La ragazza della domenica

The Champions were usually supporting players at MGM, so staring them in their own vehicle was something of a risk. It didn't pay off financially, and artistically it's indifferent, but it does allow the gifted husband-and-wife team more elbow room than usual. A soap opera plot about a Champion-like couple whose marriage is threatened by his success (and leading lady) while she raises the baby in the suburbs is no help at all, and neither Marge nor Gower is entirely comfortable acting. But there are several bright numbers, including the smoky "Cairo," a nifty "Derry Down Dilly" (with a nifty Johnny Mercer lyric) that shows Marge off to her best advantage, and a very MGM dream ballet near the end where she pines for him. The supporting cast is so- so; Monica Lewis, so delectable the year before in "Excuse My Dust" and here playing the Other Woman, has such an unsympathetic part that this may well have killed her career, and Dennis O'Keefe, as the faithful producer silently and vainly in love with Marge, can't do much with a walking cliché of a role. But if you can suffer through the plot, you'll find your way to some classy musical diversion. Gower did his own choreography, with Nick Castle, and it's a chance to see an early example of the great dance stager he would become.