Stage Door (1937)

I see that, in addition to your other charms, you have that insolence generated by an inferior upbringing.
 Hmm! Fancy clothes, fancy language and everything!
 Unfortunately, I learned to speak English correctly.
 That won't be of much use to you here. We all talk pig latin. 

            Stage Door is one of the many modern films made in the 1930s. The girls are all hardworking girls with not that much money following their dreams to be on stage in front of an audience. They all live in a boarding house called The Footlight club. At the club they gossip and wisecrack with each other. The ringleader of the wisecrackers is Jean Maitland (Ginger Rogers) who also like the other girls has a chip on her shoulder and uses sarcasm as a defense.

            All the girls are out to seek attention from the famous stage manager Tony Powell (Adolphe Menjou). One girl Linda Shaw (Gail Patrick) has gotten his attention and sees him almost every night. Apparently she is the older of the girls living in the club and acts like but she has been around long enough to see all the tricks managers play but she goes along with it to get ahead and not starve. Another girl named Kay Hamilton (Andrea Leeds) is not so lucky. She got Powell’s attention the year previously and that was the last time she worked. Now she cannot get a job at all and is pretty much starving since she is behind on her room and board.

            One day a new girl comes named Terry Randall (Katharine Hepburn). The other girls can see she comes from money, she walks in with a nice fur coat, tons of luggage, and pays for a few months room and board without a problem with a fifty dollar bill (to which the rest of the girls ask if it is real and if there is such a thing). Unfortunately, to Jean’s annoyance, Terry is roomed with her. The two women are like oil and water but they give it as well as they can take it. Terry puts a picture of her grandfather on the dresser and Jean is thinking her grandfather is not really her grandfather but an older gentleman who keeps Terry.

            Jean and a girl named Anne (Ann Miller) get a job performing at a club that Powell owns. Anne is onto Powell and his games but Jean decides to milk all his attention for all it’s worth. Powell wines and dines Jean and puts on the same old routine he does with all women. The whole thing goes south when Jean has a little too much to drink.

            Powell gets all of Terry’s furry one day when he refuses to see Kay. The poor girl faints from hunger and exhaustion and shock at not getting a meeting with Powell. She has been waiting to get a part that she believes was made for her.  Terry walks right into Powell’s office and yells at him. The manager likes Terry’s initiative. When Terry leaves a man comes in with an offer. The man is someone who works with Terry’s very rich father. He pays Powell to hire her for the play knowing she will be bad and have to come home. Powell, the greedy man that he is, accepts the offer and puts Terry in the show.

            Everyone at the house is extremely upset at Terry for accepting the role since she knew Kay wanted it so bad. They all expect Terry to be terrible but due something horrible she is able to play a scene full of emotions well and she becomes a star.

            I originally bought the film because Ginger Rogers in it. Of course I loved her in it she is hysterical. Rogers is the modern 1930s snarky, tough bitch. Her lines were hysterical no matter how many times I see this film I laugh every time she opens her mouth. Rogers’s exchanges with Katharine Hepburn were awesome. I just finished reading a biography on Hepburn and she wanted everything her way or nothing at all. Rogers even mentions this in her autobiography and Hepburn made things a little difficult. She says that she could not understand how Hepburn got whatever she wanted even though the actress had gotten one Academy Award but the rest of her films had been flops. I cannot understand that for the life of me either but apparently Hepburn was a snot and saw herself as better than everyone else. It is clear that Rogers and just about half the cast was better than Hepburn (Hepburn created a legend around herself and that is why people think she is amazing. Read Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn by William J. Mann and you will see what I am talking about.). All I have to say is that Rogers got her come back when she won the Academy Award over Hepburn for Kitty Foyle when The Philadelphia Story was Hepburn’s comeback.

            Eve Arden plays Eve and of course she has some incredible snarky lines and fast come backs. Ann Miller was a very tall fourteen years old that lied about her age to be in the film. Rogers said that Miller wanted to dance with her but she was so tall that Rogers did not want to dance with her but Miller said she would do anything to dance with the actress. Gail Patrick was so elegant and so pretty. She really did give it back to Jean and did not get her feathers ruffled. Andrea Leeds as Kay Hamilton was the only one to receive an Academy Award nomination. Leeds was very good as the typical aspiring actress. Adolphe Menjou is just awesome even if he was a slime. A very young Lucille Ball plays Judith and has her share of snarky lines and some good scenes with Ginger Rogers who was her best friend. Ball said that this film is what launched her career.

            Stage Door is such a fun film to sit through. Ginger Rogers is a panic this is one of my favorite of her films. The whole cast is just great. The story was very touching and very true to the time and can possibly even hold up today with young actresses. Stage Door is a film not to be missed at all.

Oh….. this is the film where Katharine Hepburn says “The calla lilies are in bloom today”!!! 

Women in the Wind (1939)





Recently I finished reading a biography on the British female aviatrix Amy Johnson called Queen of the Air. Before I read about Amy Johnson I read a fantastic biography on Amelia Earhart called East to the Dawn. Both biographies were so incredible and so inspiring. Amelia Earhart was so much more than the women who disappeared on her last flight and her solo flight across the Atlantic. She inspired women all over the world to step out of their comfort zone and what was expected of them in the time to become adventurous and daring. Amy Johnson flew across treacherous terrain and the elements to become the first female pilot to fly solo from Britain to Australia.

            Both aviatrixes pushed the limits of women’s roles in society in the late 1920s and 1930s. Each flyer earned the love of their home countries and the world endorsing products and planes and wanting to make flying more accessible to women and safer.

            My admiration for Earhart and Johnson led me to record the film Women in the Wind off of TCM a few weeks ago. Women in the Wind is not a well known film today even though it did very well for a Warner Brothers B- movie. The plot is very clichéd and from the moment of its set up you know what will happen. Kay Francis plays pilot Janet Steele. Her brother was once a famous pilot but an accident has left him paralyzed and he desperately needs an operation to save his life. She sees an ad for a race for women pilots worth $15,000.

            You can pretty much guess that Janet wins the race. There’s a not too great love story/triangle going on between Janet, a record breaking pilot named Ace and his wife Frieda who he thought he got a Mexican divorce with. Ace let Janet use his plane which was the fastest around to fly in the race but Frieda decides to take it and there is nothing Ace can do about. Janet gets a plane from someone else who has just broken a flying record.

            Women in the Wind is not a bad film especially if you like to learn about early aviation and how people hero worshipped pilots. This is not a film that is a must see but it is fun. I will say thank God this was not long it is only an hour and fifteen minutes and if it had been any longer it would have been too long. The plot with Janet and Ace was a bit bothersome to begin with. Eve Arden plays another aviatrix who is friends with Janet named Kit. Kit is the type of character I could see how a lot of the women pilots were back in the day: spunky and full of attitude.

            Women in the Wind is predictable but enjoyable. The film gives a great view into aviation at the time and how much of a novelty it once was.

One Touch of Venus



“Oh aren’t you ashamed a big boy like you scared to death of a girl”

“But you’re not a girl you’re a statue"



Have you ever wondered what it would be like if love was chasing after you instead of you chasing after it? What if love were to just tap you on the shoulder and be totally smitten with you without knowing you? In the 1948 film One Touch of Venus, Eddie Hatch finds himself lucky to be chased by the goddess of love herself.

            Eddie Hatch is a window dresser who works in Savory’s department store. He is engaged to marry Gloria who never stops reminding him that they are to be married. Gloria loves Eddie more than he has feelings for her. He has a friend who also works in the department store named Joe. Eddie’s life is routine and ordinary with no complications. One night his boss, Mr. Savory, asks him to fix a curtain which keeps getting stuck. The curtain is supposed to open smoothly to reveal Savory’s latest art purchase the of the Anatolian Venus. As Eddie fixes the curtain he cannot help himself and kisses the statue. Lightning strikes after the kiss and all the sudden Eddie feels a hand ruffling his hair. He turns around and cannot believe his eyes: the statue of Venus is alive!!

            Venus is totally taken by this clumsy mortal. She says “Oh he’s wonderful” then looks to the sky and thanks Jupiter. When Eddie wakes up his head is literally in the lap of love with love herself stroking his hair. Eddie is just a ball of nerves and cannot come to his senses. This beautiful lady is just falling head over heels for him and he does not know what to do.  

            Savory sees that his statue has gone missing and immediately blames Eddie saying that he stole the statue. His assistant Molly thinks it is crazy that someone like Eddie could pull off stealing a heavy statue. Savory has detectives investigate Eddie and bring him.

            Throughout the movie Venus drives Eddie nuts. He is in trouble for something he did not do and Gloria is mad at him because she thinks he seeing another woman behind her back. All he wants is for Venus to go back to being a statue. On the elevator ride to bring Venus back Eddie realizes he is in love with the goddess and takes her out to a park for a romantic night. Unfortunately the detectives Savory hired find Eddie and arrest him.

            That morning Venus was found sleeping in the model home and Savory completely fell for her. She told him she was in love with Eddie that there was no way she and Savory could be together. The department owner was furious that he was being rejected for a small man with no power or money. When Eddie gets arrested Venus uses her sexuality and beauty to get Savory to have Eddie taken out of jail. Instead of calling the jail Savory calls Molly and pretends he is calling the jail. During the conversation Molly says she is quitting but Savory cannot function without Molly and realizes he loves her. Before he runs to Molly, Venus has the boss really call the jail and Eddie is let go.

            By the time Eddie gets back to Venus she has been turned back into a statue.

            Well not to completely spoil the ending Venus and Eddie do get together in some way.  

            All I can say about this film is how damn adorable it was!!!! I was gushing like an idiot I could not take how ridiculously cute and funny One Touch of Venus was.

            I had such a good time watching this film especially after seeing Ava Gardner playing the two-timing Femme Fatale Kitty Collins in The Killers. Ava Gardner is considered to be the ultimate screen siren with millions of fans in love with her… who better to play Venus the goddess of love than the goddess of the screen? I love Ava Gardner to no end in this movie she was so cute and bubbly as Venus. She had that sexy, gorgeous side to her as well as the sweet side that just mixed so well on screen for this film.

            Robert Walker was so perfect as the bumbling window dresser Eddie Hatch that now to me it is so difficult to see him as Bruno Anthony in Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (I have no clue how I will be able to watch Strangers now after watching Venus I’ll be thinking about him as Eddie the whole time!).

            Eve Arden as Molly made the whole film. Her character was the perfect kind of snarky and her delivery of her lines were so spot on. She definitely has some of the best lines I have heard in classic film. Arden in pretty much every role she had was always dry and sarcastic and in this film her humor was spot on. Some of her lines were really quick and subtle so you really have to listen when she talks.

            One Touch of Venus was originally a Broadway play. There are a few musical numbers in here like “Speak Low” which gives the musical feel of a play but the witty, fast, dialogue of a play is there as well. The music in the movie is excellent it adds wonderfully to the silliness.

            One Touch of Venus is so much fun to watch. It’s a light hearted comedy that is so well acted and so well done in all aspects. If you are ever in a bad mood or just need a pick me up stick this film on and I guarantee you will feel better in no time. 

            YouTube has this film posted online in parts. So hop on over to YouTube now and get watching!!