Moviecut—Three for the Show

source: Three for the Show

Three for the Show

Much has been said to deride this film, it's stars, it's musical format and general premise but I enjoy it from start to finish. Another musical (from Britain) also released in the mid-fifties ; "Let's Be Happy" was equally dismissed by critics and public and both films are remembered by devotees only. It's a pity that both of these musicals brought to a cruel halt the film careers of Betty Grable and Vera-Ellen respectively ; two of filmdom's brightest and loveliest ladies still in their prime. The above mentioned musicals are two of my favourites and how overjoyed I am that they have both been preserved on DVD in wide-screen and glorious colour. I'm one very satisfied customer.

Betty Grable extracts the maximum seductive charm out of "I've Got a Crush On You". The Gershwins really could write. Worth watching the film up to that point; but don't bother thereafter. Does Jack Lemmon have a pianist double for the early part of the song or could he play? The dance sequences are tedious, especially the show within a show's finale. The plot is ridiculous, the use of classical music for attempts at comic dance was a flop. It was all just a bit embarrassing. Ironic that one of the plot lines is a musical that is in danger of bombing. Ah well. Only watched this because Jack Lemmon was in it, but now I'm wondering if that's enough of a reason to watch a film.

"Enoch Arden" has been made as a sound film four times, all comedies. (Tennyson's poem is, to say the least, tragic.) The Grant/Dunne version ("My Favorite Wife") is generally considered the best treatment. It was remade as "Move Over, Darling", with Doris Day and James Garner. Somerset Maugham's play was filmed as "Too Many Husbands", a reasonably good film (with a "suggestive" ending) that suffers next to "Favorite". "Three for the Show" is a musical remake. At best, it's lame. At worst, it's stupid. Either way it's a mish-mosh of mostly uninspired dance numbers, songs borrowed from other musicals, and nothing whatever that would convince us we should have the least bit of interest in the characters and their predicament. It doesn't work as comedy, drama, or spectacle. The only good thing is an extended dance sequence in which Betty Gable and Marge Champion fight. (No mud or Jell-O, though.) It's not only boring, but irritating. A dud all around.

This is a remake of TOO MANY HUSBANDS, which had starred Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray, and Melvyn Douglas. Here, we get a tepid musical with Betty Grable and Jack Lemmon and Gower Champion as the male leads. The plot has been dismissed in favor of some musical numbers oddly built around decades-old Gershwin songs. Marge Champion and Myron McCormick co-star. Lemmon has been proclaimed dead in the war (which war?) so Grable marries Champion. Lemmon returns, and the guys battle over the hefty star while Marge look on is distress. In the original film, the ending is ambiguous with both guys still in Arthur's life. Here, she pairs off with Lemmon. Bleh. Gower Champion might have been a good dancer and director but he's a zero as a romantic lead. So is Lemmon. Marge Champion (a terrific beard) looks like Bea Benaderet in corsets. The MGM darlings (the Champions) were a total bust in films. Grable was long past her prime and even though she's only 39 here, looks OLD and FAT.

In a decade of great musicals from all studios, Columbia, in 1955 managed to make a truly terrible one....and it is this one...and was their first film in Cinemascope. Harry Cohn must have bellowed orders at someone to re make every Marilyn Monroe dance number so far on film at Fox but 'blondly' hire Betty Grable instead. It also might be Jack Lemmon's first film too. Either way, this embarrassing musical is a mish mash of MGM's Kiss Me Kate, Give A Girl A Break, The Bandwagon and Fox's How To Marry A Millionaire. I guess Columbia just wanted to make a splashy musical as their first Cinemascope spectacular ......but forgot to create one.....so they just copied the best bits of box office hits from the previous few years. It is really awful. If you like awful films like I do you might find it strangely fascinating...the musical numbers especially. Don't show it to anyone though, just watch it yourself.