A Girl Must Live

The main pleasure of this film is its snappy script (I suspect it would take several viewings to catch all the quickfire barbs that the girls fling at each other). The singing and dancing isn't up to much -- this isn't supposed to be West End stuff, but the cast of a distinctly second-rate outfit, Joe Gold's Golden Girls -- but the cattiness on display is top-notch.

The plot centres around three girls, the Nice One, the Exotic One and the Common One, all out to hook the same man; the outcome is, of course, no surprise. There is also a subplot concerning a kleptomaniac con-man and his various schemes, plus an array of 'types' on display, from the wealthy northern industrialist (or in this case, fur-merchant) to the superannuated Shakespearian actor, the tippling butler, the sound-effects lady from the BBC (she first starred as "the scream in 'East Lynne'"), and the sex-mad chorus line. With hindsight, the plot is pretty slender (we never do learn anything much about who the runaway heroine really is) and the ending a bit flat, but the fun to be had is in trying to follow the dialogue and catch all the assorted insults and innuendoes.

Nothing very special, but worth a look or a recommendation to a friend for an undemanding night's entertainment. There's no depth to speak of below the quick-moving surface, but the quips run fast and furious and the girls are as hardboiled as they come.

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.

It' s one of those "three girls in search of rich husbands" plots that were so popular from at least SALLY IRENE AND MARY through HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE. Margaret Lockwood runs away from boarding school to go on the stage. At her boarding house, she meets Renee Houston and Lilli Palmer, Soon enough, the object of their affections arrives in the person of Hugh Sinclair; unlike others examples of the plots, they're all in competition in between scanitly-clad chorus number. But everyone is on the make, from Hugh Sinclair sowing his wild oats to Naunton Wayne as a pickpocketing hustler to George Robey as a cheating husband. The girls are not friends; they're catty, greedy and too wise for their own good

It's director Carol Reed's fourth of seven movies with Miss Lockwood, and he directs for speed and laughs with a cynical and naughty air impossible in Hollywood since the production code had closed down sexy comedies. Everyone speaks fast to make the show come in at less than 90 minutes, and even when the plot kicks into high gear, it's very funny: a pleasure from start to finish.

I beg to differ with the other review on this film,it is something special.For a start directed by Carol Reed at the start of his career.Just look at the cast Lockwood,Palmer Houston supported by Harrison,Marriott and making one of his rare film appearances George Robey.Once the film gets past the opening sequence in the finishing school it really hits its stride.There are so many funny lines that you missed them on the first viewing .aAn example"the rice pudding wasn't very popular""we will have it for curry tomorrow",The constant badinage between Palmer and Houston is hilarious.Lockwood being the straight woman in all of this.The musical numbers are not meant to be that great but the lyrics are really funny .Even if you are not Btitish give this a try,i don't think you will be disappointed.

When I know that multiple versions exist of a film I am on the point of acquiring, I obviously try to go for the longer edition or, at least, the one which most adheres to the director's original conception (I opted not to say vision here in view of the lighthearted nature of the movie under review – which, as it turned out, proved yet another blunder on my part…but more on this later!). Sometimes, however, I only learn after the fact that a film has been trimmed as, when I added it to my collection, I had no prior knowledge of such a variant being in circulation (often at the expense of the uncut release) to begin with! Needless to say, this film is one such case (running for a brief 68 minutes against the official 92!) – besides, I was under the impression that it was going to be a drama...but then realized the thing was actually a comedy!

Anyway, this is one of the better-regarded efforts in director Reed's early career – yet, being a showcase for catty females against a music- hall backdrop, a fairly atypical one when viewed in retrospect. The end result, while undeniably dated, is reasonably entertaining – serving pretty much as the British counterpart of the clearly superior STAGE DOOR (1937); despite a plethora of talent involved (including scriptwriter Frank Launder and cast members Lilli Palmer, Naunton Wayne and George Robey – the latter best-known nowadays for playing a dying Falstaff in Laurence Olivier's HENRY V {1944}), as with virtually all the British films of its era, this simply does not have the polish one associates with the contemporaneous Hollywood product – with the shrill sound recording, for one, effecting the viewer's intelligibility of the dialogue throughout!

The narrative is simple (read: wish-fulfillment – with heroine Margaret Lockwood, passing herself off as the offspring of a retired celebrity performer, obtaining both a part in a stage-show and an aristocratic husband without half-trying!) but not unengaging; frankly, the funniest line is the one where a dancer remarks that she does not mind if a man looked like (beloved British comedian) Will Hay as long as he had money…and, with this in mind, I should point out that Moore Marriott, Hay's frequent aged partner, is credited here but his entire role appears to have been among the casualties of the heavy streamlining involved!