One of the masters of the Hollywood musical Stanley Donen directed this basically forgotten musical. There were apparently a lot of behind the scenes production issues and the generous budget MGM allowed for the film didn't really translate to any kind of commercial success.
The film was loaded with talent in front and behind the camera. Donen had co-directed Singing in the Rain and On The Town with Gene Kelly, Bob Fosse was in the cast an excellent dancer at this point in his career. Marge and Gower Champion were a talented dance team. Debbie Reynolds was certainly a very hard working performer in the traditional sense of the movie business.
But the problem seems to be the screenplay written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich. They were top writers but for some reason they sure didn't bring their "A" game to this film. The very simple story is about 3 aspiring dancers hoping to land the lead in a Broadway musical is just a pack of cliches. The story is so thin it's amazing they were actually able to get an 84 minute movie out of it.
The dancers, Debbie Reynolds and Marge Champion were very good no wimping out in a Stanley Donen musical that's for sure. Then there is the very strange story of the third lead dancer Helen Wood. She is certainly as talented as the other two but for some reason her career in Hollywood never really turned off and eventually she returned to NYC and ended up in porno films of all things. In fact she appears in Deep Throat as a performer called Dolly Sharp.
What's let to enjoy in this film are the musical numbers themselves. The film may be a next to nothing confection but there is a high degree of performing skill particularly in the sequences with Bob
Fosse and Debbie Reynolds performing together. It's kind of amusing to see Fosse playing a clueless hayseed from Montana who knows nothing about dating a woman. This certainly contrasts with his later life where he was a notorious womanizer.
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