Wonderful Movie

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

A good, not great, MGM musical, with the emphasis on dance. Story is: what happens when a star walks out on a Broadway show, and three girls compete for the part. The dances are so expert and entertaining, you may be able to forgive the drab quality of some of the rest of the film.The Champions were not really movie stars, and neither was Bob Fosse. (Debbie Reynolds became one later, and you can see why.) Gower plays the director fairly well, but I kept picturing Gene Kelly. The part needs a more dynamic actor.If you enjoy dancing, there's plenty of it, and it's excellent! Helen Wood is the third girl and while her acting is stiff, her dancing definitely isn't.The score by Burton Lane and Ira Gershwin contains no hits, but I was charmed by the tune, "In Our United State," performed by Fosse and Reynolds.

Don Adams (as Maxwell Smart) used the line "missed by that much" a lot and that is the way this film hit me. It had great actors, fantastic dancers, good direction and yet, for me, it was second rate. I know most of the other reviewers will disagree with me but I just couldn't get into it. Some musicals (Singin' In The Rain, Showboat, Kiss Me, Kate and a lot more) grab you from the first frame but this one just didn't do it for me. It was wonderful as always to see the Champions (I always had a crush on Marge) and Debbie Reynolds and Bob Fosse were good as always, but the film just didn't click with me, It is well worth watching at least once (you'll find it often on TCM) but I will never be able to rate it as a favorite.

As compared to the product that was coming out of the Arthur Freed unit at MGM during this time, Give A Girl A Break is definitely in the rank of second rate MGM musicals. Still it's not too bad with the accent definitely on the dance as opposed to the song.Give A Girl A Break is the title of a revue that producer Larry Keating is putting on and he's having one devil of a time trying to decide which talented dancer to give the lead to, be it Marge Champion, Debbie Reynolds or Helen Wood. He's got three of his people each pulling for a different prospect with Gower Champion putting on a real campaign to get his ex-wife and former dance partner out of retirement.As a dance team, Marge and Gower Champion made their screen debut in one of Bing Crosby's musicals, Mr. Music over at Paramount. MGM snapped them up and featured them in Showboat and Lovely to Look At. After Everything I Have Is Your's, Give A Girl A Break was MGM's second attempt to feature them as leads. As good a dance team as they were, Marge and Gower were just not strong enough to carry a film on their own.This was a dancing film and as such no great song hits came out of the score that was written by Burton Lane and Ira Gershwin. But the Champions, Debbie Reynolds, Bob Fosse, and Helen Wood could definitely dance to it.If the plot sounds somewhat familiar I think MGM dusted off the script to one of their biggest hits, Ziegfeld Girl about three Ziegfeld Follies aspirants and updated it somewhat. It's also a much lighter treatment, none of the three dancers has anything happen as bad as what happened to Lana Turner in that film.Give A Girl A Break will never be one of the great MGM musicals on anyone's list, but it's a pleasant diversion. And I can't believe that Bob Fosse had such a luxurious head of hair back in the day.

'Give a Girl a Break' deserves to be better known; it's certainly not one of MGM's greatest musicals, but it has many bright spots and some pleasant tunes by Burton Lane with excellent lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Modern viewers will probably be most interested in Bob Fosse's excellent performance, in a supporting role.Some aspects of this movie are clearly derived from earlier and better musicals. At one point, Gower Champion's character (a Broadway director) is besieged by struggling chorus dancers who want parts in his new musical. To escape them, he climbs up the wall of his theatre. This is apparently meant to show us how virile and athletic Champion is ... but it reminded me of the scene in 'Singin' in the Rain' when Gene Kelly escapes his fans by climbing up the side of a bus. The fact that 'Give a Girl a Break' is directed by Stanley Donen (co-director of 'Singin' in the Rain') only makes the link more obvious.Gower Champion plays Ted Sturgis, the big-shot director of a new Broadway musical still in rehearsal. Bob Fosse plays Bobby, his assistant and dance captain, although Sturgis usually keeps Bobby busy fetching coffee. (Prophetically, Champion later became a major director of Broadway musicals... as did Fosse.) Kurt Kasznar plays Leo Belney, the show's musical director: a role that should have been played by Oscar Levant. Sturgis's ex-wife (played by Gower Champion's real wife Marge) is Madelyn Corlane, a former star whose popularity has faded, but who is hopeful of a comeback.When Sturgis's leading lady throws a tantrum and walks out (not likely!), he needs a new leading lady in a hurry. Whoever he chooses for the role is destined to become a star. Will Madelyn get the job? Meanwhile, Bobby has become enamoured of Suzie Doolittle (the excellent Debbie Reynolds), a talented newcomer. The more classically-minded Leo wants the leading role to go to Joanna Moss (Helen Wood), a ballet dancer he secretly hopes to romance.There's some genuine suspense as we try to guess which of these three women will get the big break. Unfortunately, the three candidates aren't equal: it's extremely obvious that highbrow ballerina Joanna hasn't got a chance against the more conventional chorines Madelyn and Suzie.The best number in the movie is 'In Our United State' performed by Fosse and Reynolds. On a couple of other occasions ('Kiss Me Kate', 'My Sister Eileen'), Bob Fosse demonstrated his ability to do a backward aerial somersault, with astonishingly good amplitude. Here, he does it while facing the camera, in medium close shot, and it's extremely impressive. Unfortunately, Donen ruins the number with some gimmicky trick photography, speeding up the action and running it in reverse. After Debbie and Bob pop some brightly-coloured balloons, it's very weird to see the balloons unpopping themselves in reverse motion.Another number, called 'Applause', is pleasant. I also enjoyed 'Nothing Is Impossible', performed by the three men, which features a strange bit in which Gower Champion does a rapid tap dance with one foot while he keeps his other foot balanced on top of Bob Fosse's upright heel. The tubby actor Kurt Kasznar, who can't dance and can barely sing, shows some courage by performing a musical number with the athletic Champion and Fosse.There's a clever three-way dream sequence, in which each man envisions his own favoured lady's name appearing in lights above the theatre. But there's some clumsy dialogue involving the word 'palaver'. At the end of the movie, Marge Champion does a really ludicrous bit, in which she runs down the theatre gangway with her lips and her bosom thrust forward and her arms and her head thrown back. Corny!This is a good place to correct a misconception about Gower Champion: after a long career as a director of Broadway musicals, he supposedly died on the opening night of '42nd Street', his biggest hit. This was, of course, an extremely ironic death. ('42nd Street' is about a Broadway director who risks his own health in rehearsals while trying to make his biggest show a hit.) The truth is a bit less neat: Gower Champion actually died several days before his show opened, but producer David Merrick (recognising the publicity value of Champion's death) claimed on opening night that Champion had died earlier that day.I'll rate 'Give a Girl a Break' 6 out of 10, and I recommend it to you.