A Girl Must Live

This is almost a Warner Brothers pre-code musical. After the heavy censorship of the 1934 production code, scheming scantily clad gold diggers in American films were a thing of the past - fortunately not so in England!

OK, we don't have Joan Blondell, Busby Berkeley or catchy songs but this is as close to an early thirties Hollywood comedy as possible. There's even an English version of Guy Kibbee.

Being a 'chorus girl' comedy, there are more scantily clad, sexy young ladies than you could ever wish for. The humour is witty, fast-paced and quite racy with enough double entendres to make Sid James blush - and as for the name of Lilli Palmer's character - that's like something from an Austin Powers movie!

The plot is straight out of an old gold diggers movie - chorus girls trying to land a millionaire or blackmail a married man after engineering a sexually compromising situation. The quick-fire script is clever and funny especially in the hands of Lilli Palmer and Renee Houston as the cat fighting best friends. Although Margaret Lockwood isn't quite right for this and as a leading man, Hugh Sinclair is hopeless, dependable old Naughton Wayne more than makes up for their shortcomings.

Future superstar director Mr Carol Reed had recently boarded the rapidly sinking ship that was Gaumont British Pictures. Whilst ultimately failing to save the studio, he did make a few entertaining films there like this. They're not too lavish but like this, they're great fun.

Obviously "the proper" pre-code comedies were made with the background of the American Depression to influence the characters whereas this is in pre-war England. Compared with those old WB movies therefore that struggle against adversity, that hope, that blind optimism is missing. As a consequence the characters are not people, they're just characters in a comedy. Without that dimension of reality you can't empathise or engage with them but this doesn't make this less enjoyable. Despite the presence of Carol Reed, this isn't meant to be a fully developed drama, it's just meant to be funny and it certainly is.

Even so, it's a million times better than the pathetic shadows of the originals which Warner Brothers themselves ended up making at the end of the decade.

Carol Reed directed this fast moving farce in 1939 about three showgirls: Margaret Lockwood, Renee Houston and Lilli Palmer who vie for the attention and possibly marriage, of the Earl of Pangborough (Hugh Sinclair).Margaret initially escapes from a Swiss finishing school, by climbing down knotted bedsheets, nearly straining her leg in the process.The headmistress is the redoubtable Martita Hunt, (Martita played a similar role in The Man in Grey in 1943) She is assisted by Muriel Aked who played a deputy head to Margaret Rutherford in "The Happiest Days of your Life" (1951).Before escaping, one of the débutantes suggests to Margaret she adopts the stage name of "Leslie James" as her mother, of that name, was a famous music hall star and it will give Margaret a "leg up" in the profession.Armed with this alter ego, Margaret finds a boarding house (thinly disguised as Bedford Square in Holborn, London) run by and full of mainly odd theatrical folk, (there is a sole sanitary salesman there).Among the "resting" actors are two bitching showgirls, Renne Houston and Lilli Palmer who aggressively compete with each other and try to ensnare any eligible man who has a few quid in his pocket.One of these is a romantic, elderly but married fur salesman, Horace Blount, who may finance the burlesque show.Horace is played by real life music hall star, George Robey.Renee and Lilli's rivalry rapidly descends to physical violence and theft in their efforts to best each other and win a rich patron.Margaret, on the other hand, is the perfect lady and establishes her well mannered moral credentials early on when she explains to the other débutantes in Switzerland that the reason she is escaping from the school is that her recently widowed mother cannot afford the fees any more.She will get a job to repay the school for the outstanding balance she owes.

Naunton Wayne (minus Basil Radford), for once appears as a smooth talking conman and pickpocket who gets to play a funny drunk scene with the director of the show, Joe Gold.Naunton is allowed to show his versatility as an actor aside from his usual partnership role he adopted in the several films with the aforementioned BR.He even appears to like women!The Earl of Pangborough's savvy aunt is the aristocratic Helen Haye who is given a few comic lines for a change.Although Margaret tries to land the Earl her strategy is far more subtle than the overt tactics used by the other two feuding girls.

This is no lush Hollywood musical and the show tunes are mediocre but you do get to see Margaret and the girls in revealing costumes doing high kicking singing and dancing routines.The ending was too rushed and could have been lengthened by letting the story unfold at a more even and natural pace.For this reason I rated it 6/10.If you would like to see Margaret in a full film musical try "I'll Be Your Sweetheart" as it has many old time (circa 1900) music hall songs familiar to many viewers.

Incidentally in "A Girl Must Live", does anyone know the identity of the brunette showgirl whose bathing costume was too revealing for the other girls who hoped to swim at Pangborough manor?.If so post here please since the IMDb.com full list of the cast only gives the names of the principal actors and she was therefore uncredited.Although she did have one line to say, boy! was she attractive! A bit of research by me reveals her name is Judy Gray.She only has one credited role on IMDb.com which is "Josette" in "Alibi" (1942)Any other info, would be appreciated.

It's the same kind of stuff, the same flimsy girls, the same silly entertainment shows with the same ridiculous dances, the same stupid men falling for stupid girls, the same bully for a show leader, the same flippant music, just like Hollywood throughout the thirties, but so much wittier, so much more in style, so much more brilliant - the script is a marvel here, and you don't want to miss any morsel of the constantly sharp-shooting dialog for anything, and compared to this, Hollywood appears as all amateurs. The intrigues of the ladies are as clever as in many equally entertaining Hollywood films concentrated into one, and above all, you have a very efficient director here leading all the dances and fights in the still very young Carol Reed, who appears to have a better hand with women than any of the poor gentlemen in the show. It's also one of Margaret Lockwood's early films, in which she is maturing as a great character actress, while she is seconded by Lilli Palmer, who also is still budding here. This is all hilariously exciting and entertaining, and the risk is you will laugh your sides off, especially in the wild goose chase for the mouse, which includes a number of other animal chases, like even chickens. A girl must live indeed, and they all live here and thoroughly well and make the best of it, all vying to make even better of it, all chasing men who are easily deceived, while one of them actually appreciates the deception so much that he falls for the honesty of it.

It is a shame that the sound quality is poor on this film. It means that many sequences, especially at the beginning which sets the scene, are unintelligible and so you don't know what is going on. Lines are delivered incomprehensibly - I defy anyone to understand what the landlady is talking about. We also get a sub-plot with Naunton Wayne (Hugo) but God knows what it's about. You watch the film and work it out but goodness knows what all those relations, plots and interactions are all about. We get terrible accents that keep changing and the 2 catty girls - Renee Houston (Gloria) and Lili Palmer (Clytie) are just interchangeable due to their looks and this can confuse the plots. Who is doing what? Again, this improves during the course of the film. You won't really understand the story based on what is being said but you can pick it up by just watching even if certain segments just seem baffling.

I thought everyone was speaking in an English accent in this film but that the accents were inconsistent and constantly changing until my wife said at the end of the film that one girl was Scottish and the other German. She was actually correct. So, don't expect that people are just speaking in posh English when you can make things out. There are accents going on as well.

I can see that the film is quite funny and I would have definitely scored it a higher mark if it was more clearly audible. It's a gold-digging story with sequences nicked from Hollywood's more famous efforts such as the Gold-Diggers series, Stage Door and 42nd Street. Note Palmer's complete copy of the Ginger Rogers character in 42nd Street by attending an audition with a dog, and the whole Ginger Rogers catty like interactions in Stage Door. But, so what. The interaction between the 2 rival girls is amusing.

One thing I have just read on another review is about the name of the character of Palmer - Clytie Devine. Is this a completely obvious reference to a divine clitoris and I just didn't notice!

The film stars Margaret Lockwood (Leslie) as a schoolgirl who runs away to be a star. There is no way she is a schoolgirl just as there is no way her other schoolmates in the dormitory are schoolgirls. They are all grown women. Anyway, it's a comedy so there is a romantic angle that needs to get resolved and of course, it does.

Anyone who has seen Gregory LaCava's 'Stage Door' will be familiar with the 'aspiring-actresses/chorus-girls-living-in-a-boarding-house-and- competing-for-the-attentions-of-rich-men' theme that is also presented here. I came to this because it was a Margaret Lockwood film I hadn't seen, but it was full of welcome surprises: Carol Reed directed at a fast lick that has been compared to Preston Sturges,the musical numbers wouldn't have been out of place in 'The Boyfriend', Lilli Palmer is a comic-erotic revelation, the laughs come thick and fast with perfect timing,racy dialogue that somehow evaded the censor, and plotting that has a neo-Wodehousian symmetry. Of course, you have to like this kind of thing in the first place, but this is one of those unsung British films of the 30s that need to be restored to their full glory and given a commentary to boot. "What's for lunch?" "Well, it was 'ot pot. Now it's just pot."