearance of a secret courier; nevertheless the fact that about 3 minutes of the screen time (eagerly watched in 1971 by about 200 million people) is used, to show one of the dance numbers in the finale, proves that The Girl Of My Dreams had been firmly established in the collective knowledge of the Soviet citizen one way or another.