Even though he'd made a strong impression opposite Judy Holliday in his first feature, It Should Happen to You (1954), Jack Lemmon had to wait around for quite some time before Columbia Pictures assigned him to his second film. For seven months in 1953-54, Lemmon was idle - with the sole exception of jetting to New York to do a half-hour TV drama. He later recounted that he was going absolutely stir-crazy when finally the studio found a part for him in the Betty Grable musical Three for the Show (1955).

Based on a 1919 play by W. Somerset Maugham entitled Too Many Husbands and a 1940 comedy film of the same name starring Jean Arthur and Fred MacMurray, Three for the Show stars Grable as a dancer married to her dance partner (Gower Champion). Comedy ensues when Grable's first husband (Jack Lemmon), presumed dead by the Air Force, turns up very much alive; since Grable loves them both, she can't imagine giving up either.

The story caused some problems with the Legion of Decency, a Catholic watchdog group that carried much influence in Hollywood. The Legion was angered by the film's suggestions of bigamy and threatened to label it "C" for "Condemned." As that would have had serious consequences on the box office, Columbia made some edits to tone things down, and the Legion was appeased - barely. Instead of a "C," Three for the Show got a "B," which meant "morally objectionable in part for all." The Legion declared that the finished product "contains a frivolous treatment of marriage and flippant attitudes toward purity, together with suggestive situations, indecent costuming and dancing."

The ruckus forced Columbia to delay the release of the picture by a few months. As a result, Lemmon's next film, Phffft (1954), was released first despite being shot after Three for the Show.

Reviews were generally positive, with The New York Times calling the film "slight but cheerful" and describing Lemmon as "a comic who is not uneasy with a quip." Variety praised him as "a comedian who knows how to punch across a line when handed one" and also had good things to say about the "stunning" sets and the musical score, which includes two Gershwin numbers.

In a sign of the times, Variety ended its review by questioning the longevity of the musical genre: "Question might be asked how long audiences will hold still for these big-scale dance routines. Color and widescreen notwithstanding, the public is being fed a good deal of this on TV. There's no question that the theatre screen makes a shambles of the video spectacles, but even so, unless stories improve, there may come a point of no return. Meanwhile, Three for the Show ought to keep 'em happy."

Musicals were indeed starting to wind down, as was the career of star Betty Grable, once the highest-paid woman in America. She would make just one more film, How to be Very, Very Popular (1955), back at her home studio 20th Century-Fox, before retiring from the screen to concentrate on nightclub and theater work. She was 37 when she made Three for the Show and still in great shape. In one memorable number, she dances in a dream sequence with a harem of twelve husbands to the strains of Hoagy Carmichael and Harold Adamson's "Down Boy."

While the movie is primarily a musical showcase for Grable, Lemmon does have some good moments and even sings, accompanying Grable on "I've Got a Crush on You" and singing a verse himself. Lemmon biographer Will Holtzman (Jack Lemmon) has written: "He sustains the comic moments, improves what little narrative continuity there is, and even elevates the lacquered Gower Champion to new heights of repartee."

Lemmon later recalled working on Three for the Show for biographer Don Widener (Lemmon: A Biography), saying only: "It was fun to do, but not as exciting as the film with Judy. I just wasn't that wild about the movie or the part. Betty Grable was divine and the Champions are, of course, two of the nicest people around. [Choreographer] Jack Cole was a strange and fascinating guy and [H.C.] Potter was a very knowledgeable director, a nice man, but the picture just wasn't exciting to me. Perhaps no picture would have been, because it wasn't that first time. There's not much to say about it; it was a Hollywood musical."

Specialty dancers Marge and Gower Champion were a renowned husband and wife dance team who appeared together in seven films of the 1950s, including Show Boat (1951) and Lovely to Look At (1952), but they left a bigger mark on Broadway. Gower Champion was nominated for fifteen Tonys (for directing or choreography) and won a remarkable eight.

Producer: Jonie Taps
Director: H.C. Potter
Screenplay: Edward Hope, Leonard Stern; W. Somerset Maugham (play "Too Many Husbands")
Cinematography: Arthur E. Arling
Art Direction: Walter Holscher
Music: George Duning
Film Editing: Viola Lawrence
Cast: Betty Grable (Julie Lowndes), Marge Champion (Gwen Howard), Gower Champion (Vernon Lowndes), Jack Lemmon (Martin 'Marty' Stewart), Myron McCormick (Mike Hudson).
C-89m. Letterboxed.

by Jeremy Arnold