weezeralfalfa
After costarring in the now recognized classic musical "Singing in the Rain", cute, bubbly, Debbie Reynolds costarred in several more MGM musicals over the next few years, most of which, including this one, are little remembered, undeservedly so in most cases. Fortunately, all are still currently available on DVDs, hence we can see and hear what we have been missing. This film and the prior "I Love Melvin" were released just the year after "Singing in the Rain". The prior film starred the versatile Don O'Connor who was the supporting male actor to Gene Kelly in "Singing in the Rain". Both that film(at a mere 76 min) and this film (at 82 min) were shorter than most musical comedies, but manage to pack quite a few musical numbers into their limited run time, and are worth a look. The plot of this film features 3 buddies and the 3 girls they took a fancy to, thus somewhat resembling the setup in the prior "On the Town". The 3 girls are competing for a musical play lead role. The song and dance team of Gower and Marge Champion is first billed. However, Debbie and her admirer/sometimes dance partner: Bob Fosse, are featured as prominently, and Debbie, by default, wins the coveted lead role, with Gower.The film begins with the need to quickly find a replacement for the lead female in the musical "Give a Girl a Break". An ad is put in a newspaper, to attract many applicants with dancing talent. We see snippets of various girls practicing, including the 3 finalists: played by Debbie, Marge and brunet Helen Woods, who strangely are seen doing exercises together at a gym. The theater is swamped by applicants, who are thinned to 3, after announcing that they must be good singers, as well dancers. Fosse , Gower, and Kurt Kasznar, who all work for the theater, each promote one of the 3, each promising that she will almost certainly be chosen. The 3 men then talk, then sing "Nothing is Impossible", and dance a bit with each other. The song lyrics mostly recount various amazing accomplishments in history, against odds, to give them some confidence: a fun production. After the girls tell their husband, boyfriend, or mother about their probable success, often with a negative response, Debbie agrees to a date with Fosse, despite her mother's vehement objection. Fosse starts a song and dance, which Debbie eventually joins in. Included are some clear imitations of Gene Kelly, including his vaudeville dance with Sinatra in "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", and bits of his famous "Singing in the Rain" dance. Like Kelly, Fosse ends up drenched when he falls into the pond. The song is titled "In Our United State", with clever Gershwin lyrics that liken their proposed(already!) union to that of the US. You will probably consider this production to be the highlight of the film. Gower then forces Marge(his ex-wife in the story)to dance with him on their rooftop("The Challenge") to help regain her confidence in competing for the part.Each of the 3 men then imagine an audition dance featuring their sponsored girl, with or without themselves included. In the first, Fosse again dances with Debbie, in a scene with artificial snow(confetti?)falling the whole time and balloons to pop, although they are dressed in summer wear. Helen Woods then does a solo ballet to "The Puppet Master", followed by a change into a nearly all black outfit, in which she does a slinky athletic dance, later joined by stout Kurt, who mostly offers support for some of her movements, with a feeble attempt to join in, at times(he was no dancer!). Lastly,the Champions dance among a forest of poles, which sometimes function as supports. Toward the end on this scene, Gower briefly dances with a series of other women, including Debbie and Helen, but ends up again with Marge, signifying that he still favors her as the best of the bunch.The men still can't agree who is the best of the 3. Thus, they decide to draw a name from a hat. Helen wins, and the others are very disappointed. But, Helen is upset by the reaction of her husband and decides to bow out and follow him. We then have some drama in deciding who will replace her. Debbie gets the part, again by default, as the disappointed Marge has vanished. This time, she dances with Gower, rather than Fosse, in the big production finale to "Applause, Applause", which has a circus background theme, as the two mostly prance back and forth across the stage. Although the Champions were first billed, they only get 2 dances together, whereas Debbie gets 3 dances without the other women, including the finale. Actually, the Champions, as a dance team, seemed more dominating in the prior "Lovely to Look At", in which they got 3 dances together. I think Marge will rather remind you of Vera-Ellen.Burton Lane and Ira Gershwin composed all the songs, except for "The challenge". It's generally concluded that the songs were mediocre. However, as I previously stated, I found that lyrics in "Nothing is Impossible" and "Our United State" fun or imaginative. Besides, this is clearly a dance, rather than a song-dominated production... The choice of Kurt Kaszner, who neither sang nor danced, as one of the 3 lead men, may seem strange, but I thought he was personable.
madchinaman
This movie that originally was going to include Fred Astaire, Gene Kelley, Judy Garland and Ann Miller was left with some great dancers such as Gower/Marge Champion and Bob Fosse.Some people insist that this is a gem - this fanatic of great musicals (flicks that include great dancing, singing and acting), this is just an innocuous adventure of entertainment performed by talented dancers.The Gower/Marge Champion numbers seemed to be the recipient of more time and money with more well-thought out production values. The Bob Fosse numbers seem surprisingly off-kilter that only suggests the great work that he will be doing in the future.One could attribute this to Gower's good fortune of dancing with a great dance partner that he can personally bond with. It was fun seeing a dance partnership providing some of the best highlights of the film. The Bob Fosse/Debbie Reynolds seem to suffer because Debbie couldn't fully realize the moves that Fosse was giving her - especially since she was much younger than him. (Note: Interesting seeing a "perky" choreographed dance numbers, especially considering the sharp/edgy/sexily-tinged/jazzy moves that Fosse give to the world).In addition, Stanley Donen didn't do Fosse any favors with the "backward" footage that looks "out-of-placed" and/or awkward - good ideas that didn't quite produce the desired effects.Note: Bob Fosse is not a singer - though he tries hard. His best works can be found in much of his latter work and/or in films where he's dancing with Dan Dailey, Gene Kelley and many others.It's too bad that Bob Fosse and Gower Champion couldn't get along - hence denied the general public of what would be created with these immensely talented dancer/choreographers. A dance showdown between Fred Astaire/Gene Kelley (seen in "The Great Ziegfield") and the team of Fosse/Champion would have been great to experience!! Wouldn't it be fascinating discovering why there were serious fractions that eventually had Bob Fosse/Stanley Donen vs. Gower Champion/Marge Champion/Debbie Reynolds.fyi: George Chakiris (of "West Side Story" fame) can also be seen in the movie btw: MGM didn't even release this film in New York, that demonstrated their "faith" in this flick. One can only imagine what would have resulted if this $2M film (a big amount for that time) had the originally intended cast of Gene Kelly, Fed Astaire, Judy Garland and Ann Miller - what can only have dream the magic from the Burton Lane/Ira Gershwin songs?!?!
SHAWFAN
Another movie I had never heard of before I saw it on TCM. Robert Osborne pointed out afterwards the amusing anecdote about Mrs. Ira Gershwin saying to her husband after seeing the rushes of this film: "If you've got any MGM stock sell it!" He also said that MGM too had no faith in this movie and underdistributed it shamefully. That's probably why I never heard of it before. But this is scandalous! It's a brilliant and iconic and wonderful movie and needs to be talked about whenever the good old days of MGM musicals are discussed. Imagine all those talented dancers, choreographers and directors all there together in one movie: The Champions, Fosse, Robbins, Donen, Burton Lane, Ira Gershwin, etc. (Brilliant lyrics! "Our united state,""house full of cute representatives" etc, etc: brother George would have been proud!) Helen Wood's brilliant dancing made we wonder whatever became of her. A movie which combined venerable genres (the inside Broadway genre: 42nd Street, Lullaby of Broadway; the psychoanalytic dream sequence/vignette genre: Lady in the Dark, Oklahoma, Tales of Manhattan, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, etc; career vs family genres: The Red Shoes) with things yet to come (The Turning Point). But the bottom line is: such dancing! To the Astaire and Kelly movies should be added this Champion/Fosse/Donen movie. So sad there weren't more of them!
