Three for the Show *** (1955, Betty Grable, Marge Champion, Gower Champion, Jack Lemmon) – Classic Movie Review 9641

Columbia Pictures remade 1940’s Too Many Husbands as director H C Potter’s lively and carefree but thin 1955 Technicolor, CinemaScope musical Three for the Show. Betty Grable stars as Julie Lowndes, the showgal who finds she has got two husbands in Marty Stewart (Jack Lemmon) and Vernon Lowndes (Gower Champion).

Widowed singer/ dancer Julie (Grable) marries her late husband’s songwriting partner Vernon, but then her first husband Marty (Lemmon) turns up. Dancer Gwen Howard (Marge Champion, Gower Champion’s real partner) kindly offers to take the one Julie (Grable) rejects.

Jack Cole’s choreography and a score with George and Ira Gershwin and Hoagy Carmichael music help a lot, but the CinemaScope routines are a problem on non-widescreen TV sets. As a musical, colour remake of black and white drama film, it justifies its space on screen.

Edward Hope and Leonard Stern’s screenplay is based on W Somerset Maugham’s play Home and Beauty.

Three for the Show was attacked by the Catholic League of Decency for being lighthearted about polygamy.

Also in the cast are Myron McCormick, Paul Harvey, Robert Bice, Hal K Dawson, Charlotte Lawrence, Willard Waterman, Gene Wesson and Eugene Borden.

Gower Champion (1921–1980) was married to Marge Champion from 5 October 1947 to 20 December 1973 (divorced, with two children). They were a hugely successful dancing team in the MGM musical years. He became a famous Broadway choreographer and director and won a record eight Tony Awards.

Marge Champion turned 100 on 2 September 2019. She won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography for Queen of the Stardust Ballroom (1975).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9641

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