Give a Girl a Break

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.