Main Cast: Marge Champion, Gower Champion, Debbie Reynolds, Helen Wood, Bob Fosse
Release Year: 1953
Country: US
Run Time: 84 minutes
Plot
After providing excellent support in previous MGM musicals, the singing-dancing team of Marge and Gower Champion were rewarded with their own starring vehicle, Give a Girl a Break. Marge plays one of three actresses competing for the leading role in a Broadway show directed by Gower. The other two girls are Debbie Reynolds and Helen Wood, so Marge is hardly a shoe-in. Another topnotch dancer/choreographer, Bob Fosse, co-stars as the show's leading man. Highlights include the aptly named "Challenge Dance" and the grand finale "Applause, Applause." Kurt Kasner provides a few chuckles as the show's neurotic composer. Several real composers collaborated on the score of Give a Girl a Break, among them Burton Lane, Ira Gershwin, Andre Previn and Saul Chaplin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
In the 1930s and 1940s, Hollywood released a great number of unambitious, minor musicals, such as Best Foot Forward or The Fleet's In. These likeable but forgettable tuners were still around in the 1950s, but the advances in storytelling technique occasioned by films like An American in Paris and Singin' in the Rain made pleasant films like Give a Girl a Break seem overly quaint. Modest, unassuming, and fluffy, Give a Girl a Break still features a very interesting cast and offers the unique opportunity of seeing future Broadway choreographic legends Bob Fosse and Gower Champion dancing together. While the choreography is nothing remarkable, the two work very well in tandem, perhaps because Fosse's distinctive style had not begun to develop at this point. Gower and his wife, Marge Champion, shine in a special challenge dance, and Fosse and Debbie Reynolds are even better, enthusiastically dancing up and down a flight of stairs, while the very limber Helen Wood's acrobatic style certainly makes an impression. The script, of course, is barely serviceable, but the Burton Lane-Ira Gershwin score is quite agreeable. "In Our United State," in particular, is a real charmer, with a sweetly clever lyric and an engaging melody. Soon after this film, Fosse began his remarkable Broadway career with The Pajama Game, but it would be several years before Champion made his mark on-stage with Bye Bye Birdie. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
